99 Pranks Done, I Ditched My Alpha

Chapter 3 The Last Mercy

Isabela's POV:

I picked up my phone and booked the abortion for the next day.

The next morning, I went to the hospital.

The procedure was scheduled for the afternoon.

Sometime that morning, Leon found out I was pregnant. I never learned who told him or how he got his hands on the test results.

When he burst into the room, the look on his face was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was not joy. It looked more like panic.

"Isabela, you're pregnant?"

He was holding the pregnancy report, one he must have dug up from somewhere, and, to my surprise, his eyes were red-rimmed.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I looked at him and said nothing.

"Is it ours?" His voice had gone rough. "Isabela... this is our baby."

He picked up a pen from the bedside table and, in the blank margin of the paper, drew a crooked little heart.

Then he looked up at me, and there was a softness in his eyes I had never seen in him before.

"I'm happy," he said. "I really am."

I dropped my gaze. "I have an appointment this afternoon."

"I'll go with you."

"No..."

"I'll go with you," he said again, and this time his tone left no room for argument.

But when the afternoon came, Leon did not take me to the hospital.

Emily's birthday party was that afternoon.

He kissed my forehead on his way out and said, "I'll bring you cake tonight. Be good and wait for me at home."

I watched his back as he walked away, and I smiled.

Then I went to the hospital alone and lay down on the operating table.

The procedure had not even started when Leon called me from the party.

"Emily wants to see you," he said. "Come by for a little while."

So I went. When I got there, Emily was wearing a white dress and smiling with the kind of practiced innocence that made my skin crawl. She walked over holding a slice of cake.

"Isabela," she said sweetly, "I asked them to make this especially for you. Try it."

She held the cake right up to my mouth.

I never liked sweets.

But I did not want to start a scene there, so I opened my mouth and took a bite.

There were peanuts in it. The reaction hit almost at once!

My throat tightened instantly, and my stomach turned so violently I thought my knees might give out!

I was severely allergic to peanuts!

I shoved Emily away and ran for the bathroom with one hand clamped over my mouth. By the time I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, I was already vomiting so hard I could barely breathe.

Then the pain came. It tore through my lower abdomen so suddenly and so violently that I folded over on myself.

It felt as though something inside me was being pulled downward, dragged out by brute force.

I looked down.

Blood was spreading across my dress.

"No..."

My whole body was shaking. I used every bit of strength I had left and screamed. "Help..."

When I woke up, I was already in the hospital.

Voices drifted in from the hallway.

"You put peanuts in it? Emily, are you out of your mind?" That was Cameron, and he sounded horrified.

"What?" Emily's voice came out sugary and petulant. "It was just a little peanut. It's not like she was going to die..."

"She was pregnant! Leon said..."

"And isn't that better?" Emily gave a light laugh. "It might save everyone the trouble of dragging her to a clinic to get rid of the baby."

My fingers tightened around the bedsheet.

"And besides," Emily said, dropping her voice, "weren't you curious too? I wanted to see how Leon would react. I wanted to know whether he cared more about the baby or about me."

"That wasn't yours to test," Cameron said, his voice turning grim. "Leon made it clear. A prank is one thing. Nobody touches her..."

"But I didn't touch her." Emily sounded wounded now, all innocence again. "I just handed her a piece of cake. She's the one with the allergy. How is that my fault?"

The hallway fell silent.

No one contradicted her.

I lay there with my eyes closed and felt tears slip soundlessly from the corners of my eyes into my hair.

The baby was gone.

And Leon had not even been there.

He did not come to see me during the entire time I was in the hospital.

It was as if the child I had lost had never been his at all.

It was not until the third day after I was discharged that Leon suggested we go hiking.

"The doctor said you need rest." He draped an arm around my shoulders, his voice so gentle it hardly sounded real. "I looked it up. There's a blessing tree on North Mountain. They say it carries the Moon Goddess' grace. We can go pray for the baby. Maybe next time, our child will have a better life."

I looked at him.

Leon wore the kind of expression that made it seem as though nothing had happened.

His tone was almost light.

For one strange second, I felt grateful. I was grateful that an unloved child had never been born into this world.

I nodded. "Okay."

The mountain path was not especially difficult, but my legs still felt weak.

Leon kept one hand under my arm and guided me slowly, one step at a time.

When we reached the blessing tree, he let go of me and walked over to get a prayer candle.

I stood beneath the tree and watched his back.

Then someone shoved me hard from behind.

My right leg struck a patch of jagged rock, and I heard a sharp c***k that did not sound human until I realized it had come from me.

"Isabela!"

Leon's shout came from higher up the slope.

I rolled for several yards before I stopped. Blood covered my face, and my right leg was twisted into an angle no leg should ever make.

It hurt so badly I could barely think.

Leon came scrambling down toward me so fast he nearly fell. By the time he reached me, his eyes were wild and red, as if grief and terror had flooded them all at once.

He dropped to his knees, gathered me into his arms, and I could feel his hands shaking. "Who pushed you? Who the hell pushed you?"

I looked at him.

His eyes were full of anguish and guilt.

They looked exactly the way they had after every other prank.

Once, that look had moved me. Now it just looked fake.

"I didn't know..." He pulled me closer. "I swear, I didn't know this would happen. Isabela, I'm sorry..."

I turned my face away and said nothing.

That was the ninety-ninth time.

During the days I was hospitalized, Leon barely slept.

He stayed at my bedside, peeled apples for me, brought me water, and wiped my face with a towel when pain and medication left me too drained to move.

One night, I woke in the dark and found him asleep with his head resting against the edge of my bed, one hand still wrapped around mine.

There were deep shadows under his eyes. His lips were dry and cracked. Stubble darkened his jaw. Exhaustion had hollowed him out.

He looked wrecked.

I tried to ease my hand free, but his grip tightened even in sleep.

He frowned and held on more firmly.

"Isabela... Don't go..."

I looked at him and felt something blunt and jagged scrape across the inside of my chest.

But I did not soften.

I was not the old Isabela, the foolish one who mistook regret for love and apologies for change.

On the fifth day, Emily came.

Leon had just stepped out to pick up food.

Emily sat down beside my bed, glanced at my right leg, and smiled.

"Does it still hurt?"

I did not answer.

"The hundredth prank." She leaned close to my ear and let out a low laugh. "I picked something special for you."

My fingers tightened against the blanket.

"You still have a backup copy of Silvermoon Pack's city defense map, don't you?"

I turned my head and looked at her.

"I'm thinking of handing it over to the Alpha of Bloodfang Pack," she said sweetly, smiling all the while, "Then I'll tell everyone you were the one who gave it to them. I'll make sure they all know you're a spy."

"You're insane."

"Am I?" Emily tilted her head. "When my mother was driven out of the pack by yours, everyone said she was insane too. A woman with a child was left to starve in the wilderness. So tell me, Isabela. Which one of us sounds mad?"

I stared at her. "That was our parents..."

"Our parents?" Her smile vanished. "Isabela, while you were growing up wrapped in silk and luxury, did you ever stop to think about the fact that I was digging through mud and garbage just to stay alive?"

She rose to her feet and smoothed down her skirt.

"You can hand over the map or not. It doesn't really matter. I've already copied it."

Then she looked down at me and smiled again, sweetly this time, which made it worse. "But if you hand it over yourself, your death will be a lot more entertaining."

I raised my hand and slapped her across the face.

The c***k of it rang through the room.

Emily covered her cheek and stood there in shock for a second.

Then she burst into tears, and all the arrogance that had been written all over her face a moment ago vanished.

"Isabela, why did you hit me..."

"Isabela, what the hell are you doing!"

Leon's voice came from the doorway.

He stood there holding a thermos, his face dark with anger.

Emily turned to him with tears already spilling down her cheeks. "Leon, she..."

"I saw it." Leon's voice was ice cold. "Get out."

Emily blinked, stunned.

"Leon? She hit me!"

"I said get out."

It was the first time I had ever heard Leon speak to Emily in that tone.

Her face went red, then pale. In the end, she bit down on her lip and ran out of the room.

Leon walked over and sat down beside my bed. When he reached for my hand, his grip was careful, almost reverent.

"I heard everything she said. I'm not going to let something like that happen."

I looked at him, watched him swear it to my face, and remembered how he always said the same thing after every prank.

He was lying then, and he was lying now.

"Leon," I said, "I want to go back to Silvermoon Pack to recover."

He fell silent.

"You can recover here too. I'll take care of you..."

"I want to go home." I looked him in the eyes. "My mother is buried there. I want to visit her."

He pressed his lips together. Then, at last, he nodded.

"Okay. I'll book your flight."

"You don't have to. I'll do it myself."

"Isabela..."

"Leon." I smiled at him. "I'm just going home to heal. It isn't as if I'm never coming back."

He studied my face, and I saw the faint crease form between his brows, as if some instinct deep inside him had started to stir. But in the end, he gave in.

"Okay."

I sent him the flight details.

It was for three in the afternoon, a flight bound for Silvermoon Pack.

Only it was fake. That flight was meant to end in a crash, a death arranged in advance. My father had arranged for the real plane to be waiting for me.

Early the next morning, Leon got a call from Cameron.

"Leon, Emily fell down the stairs and broke her leg. Can you come?"

Leon looked at me.

"You should go," I said. "I can get to the airport by myself."

He hesitated.

"I can take you there first..."

"There's no need." I rested a hand lightly on the plaster cast around my leg. "Go. Emily needs you."

He parted his lips as if he still wanted to argue, but in the end, he bent down and kissed my forehead.

"Call me when you land."

"Okay."

After he left, I stood by the window and watched his car disappear at the end of the road.

Then I picked up my phone and called my father.

"Dad, I changed the flight."

"What time?"

"Eleven."

There was a brief pause. "Okay. I'll have someone there to meet you."

I ended the call and looked around the room one last time.

On the table sat the apple Leon had started peeling for me earlier. Half of it had already gone brown.

I picked up my bag and walked to the door.

I did not look back.

''Leon, the game is over.'