the only person who would notice the gaps and lapses, the places where his things had been and now nothing remained.
I wasn’t sad exactly, more melancholy.
Having him here was like having a trophy I could show people. Look, look at my beautiful, intelligent, human boyfriend. Don’t you see how normal my life is?
Except no one would believe that anymore. Normal wasn’t even a shadow of a memory these days.
There’d been a brief period, while I was still out with my uncle, where Cash and I pretended things could go back to normal. But the truth of the matter was, I’d changed, and I think he knew it. It wasn’t about Wilder, it was that I wasn’t the same girl he’d started dating a year ago.
And that was a good thing.
What started as maybe we should take a break ended with him getting all his things. And with him gone, I was hard-pressed to remember how I’d fit him here in the first place.
I’d been able to hide from most of the drama in St. Francisville, but now that I was back in New Orleans, the fallout was everywhere.
Two weeks had passed since the dramatic events at the Church of Morning left two people dead and the whole world stunned by the horrors committed by Timothy Deerling. His name was synonymous with other murderous cult leaders, with doomsday preppers and serial killers. He was the fodder for late-night monologue jokes, and had spawned the hashtag #deerlinghunter on Twitter where people went on at great lengths about either how crazy he was or how right he’d been.
I’d had to delete my Twitter account. And Facebook. Part of it was for my own sanity and to maintain some anonymity now that I was a true Alpha.
Press had called me day and night, and I’d missed most of it out in the boonies, thankfully. I didn’t even listen to the messages before changing my number. I went through my mail, scanning the contents. Half the letters were requests for interviews. Some were fan mail, though I had no idea how anyone knew where I lived. A couple were written in insane scrawl, telling me they would come for me to finish Timothy’s vision.
Super.
I’d thought being the poster child for my pack had been taxing. It was nothing compared to the scrutiny I was under now for exposing the whole world to what had happened in Franklinton. Some people loved me for it, praised me as a hero. Others thought it would have been better if I’d died.
We’d have to agree to disagree on that point.
A video had leaked onto YouTube showing Timothy killing Carmel. It caught everything, from them dragging a wild, rage-filled Hank in after they’d tased him and locking him in a cage, then Timothy killed Carmel. He shredded her with the array of werewolf and regular wolf paraphernalia available to him in the basement, while Hank was made to watch.
The charges against Hank were all dropped, but it was going to be a long time before he bounced back from this. Apparently they’d used one of the church girls as bait and got him at a bar, slipping him a horse tranquilizer to knock him out.
We knew humans could get to us now.
Once I was unpacked and had thrown out the offending mail, I drifted from room to room, trying to remember how I used to live here. I spent twenty minutes dusting and cleaning the already clean fridge. I stopped short of cleaning the oven.
I didn’t know how to be this version of myself anymore. This was the Genie who’d considered pledging a sorority. This was the girl who’d wanted to play at a human life by running away from her werewolf family.
I didn’t want to go into hiding. But could I be both a pack leader and a student? I’d missed my Tulane exams, but for obvious reasons they had allowed me to reschedule. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to take them anymore. Where did my school life fit in the plan I was now a part of? Did I need a degree to be queen, or was it another unwelcome distraction in my life?
Anxious about how quiet the house was, I made my way to the living room and turned on my TV. CNN greeted me with the headline EXCLUSIVE, First Interview with Deerling’s Secret Family.
Good Lord.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and adjusted the volume. I liked to keep sound low these days.