#Chapter 146: Gullible
Enzo As I began to walk toward the cabins, something sinister caught my eye. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks as 1 realized where the smell of blood had been coming from. I felt my heart sink when I saw it: a fresh blood trail. It was leading in the opposite direction of the cabins; had something happened to the group before they made it?
I decided to follow the trail. It didn’t go farten, twenty yards at the most – and eventually ended behind a small grouping of trees. When I saw what laid at the end of the trail, however, I wished that I hadn’t. It was Tiffany.
Her body was bloody and mangled. Something had cut through her neck; something sharp, like teeth. I could smell the musky scent of another male wolf all over her, and I instantly knew that it was no mere rogue who did this to her, but rather another werewolf.
I fell to my knees. A guttural sound escaped my lips, something that I’d never heard come out of my own mouth before. Pure, unbridled grief. I slammed my fists on the forest floor, gritting my teeth and seething. Whoever had done this to Tiffany would pay… I could feel my eyes beginning to glow as I thought about how I would rip whoever did this to shreds when I found them.
But I couldn’t stay for long. I had to find Nina and the others; something equally as sinister may have happened to them, and I couldn’t live with myself if they were all dead as well… Especially Nina.
I stood, curling my hands into fists, prepared to fight and kill whoever did this when I found them. It seemed, however, that someone was waiting for me already. I felt a sharp blow to the back of my neck, and then everything went dark
I woke up some time later in a dark place that smelled oddly like damp dirt and rusted metal. As soon as my eyes opened, I jerked my head up and looked around frantically. It seemed that I was in some sort of run-down barn, and through the huge sliding doors at the back, I could just barely see a sliver of light. I was sitting on a chair, but my wrists were tied behind it and my ankles were tied to the legs so I couldn’t move. No matter how hard I struggled, the ties wouldn’t come loose.
Suddenly, a lightbulb flickered to life overhead. It swung slightly from the ceiling, creating eerie, moving shadows across the room, until it finally illuminated none other than Ronan and Lisa standing in front of me. Between them was a camera on a tripod.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” snarled as I struggled against the ropes.
Lisa let out a deep, irritated sigh, but didn’t respond. I watched as she sauntered haughtily up to me; even now, in the midst of a campus-wide battle and freezing cold weather, she was wearing a short skirt and a skimpy jacket, just as she always did. Frankly, 1 wasn’t surprised. She hiked the skirt up even further, exposing the bottom of her panties, as she walked up to me, then sat down on my lap and straddled me. With a flick of her hair, she
wrapped her arms around my neck and planted a wet kiss on my lips. I jerked my head back, but she blocked me from getting away with her hands, and only kissed me harder. Finally, she pulled away. I spit on the ground at her feet as she climbed off of my lap.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, twirling a bit of hair around her finger as she turned on her heel and sauntered back over to the camera. “Just a little farewell kiss.”
“Farewell? What are you talking about?” I asked. “Where’s Nina?”
Ronan chuckled. “It’s always about Nina, isn’t it?” he asked. “She’s been taken care of; don’t worry. Besides, it won’t matter anymore because you’re not walking out of here alive.” As he spoke, he walked over to a nearby table and grabbed a pistol. I watched in horror as he meticulously loaded it, then cocked it. Meanwhile, Lisa angled the camera, squinting as though she was trying to get the perfect shot of what was about to be my murder.
“You’re seriously gonna kill me on camera?” I asked, letting out a wry, disbelieving scoff at the situation. Were the Crescents really going so far as to kill the Fullmoon Alpha’s son on camera?
Ronan simply shrugged and spun around to face me with the gun in his hand. “If it were up to me, I’d do it with a little more pizzazz,” he said, walking up to me. “But… My dad wants it his way. Quick and clean, but a clear message nonetheless.”
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t die in here not like this, and especially not when Nina was still out there somewhere, and she needed me.
“Since I’m a dead man anyway,” I said, stalling for time as I covertly looked around for some sort of advantage to help me get out of here, “tell me… What sort of message are you referring to?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ronan said, gesturing with the gun as though he wasn’t holding a lethal weapon in his hand. “The tournament was never meant to be anything except for a distraction, and distract you it did. You see, you and your dad think you’re so different, but you’re still cut from the same cloth. You’re both gullible losers who can’t see a loaded gun in your face, even when the barrel is still hot.”
“Gullible, huh?” I asked, cocking my head. It almost made me laugh- because, while Ronan was talking and Lisa was focusing on the camera, the door
behind them cracked open. Luke’s head popped in, and I shot him the briefest glance that told him all he needed to know. The door opened just a tiny bit wider. Luke squeezed in, scampering into the shadows behind a run-down car that seemed to have been sitting there for decades. Behind him, the rest of my team filed in and did the same. I found it laughable that, while Ronan was standing here and calling me gullible, my entire team was coming to my rescue right under his nose.
“Yeah,” Ronan continued, raising the gun to my head. “Gullible.”
“Talk about gullible, jackass,” Luke’s voice said from the shadows. Ronan whipped around, and in that moment, Luke leaped out and walloped him on the head with a baseball bat, knocking him out instantly before he had so much as a chance to react. The gun went sliding across the floor, thankfully without going off. Lisa shrieked and lunged for it, but it was too late; Matt and Bryce had her restrained, struggling and screaming obscenities beneath their grip.
While Matt and Bryce held Lisa, Luke ran over to me and began to untie me. “Do you know where Nina is?” I asked frantically, jumping up out of my chair as soon as my restraints were undone. Luke frowned and shook his head. “No … I thought she was with you.”
