Chapter 179: Discovering the Truth
Moana
A little while later, after walking a few blocks through the city, I arrived at the coffee shop where Olivia and I planned to meet. It was a small, nondescript coffee shop that didn’t appear to be well known, which would be helpful in keeping our meeting secret.
When I stepped into the little coffee shop, I looked around and didn’t see Olivia yet.
“Can I get you anything?” the barista behind the counter, a bored-looking teenage girl, asked.
“U-Um, just an iced latte,” I replied, fishing through my purse for my wallet. The barista lazily made my drink and handed it to me, and I gave her the money before sitting down. I made sure to sit away from the window, just in case anyone would see me with Olivia.
A few minutes passed, and finally the bell on the door rang as someone came in. It was Olivia. She shot me a stiff smile and ordered her own coffee before sitting down across from me. Although we had planned to act nonchalant, as though we were just old friends meeting up to chat, I found it difficult to feel natural as I sat across from the spitting image of Ella. She seemed to look even more like Ella now, with her hair pulled back in a slightly messy ponytail, and she was wearing a plain shirt and jeans. I could see why Edrick would have liked Olivia, but it was all the more confusing knowing that he had claimed that she was dead.
“How is everything going?” Olivia asked, keeping her voice low.
“Um…” I didn’t know where to begin. Already, I could feel my voice beginning to shake. Olivia, somehow noticing this, smiled and reached across the table to give my arm a squeeze.
“Is he hurting you?”
I shook my head vigorously. “No. He’s been… He’s been wonderful. On the outside, at least. But I’ve been feeling as though he’s up to something and I don’t know what.”
Olivia nodded slowly and pulled her hand away. She didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. “Tell me everything.”
Taking a deep breath, I began to speak. “First of all, I know that this isn’t public knowledge, but you need to know for the context of the story: I’m a werewolf, and not a human. I didn’t know myself until recently, when my wolf suddenly began to manifest. But lately, I’ve been noticing that my wolf has been feeling strange and tired. At first, I thought that it was just my pregnancy hormones or something, but then I noticed that it was always worse after I had my morning coffee. So the other day, I decided not to drink it, and I noticed that my wolf felt better. But Edrick noticed, too. And when he picked me up from work later, he had a smoothie for me — which is sort of random.”
“Did you drink the smoothie?” Olivia asked, to which I nodded. “What happened?”
“The symptoms came back within a couple of hours. And Edrick was… weird about it. It was like he was insisting on me drinking it. Ella wanted some, and when I offered to give her a sip, he suddenly freaked out.”
As I spoke, Olivia’s eyes slowly began to widen. I could instantly tell from the expression on her face that she had experienced the same thing, or had at least experienced something very similar, when she lived with Edrick.
“You haven’t been drinking anything else they’ve given you, right?” Olivia asked, leaning across the table a bit and looking at me intensely.
I shook my head. “No,” I replied. “And I’ve been feeling better. My wolf’s energy is back up.”
Olivia seemed to let out a small sigh of relief. “Have you noticed any other strange occurrences?”
I furrowed my brow, thinking for a moment, before I remembered the incident with the wolf tooth, as well as something else. Something tiny, that I didn’t think much of at the time, but now it felt as though every little thing was evidence of a conspiracy.
“Well, first of all, I have this wolf tooth.” I pulled it out — ever since the initial incident I had been keeping it in my purse — and slid it across the table for Olivia to see. “I showed it to Edrick when he found out that I was a werewolf. He started acting strange about it, though. He seemed to look at it intensely when I showed it to him, and he said that it’s an Alpha tooth. But that’s not all; a little while later, right after I met you, actually, he stole it.”
Olivia gingerly picked up the tooth, turning it over in her hand. Her eyes widened when I said that Edrick stole it. “Why did he do that?” she asked quietly.
I shrugged. “He just said that he was taking it to have it analyzed so he could see whether it was an Alpha tooth or not. Of course, it made me think about what you told me…”
“That he’s only interested in producing Alpha heirs.
I nodded slowly. There was a long silence as Olivia inspected the tooth carefully before she handed it back to me. But I wasn’t finished.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Maybe it’s nothing. But on the same morning that he had taken the tooth, I found a pair of scissors on his bedside table. And he was gone when I woke up. Like I said, maybe it’s nothing, but—”
Olivia’s eyes suddenly went even wider than before. “Check your hair,” she said.
I furrowed my brow. “What?”
“Your hair,” she continued. “Is any of it missing? Like it’s been cut? Check underneath, where you’d be less likely to notice.”
A slight chuckle escaped my lips, but Olivia didn’t seem to be joking. My smile faded, and I slowly raised my hand to grope around on the underside of my hair. I didn’t notice anything at first, until…
My eyes widened.
“There’s a shorter piece, isn’t there?” Olivia asked, to which I nodded slowly. On the underside of my hair, there was a shorter piece than the rest. When I pulled it out and brought it around to look at it, I could tell that it had been cut judging from how straight and perfect the chunk was, making it obvious that it hadn’t grown like that naturally. Olivia’s face darkened and she shut her eyes for a moment, sighing.
“I knew it,” she whispered.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling my voice shake. “What does all of this mean?”
Olivia shook her head and passed her hand over her face. “I have no way of knowing for sure. But all of the signs are pointing to him going to a witch. I think he’s slipping potions into your coffee.”
My blood ran cold at Olivia’s words. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing would come out for a long time, as the shock of it all made it feel as though my throat closed up. Why would Edrick want to do something like that?
Suddenly, Olivia dug into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She opened it, then slid it across the table for me to look at. It was an old newspaper clipping about a woman who had been found dead.
“What’s this?” I asked quietly, picking up the newspaper. Olivia didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to; as I read the article, I got the answer I was looking for.
“Just this week, a local Beta woman was found dead,” the article read. “Although her cause of death is unknown, one thing is for certain: just a few months prior to this event, this woman, whose family have decided to keep her name anonymous for personal reasons, was discovered to have given birth to a son. According to birth records, the newborn son’s father is none other than Alpha billionaire and CEO of WereCorp, Michael Morgan. While Mr. Morgan has not given a statement at this time, some are speculating that he or his wife, Verona Morgan, may have had something to do with the mystery woman’s death, as this child was the result of an extramarital affair. Of course, this is all speculation.”
By the time I finished reading, my hands were shaking violently. I unintentionally dropped the newspaper article, allowing it to flutter down to the table as I covered my mouth with my shaking hand. Meanwhile, Olivia only looked back at me with a look of sadness and concern drawn across her face.
“That’s not all,” she said.
