It was risky. Really risky. It was to the point where his own life might be gambled, but Ben was right. If they wanted to get information as fast as possible then they’d have to do something quickly before it’s gone. They needed to strike while the iron’s hot.
“You’re willing to risk your son? Your child?” Ivan asked. “Are you crazy?”
A pause.
If his mom heard this, she might slap Ben into next Tuesday.
It was crazy.
“If we don’t do something risky then the situation won’t change,” he muttered as he defended the idea.
“You’re just a child, barely starting out life,” Ivan said to Adrian as he tried to convince him otherwise. Adrian couldn’t help but give the man props. He was a caring man.
“I’m not saying that it’s not scary, but I am saying that Mira and the others are still out there. This might be the fastest and best way to get something done about it, or at least, more information.” Adrian looked at Alpha Joel and hoped that they would understand.
Ivan then asked, “Do you think you could live with the guilt if you get hurt? God forbid, you die, but . . .” He looked at Adrian’s dad. “Can you live with sending your son to his death?”
“No. Never.”
It was the quickest response yet.
“But I don’t believe he will die or get hurt. I believe in his capabilities.” His dad looked at him and he swelled with pride.
Adrian was tearing up before he faced Alpha Joel. “Please let me lead a team into enemy territory.”
Alpha Joel’s faced scrunched up with uncertainty. Adrian knew it must’ve been a difficult decision, because he did have the final say since it was Mira that was taken. However, if they had to weigh the weight of the pros and cons and to think about their lack of time, it was one of the best options they had at the moment.
“I want strong communication throughout,” Alpha Joel finally said before he added, “I also want a cohesive narrative, a game plan, and a backup plan for the worst-case scenario.”
He was really doing this.
“Understood.”
Chapter 22
Aria
She had never felt so useless.
It had been twenty minutes and fifteen seconds since they’ve departed, and Aria couldn’t do anything to help them but sit still. It was infuriating knowing that seven people were out there risking their lives, and the general public would be none the wiser.
The expedited time frame didn’t help either. She knew that this plan had to be executed quickly, but she didn’t realize that ‘quickly’ meant the next morning.
Before they left, Aria couldn’t help but give them soft threats if they didn’t come back quickly, to which Carmen tossed a book at her to keep her occupied in response.
The nerve of that woman.
It also didn’t help that she had no special abilities to help any of them. She wasn’t trained in basic combat or have any special intelligence that would prove useful. In fact, Aria was more of a hindrance than a help and she did not need her dad to reminder her of that.
After their meeting from the night before, he had been in a peachy mood. It was even arranged for them to stay at Uncle Joel’s place for a few days for added safety.
So while she sat in Carmen’s bed, with her television on, and book in hand, Aria attempted to distract herself with the first page of the novel. She cursed after the fifth reread of the first page, but Aria didn’t want all of her efforts to be in vain as nothing but gray hairs would be produced with this much tension. Aria almost wished she had chemistry homework to work on just to distract herself.
Minutes passed by so slowly that Aria wondered if she was in some sort of limbo. Eventually, she gave up on staying still and started pacing around the room.
She couldn’t help but think of everyone out there at the moment. Mira, Adrian, Nick, Leila, Carmen, and not to mention the ‘warriors’ from Uncle Joel’s side. It was so painful to be so helpless. Aria was tempted to scream into Carmen’s fluffiest pillow out of pure frustration.
It was just so much more insanity than she ever thought she’d have to face in her life, and now that she was alone, everything was slowly starting to sink in.
Aria started to ruminate how insane the gap between reality and fantasy was or wasn’t. It took two weeks for her to change from any other high school senior with normal teenage angst to best friend of the supernatural and top leading expert of not knowing what to do next. A real great title exchange, really. It also didn’t help that all of her preconceptions of what a werewolf was were totally and utterly unrealistic.
Clearly, it’s a fantasy genre or at least it was at one point, but Aria was really wondering what kind of source material some people were grasping at. Fanfictions, teen rom-coms, and even movies were filled with their version of a werewolf—which were essentially beasts.
Maybe that was too harsh because it’s Hollywood, but at the same time, it was a little ridiculous. How would someone not notice a massive werewolf in a forest? How would no one at all notice that and report that? Even if the report was hidden, there ought to be some sort of rumors and lore being spread around the city.
Still, there was one thing those stories seem to get partially right, and that was the fact that soul mates existed. Aria was almost compelled to ask what the point of having a soul mate was for these . . . people. If anything, a soul mate sounded more like a pain than anything
