Chapter 8
933 Words
Brielle
I got home just before the sky started to get brighter.
My boots were muddy from the walk back. My hands weren't completely steady. I had made it out of the trees quickly, not running because I refused to run, with my eyes on every gap between the trunks until I was clear of them and back on open ground.
Whatever had made that sound wasn't leaving the woods. But it had been coming closer, and I wasn't in any position to find out what it was in the dark with no backup and no real information. Decoding to come back wasn't fear. It was strategic. There was a difference.
I told myself that a few times on the way home.
I sat down at my desk without turning on the light. The room was dark and quiet, but I didn't need the lamp because the sky outside was already going from black to dark blue, and there was enough light coming through the curtains to see by if I knew what I was looking for.
I pulled the journal out from under my mattress, where I’d moved it the morning after I found it, and then I set it open on the desk in front of me.
My biological mother's journal.
I had found it three days after I came back, at the very back of my closet, inside a cardboard box packed with old schoolbooks I had never opened, wrapped in a piece of cloth that was older than the box it was sitting in. In my past life, I had lived in this room for years and never found it. I didn't know if that said something about how careless I had been or something about how well it had been hidden. Probably both.
I read through it slowly, the way I'd done every night since I found it—from the beginning, not skipping to the important parts, even though I already had them memorized. I didn't want to miss anything in the parts I thought were not important.
Most of the journal was ordinary. Just daily life written in cursive handwriting, details about the weather, meals, and other things that happened around the house. It was unremarkable, and it made me feel like I was reading about a stranger. It didn’t contain anything that would make you think twice.
Then near the back, maybe about twenty-something pages before the end, the handwriting changed.
It got straight and uneven, the letters not connecting the way they should, and the words leaning too far forward like they were being chased. It felt like whoever was writing had completely given up on neatness because it really wasn't the point anymore, and fear was making her hand move wrongly.
"They know what she carries in her blood. They have always known. We cannot keep her safe here, and if they come for her, they won't be careful about who gets hurt in the process. We have to get her somewhere quiet, somewhere far enough away that they won't think to look. Somewhere ordinary. She needs to look ordinary for as long as possible."
The last entry was only a few lines. The handwriting was controlled again, like she had sat down and taken her time to get it right, knowing this might be the last thing she wrote on these pages.
At the very bottom, alone on its own line, was one name.
Blackthorne.
I sat back in my chair and let out a slow breath.
The Blackthorne royal family was one of those names we all learned early on because it was history. It was one of the two great powers in this world, a bloodline that had supposedly died out decades ago before most of us were born. Every pack history class had a chapter about them that ended the same way: a royal family was gone, a bloodline had ended, and nothing but stories were left behind.
But my mother had written that name at the bottom of her last journal entry, right underneath words about a girl who had to be ordinary if she wanted to be safe.
My hands were not steady when I closed the journal. I noticed that and made myself take one slow breath, then another, then another, until they were.
I couldn't afford to fall apart over this. I needed to be sharp. I needed to think through what this meant for everything I was already doing and everything I still needed to do. Falling apart was what happened to the past version of me who hadn't known better. That version was dead, and the only thing that mattered now was me.
The room had gotten noticeably brighter while I was reading the thinking everything through. Dawn was already rolling in.
Then I heard a knock at my door.
I moved fast, sliding the journal under the mattress, sitting normally in my chair with my hands on the desk. "Come in."
My mom opened the door. She was in her robe, and her hair was still loose from sleep, but she was holding her phone in both hands and her face looked pale. That only happened when she had received news that she really didn't know how to properly process yet.
She looked at me. "Brielle," she said softly. "Your father just got a call." She paused. "From the Alpha King's office."
The room went very quiet. I kept my face still, even though my heart had started beating faster.
"He wants a meeting with your father." Her eyes met mine. "Today."
- Writer
