Chapter 171: The Escapee
Nina
There was a long, uncomfortable silence after we announced our new pack. Not only were the Fullmoons – especially Lewis – both appalled and angry that Enzo apparently planned to leave their pack, but dean Cynthia was also shocked that I referred to us as the New Peacekeepers.
Cynthia opened her mouth to respond, but nothing would come out. Finally, she shut it again and nodded.
“Alright,” she said, somewhat approvingly, “tomorrow morning, we’ll hold a meeting between the Fullmoons and the… New Peacekeepers to discuss our next plans to get things back to normal while the Fullmoon Alpha is away. Everyone, meet at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning in the conference room across from my office.
Anyone who wants to come is welcome to join.”
With the dean and the hockey team taking care of the students and the Fullmoons now patrolling the campus, I needed to go back to the dorm and check on Lori and Jessica. Enzo agreed to come with me, clearly not wanting to take his eyes off of me for even a minute despite the fact that we were pretty much in the clear now. Not that I minded, of course. I didn’t want him to leave my sight, either, because I was secretly terrified that Selena would show up at any moment and take him away from me. Honestly, I was surprised that she hadn’t shown up yet. I just chalked it up to her being afraid to come to the campus with the Crescents and the rogues roaming around. Maybe she would continue being afraid and would stay away for a good, long while.
When we returned to the dorm, however, I quickly realized that this sense of peace and safety was short- lived…
Because Lori and Jessica were sitting on the couch, with Jessica’s door wide open and a big, nasty cut running along the side of Jessica’s face. She was holding it and sobbing while Lori panicked beside her, unsure of what to do. They both instantly looked up with frightened gasps when Enzo and I entered, but simultaneously let out big sighs of relief when they saw that it was only us.
“Oh my god! What happened?!” I exclaimed, running over to Jessica. Up close, I could see now that she didn’t only have a cut on her face, but also on her arms, and there were purple handprints around her neck.
“That asshole James,” Lori snarled,
holding Jessica protectively and stroking her hair while Jessica cried. ” We heard a thumb, so we opened the door to check on him. You know, to make sure he didn’t fall over in his chair and hit his head or something and he’d somehow gotten out of his restraints. He jumped on Jessica and attacked her like a bat outta Hell. I managed to fight him off eventually, but…” She then gestured with her free hand to Jessica’s appearance.
Hearing this made my heart sink. I felt as though I failed my friends. They were supposed to be safe here, but I instead left them with a maniac who apparently had no morals left. What had happened to the James I once knew? Was that really all just a facade?
“Where did he go?” Enzo asked as he quickly came over. He nudged me out of the way and crouched down in front of Jessica to get a good look at her
wounds. She flinched away at first as he went to touch her face and her neck, but once she realized that he was going to heal her, she left him.
“I don’t know,” Lori said. “He just ran. He took my car keys, so I carf only assume that he’s long gone by now.”
“Good riddance,” Jessica whispered once Enzo’s healing gave her the strength to speak again.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, reaching out and squeezing my friend’s leg as tears began to form in my eyes,
Jessica only shook her head. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I mean, we all knew that he was losing his marbles, but I guess we still thought that our friend was in there somewhere. Turns out we were wrong.”
I glanced over at Enzo then, who was still solely focused on healing Jessica’s wounds. Thankfully, they werent co severe, so there weren’t even going to be any scars. I could tell that Enzo was furious by the way that his eyes were narrowed and his jaw was clenched, but he didn’t say anything until he was finished.
“That’s the best I can do, unfortunately,” he said finally after a few minutes. He pulled his hands away to reveal that Jessica’s cuts and bruises were mostly healed, but the bruises especially were still a little pink and blue. At least she wasn’t bleeding anymore and could speak. I was just glad that James’ strangulation didn’t crush her throat beyond repair; more than that, even, I was just glad that Lori managed to get him off of Jessica. I was certain that James was to the point of pure insanity where he would have killed Jessica at that moment just for being a werewolf sympathizer.
“Thank you “Lori said. Suddenly, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Enzo, hugging him tightly. I couldn’t fully contain my smile as I watched his eyes widen with surprise from Lori’s hug, but eventually, he hugged her back. When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes.
“I promise we’ll do everything we can to find him and get your car back,” I said to Lori, squeezing her hand.
She shook her head. “He can keep that hunk of junk. I never wanna see his face again. Not after what he did to Jessica.”
Suddenly, Jessica chuckled. We all turned toward her, surprised to hear her laughing. “What is it?” Lori asked.
“I just realized that we were so caught up on the topic of James that we didn’t even ask if the plan worked,” she replied.
At that point, I couldn’t contain my smile at all. Tears of joy welled up in my eyes as I nodded profusely. Lori and Jessica stared at me incredulously for a moment before they both jumped up and hugged Enzo and I, laughing and crying.
“I’m so happy you guys did it,” Jessica said, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand as she stepped away.” You guys saved our campus.”
It was then that Enzo, who had been mostly quiet that entire time, finally spoke. “It wasn’t just us,” he said, nervously running a hand through his hair. “It was your idea. Both of you. If it wasn’t for you mentioning the fact that the antidote wouldn’t need to be injected for it to work, Jessica, then we never would have known. And Lori, it was your idea to use the sprinkler system. Without either of you, we probably wouldn’t have succeeded at all.”
All of us fell silent. As I gazed up at Enzo, awed by his kind words, I couldn’t help but fall even more in love with him.
I only hoped that now, we could tackle the issue of the Alpha King and my estranged twin sister.
