Big Bad Academy

“Because it’s time for you to go to class.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She asks. She steps forward and looks at me nervously. “I mean, I know you’re only sending me to two classes. It’s not like I’ve got a full day of school or anything,” she laughs uncomfortably. “But wouldn’t my time be better spent, you know, trying to help you find clues or something.”

“Trust me,” I tell her. “I want to spend every waking moment trying to find out where my friends went and what happened to them, but there are other pack responsibilities I have to deal with, too. The safest place for you while I’m occupied is in class.”

“Flynn?”

“Yes?”

“You still haven’t really told me, you know.”

“What?”

“What happened.”

So she wants to know what happened to my friends who were stolen away. She probably has a lot of questions, actually. I would, if I was her. I mean, it’s a natural sort of curiosity. She’s here because people are missing. It’s probably fair that I explain what went down.

“A few months ago, during a full moon, some of us went for a run.”

“Do you usually do that?”

“During a full moon? Pretty much always. Despite what the movies would have you believe, wolf shifters don’t have to go out during a full moon. We aren’t forced to shift in any way, but we like to. Being beneath the full moon is probably the human equivalent of a nice bubble bath. We don’t need it, but it’s wonderful.”

She smiles and nods.

“Now you’re speaking my language.”

I smile and look at her. Okay, I can do this. Talking and communicating openly isn’t exactly my thing, but I remind myself that this is for a good reason. It’s because I’m trying to find my friend and this girl might have exactly the information I need to find them. If she’s been mate dreaming, then she might have had visions of the academy that I haven’t. More importantly, she has knowledge of the outside world that she might be able to share.

Maybe she knows what went wrong.

Maybe she knows who would want to hurt the wolves.

“What happened, Flynn?”

“The first night, it was Frank that disappeared.”

“Frank?”

“We didn’t notice he was gone until we were halfway home. He’s an older wolf and he’s known for being a loner, especially since his mate passed away last year. We didn’t really think much of it at first. We figured he just went off to chase a squirrel or splash around in a swimming hole.”

“But he never came back.”

“Nope.”

“And the next time?”

“The next time, we were once more on a run. It was Angela who was taken. She’s a younger wolf. Feisty. She does a great job blending in with the forest when we’re out. It’s almost impossible, even for wolves, to track her when she’s on her own, but we were in a group.”

I sigh, not wanting to tell her the truth, but I will, anyway.

“In this case, I fucked up. I hold myself responsible for what happened.”

Heather moves to me quickly and reaches for me. She holds my wrist and shakes her head at me.

“It couldn’t have been your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

“We were exploring a new area in the forest and we were playing games. Racing games. I like to keep the wolves active as much as possible, and sometimes, we’ll do silly things like play tag or hide-and-seek.”