Moonlight Run

Twenty-Five

Nikolai’s POV

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Cyrano screeched back at us.

Dimitri and I just kept rubbing Leon’s limbs, trying to stimulate blood flow to them. But I could tell that his whole body was going limp now. I could still hear his heartbeat, but his pulse was incredibly weak.

“We’re not gonna make it, Nikolai.” Dimitri grimaced. “What happens if we don’t make it?”

“Valric,” I said. “Message my father, tell him to be at the edge of the damn road. I want him in this car next to Leon as soon as we get there, so we can pull the intel. Got it?”

“Got it,” Valric said, clicking away on his phone.

Marisol moaned beside him in the backseat in between sobs. “I’m so sorry, Leon… I’m so sorry.”

“Help me get his heart elevated above the rest of his body!” I said.

The next ten minutes felt like the slowest of my life, but as we pulled up to the gatehouse I was relieved to see my father was waiting at the side of the drive along with the pack doctor. Dimitri jumped out and, without a word, my father hopped in, taking Leon’s head in his hands.

I opened my car door, too, and let the pack doctor in. The doctor took Leon’s arm and made quick work of inserting an IV line. He handed the water bag to Valric, “Hold this for me!” And he began to inject a number of syringes into the line.

“Leon, Leon, I need you to listen,” Phineas said. Leon let out a gurgle. “It’s Phineas. Is there something you need to tell me?”

“Isa…” Leon said. “I need to tell you about Isa’s birthday.”

“What about Isa’s birthday, Leon? You can tell me.”

Leon shook his head, his eyes opening a little now. “It’s a lie. Her birthday…”

I looked past the doctor to Marisol, who was cowering in the seat. “What is he talking about?” She shook her head side to side, burying her face. “Marisol, do you know what he’s talking about?”

She nodded, but her expression was one of terror.

“Can you tell me what he’s talking about?”

She barely breathed out, “No.”

“Have you been compelled not to tell me?”

She whimpered again, and I knew I had my answer.

My father smacked Leon’s cheeks lightly, trying to shake him conscious again.

“Leon! What is the lie? Why would someone lie about Isadora’s birthday?”

Leon didn’t move and I could hear his pulse becoming even weaker.

“That’s the last of it,” the doctor said, throwing an empty syringe to the floor of the seat in frustration. “I don’t think he’s coming out of this, fellas.”

Marisol let out a mournful moan from the backseat, Valric put his arms around her.

My father shook his Beta’s head in hands now. “Dammit, Leon!”

Leon grunted one last time, and then he barely whispered a word. "Ost... Ost..."

“Others? Outside?” My father said, perplexed. “f*****g ostrich? Leon, tell me about Isa.”

But the Beta didn’t move… he didn’t speak… and with a final beat, I heard his heart give out.

“Dad,” my father was still turning Leon's head in his hands. “Dad, it’s no use. He’s gone now!”

I looked across the seat, to where Dimitri stood on the other side of the car. I put my hands on my head and walked over to the green space on the side of the drive. I repeated the words, “He’s gone,” and when I felt the weight of them hit me, I dropped to my knees.

“s**t,” I heard Dimitri say, as he ran around the side of the car to where I was sitting in the lawn.

I felt his hands on my shoulders, and a sob emerged from my chest. “He’s gone, and now we’ll never know... Isa…” My breathing felt heavy, unsteady. I realized there were actual tears coming down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop them. “Pipa and Isa aren't safe, and it’s my fault.”

Dimitri put his arms around me now, “I’ve got you, bud. I’ve got you…” he said repeatedly.

“It’s all my f*****g fault.”

***

Isa’s POV

In the morning’s blue light, I felt my chest rise and fall as I cried into my hands. I had awakened chained once more to the bed below the round window. I’d done my best to keep myself together since I’d arrived at this terrible place, but after yesterday, I felt hopelessly defeated. It warranted a good cathartic cry.

I looked up from my hands when I heard the attic door open and found Maximus. I groaned and lowered my head again.

“Good morning to you, too.” He said with a smug expression.

“I was hoping for Pipa,” I admitted.

“Well, good thing she’ll be at breakfast then, eh?”

After I dressed for the day and walked downstairs, I was relieved to see that, for once, Julius was not at the end of the table. Instead, there was only Pipa, who sat about three-quarters of the way down the table. She stood from her seat when she saw me and I ran to her. We both erupted into tears as we embraced each other.

“I swear, not seeing you has been the longest five days of my life,” She said into my shoulder.

I pulled away from her, raising my brows. “Of yours??”

We both laughed as we wiped tears from our eyes.

“Is it f****d up if I say I’m really glad you’re here?” I asked.

“Yeah," she admitted. "It’s a little f****d up.”

After we’d finished eating breakfast, I glanced over to the end of the room, where Maximus stood quietly sipping his coffee. The staff would no doubt be coming to take my empty plates soon, and then he would return me to the attic room until dinner, as had become typical of our strange hostage-situation routine.

When Caroline appeared next to us to grab our dishes, Pipa nearly leapt from her chair and I had to stifle a laugh.

“Pipa, this is the real Caroline.”

After Caroline removed the plates before us, Pipa said to me quietly. “You know Bianca’s dead, right?”

I tried to contain the gasp that escaped my lips, but I failed, prompting an eyebrow raise across the room from Maximus. “Julius said he killed two of ours in the attack, and lost five. I didn’t know who… So who was the other one?”

Pipa cringed. “Isa… Julius is counting Bianca towards his five. We lost two other than Bianca.”

I shook my head. “But why would he…”

Her face was contorted in agony, and I understood.

“No. No way, she wasn’t…” I couldn’t believe it. “Bianca didn’t have a mate.”

“Isa, she had all of us fooled. Her parents said something had been different with her for the last two months, but they couldn’t place it.”

“How’d she die?” I demanded.

“It was Phoebe. She’s a mess over it. How do you hide that from your best friend, you know? I could never… Not from you.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head slowly. “Then who were the other two?”

“I didn’t really know the one guy,” she said as she offered his name. I didn’t either. “And the other one… it was Cyrano’s little brother.”

“Wasn’t that the kid you threw your keys at and said—”

“Yeah,” She said with half a laugh. “And I lied to him. He probably died without ever seeing a pair of boobs, and now I have to live with that.”

I burst into laughter and she put her hand on my knee, giving it a tight squeeze. “I thought that might make you smile.” She pulled her hand back and propped her elbow on the table with a sigh.

“You know, I’m supposed to meet with your brother after this.”

I sat upright in my chair with concern, “What does he want with you?”

She shrugged. “Alvis said that he will probably scan me for any compulsion spells, and ask me a few questions about the pack, back home…”

“So, he’s going to interrogate you,” I sucked in a breath. “Which you’re gonna have to answer truthfully. He’ll want complete loyalty from you, Pipa, nothing less.”

“I just didn’t come here to make things harder for the pack… I came here for you.” She said.

“But why did you?” I asked, shaking my head. “Pipa, you’re in more danger here than you would be at home with our pack.

“Because he asked me to, Isa.” She looked over to where Maximus stood, who was saying hello to one of the house staff members as they passed by.

“I was there, Pipa. I saw Nikolai leave that choice up to you.”

She looked down at her hands as she spoke. “He asked me before, when we were on our way to the pier.” Once more Pipa looked up to Maximus, who was still chatting with the woman in the apron. “He gave me this…” she whispered, motioning to her feet.

Pipa dramatically stretched back in her dining chair and cleared her throat.

“That breakfast was amazing,” she said animatedly. “I really needed that.”

She brought her ankle up to rest on her knee, briefly flashing me a view of the bottom of her shoe, the same running shoes she wore when we would train together. Once she saw my eyes go wide with realization as I glimpsed what was different, she shifted her position and put her feet back on the floor.

Then she called over to Maximus. “Hey, Hagrid… Ya’ll have wifi around here?”

He turned around and shot Pipa a peeved look. “Not for you,” he said. “Why?”

“Because I’d really like to find out if my dad is alright, if that’s okay with you.”

He frowned, but nodded. “You’ll have to take that one up with Mr. Petrova. Maybe after he’s done with you he’ll let you use the burner phone, if you ask politely.”

Maximus narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, as if he already knew that Pipa and politeness were not on the friendliest of terms. Then he looked at the empty table in front of us. “I see you’ve had your breakfast. Let’s go then.” He tilted his head towards the stairway down the hall and I stood from my chair with a pout.

Pipa threw her arms around me in a hug, squeezing extra tightly. “It’s gonna be okay, Isa.”

I forced a smile back at her. “Yeah... I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”

And as I followed Maximus back up to my attic bedroom, I sent up a silent prayer that cell phone service was a hopeful sign of good things to come… and that no one would discover the Apple AirTag that had been taped into the arch of Pipa’s running shoe.

***

Nikolai’s POV

I paced back and forth behind the desk in my former office. I’d set Cyrano up there, with his multiple monitors and workstations. The two of us slept in shifts that first night after the meeting with Julius, just watching the screens, hoping for the AirTag to ping at any moment.

There was a knock at the office door.

A sleeping Cyrano mumbled “Go away…” from my Chesterfield sofa, and I chuckled.

“Come in,”

Phoebe appeared in the doorway, holding two coffee mugs in her hand. “Nikolai,” She smiled at me and came over to the desk, handing me a mug.

“Thank you. You can just set the other one down on the side table,” I said.

She gave a soft laugh. “Oh, this one’s mine.”

After she took a sip she spoke, “Dimitri said you two had been running yourselves ragged in here last night, and I wondered if you would be at it again. Night two, huh?” She looked to the monitors. “Still nothing?”

I shook my head, blowing on my mug. “Not yet. Tomorrow morning I plan to message the number on the burner phone,” I motioned to the flip phone that sat on the edge of the desk.

“What will you say to him?”

“That Bianca’s parents have agreed to let him have her body… He can put his mate to rest as he sees fit. She won’t be buried on our pack's land.”

Phoebe cringed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That comes off insensitive. It’s easy to forget now that you two were friends.”

Phoebe swallowed, holding back obvious tears. “If she could hide finding her mate from me, then we were never really friends. I’m not sure I’ve had one real friend since I came to this pack,” she admitted. “And it really sucks when out of the two coolest girls in the pack, one is your fiance’s ex, and the other is her crazy friend that would kick your ass. Fitting in has been a challenge.”

“You think Pipa Fournier could kick your ass?” I said with a laugh.

“She’s kind of a badass,” Phoebe said, taking a sip from her mug.

I looked toward the monitors again, reminded of the danger Pipa agreed to put herself in to nail down Julius’ location and bring Isadora home.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Yeah, I guess she kind of is.”

By 11am the next morning, I was abruptly shaken from my sleep again.

“Nikolai, we’ve finally got a ping.” Cyrano’s voice rang out.

I immediately sat up from where I had been curled up in the desk chair. “What? Show me!”

He pointed to the second monitor. “It’s about three hours from here, or at least the tower it bounced off of is. The tower’s in this tiny town in Pennsylvania, but it looks like the actual signal came from somewhere within ten miles, in the center of this green area here—”

I about fell out of my seat, my hand clasped over my mouth with realization. “Somewhere in the Allegheny National Forest."

He confirmed with a puzzled nod.

"Cyrano, get my father…” I gulped in disbelief. “That son of a b***h is hiding in our old stomping grounds.”

When my father arrived with Dimitri at his side, he stared at the monitor, running his fingers through his beard thoughtfully. “Alright, let’s think. There’s only a few populated towns in that area, where could they be? And are we risking exposure if we go in there barking and biting?”

“What if they’re not in the local towns…” I offered. “What if they’re in ours?”

My father scoffed, shaking his head dismissively. “Our acreage was condemned, Nikolai. Besides, there’s hardly a building in that compound that wasn’t burnt to smithereens. Most of them were reduced to ash and foundation.”

“But our home wasn’t…” I looked over to Dimitri. “That’s why he and I are standing here today, right?”

“Yes, but you couldn’t fit an entire pack in—”

“They might not even have a whole pack. We've only seen a few of his men. He could be exaggerating his numbers. How many rogues do you know that play well with others?”

My father grunted. “This would be so much easier if I could override the compulsions that boy put on Marisol. I can’t get a damn thing out of her.”

An idea occurred to me. “There might still be a way.” I looked over to Dimitri. “Go get Marisol, bring her to me.”

The trembling woman was brought up from the cells, looking frail and shaken as ever.

“Hello, Marisol,”

She tilted her head sharply away from me.

“Are we still not speaking?”

She continued looking towards the ground, but I could see the sadness overcome in her eyes.

“Would you like to see Carina?”

Marisol quickly looked up, a painfully hopeful expression on her face.

“I know you can’t answer me, and I know he’s forbidden you from it, so we’re going to try something else.”

A worried expression returned to her face. Each time we tried to pull any information from her over the past few days, it was like committing physical torture to her. She screamed in agony, and I knew Julius must have placed a horrible compulsion on her.

“I don’t need you to say anything. I just need you to look at something for me, okay?”

She nodded.

I pulled a piece of scrap paper from a nearby pile on an old filing cabinet and I began to sketch. Everyone in the office watched me curiously as I did. When I was finished with my drawing, I slid the paper over to her, watching her face for any signs of recognition.

Her eyes went wide and she inhaled, quickly placing a hand over her mouth, afraid any kind of response would emit the painful consequences again.

“It’s okay, Marisol.” I rubbed her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re alright, and Dimitri’s going to take you to visit Carina now.”

I looked back to my father, who sighed, and we each glanced one more at the paper on the side table… where my drawing of the familiar roof with the small round window was sketched out before us.

“Looks like we’re going home,” I said.