Putting all of us at risk, Archie says before moving on from that topic. The meeting lasts an hour and once it's over, we all make our way to the quarter house as everyone else moves back towards their own houses in groups. When we walk into the house, Lila lets out a sigh as she falls back onto the couch. "Well, that went well.""Yeah, it did, I'm pretty surprised no one made too big of a deal over the hunting thing" Jenny says, sitting down on the couch next to her boyfriend. Robert wrapped his arm around his girlfriend before letting out a sigh.Well, they were about to until we stopped them. I don't even wanna know how that would've turned out. My phone started vibrating in my pocket and when I saw that it was my mom, I went into Archie's room and put the phone up to my ear. I sat up on the bed, pressing accept before holdingthe phone up to my ear. "Hey, Mom, how are you"She interrupted me instantly as she heard my voice through the phone. "Henry, something happened." I was caug
Walking over to us. "Jenny said that the pants might be a little long, but you can always roll them up if you need to. There are more options if you don't like this, so just let us know."She looked over at me. "Can I shower too?" I nodded at her, standing up and guiding her to the bathroom. I turned on the shower for her before pointing to the cabinet next to the sink. "There are towels in there and I'm pretty sure on the bottom shelf are different choices of conditioner.Use whatever you need and come back outside when you're done, okay?" She nodded, coming over to me to hug me. "Thank you.""Of course, Em. If you ever need to get out of the house, you can always come here. You know that I love having you around, it's always a good time." She smiles at me before letting me go. "I'll keep that in mind.""I think Archie's mom is making dinner in a bit and we'll watch movies or something, whatever you want and just know that we're here if you need to talk too, okay?""I know, that's wh
"Yeah," I tell him as the door opens and Elder Gee, the head of the elders, comes in. He gives me a soft smile as he comes into my view. He looks over at the machines to inspect them and make sure everything is in order."Brody, can you get the chat up on the TV so we can all see it?" He asks the man in the lab coat and he sits down at a desk in front of a computer to type some stuff up.Something is pulled up on a TV hanging on the wall, but the text is so small that I'm not able to see it.I look up at Dr. Kate who is writing on a clipboard. "Have you ever done something like this?"She looks down at me and shakes her head. "Nothing with this much experimentation. We haven't seen a pair of true mates in so long that I never thought I would ever get the chance to do this.I know it must seem super scary, Henry, but this is a good idea because the future generations should learn more about true mates so they can be fully prepared when it happens again.""Yeah, that's what they told us
I noticed that the guy's face changed from smug to shocked, probably expecting us to be unreasonable. He opens his mouth to say something before closing it and looking down at his hands. Robert clears his throat. "Any ideas? Anything that an older person would think of that us kidswouldn't?"The guy runs a hand through his hair before looking up at him. "No, sir." Archie nods his head. "Okay, that's all I wanted. If you come up with anything, you can speak your mind about it, but we would appreciate it much more if you did it without disrespecting us. We can be reasonable if you are too, that's all we ask.""Yes, sir. I understand" the man says before getting up and walking out of the room and out of the house. I leaned down and kissed the top of Archie's head as he started to write something on his stack of papers in front of him, probably just noting the incident that just happened and thewarning they just gave to the whole pack."I feel like that was handled fairly well," Robert
As Archie and I walk into school, I reach out to grab his hand as we walk towards my locker where Ria and Stephen were talking together, probably waiting for us to get here."Hey, guys, Archie said to them as he held my hand tightly in his. "Hey," Ria said with a small wave while also stopping herself from bouncing up and down with excitement since it's been quite a while since we've seen each other because Ikinda of threw myself into my school work that I missed and haven't focused onanything else."How are you cheerful on a Monday?"I ask, leaning back against the lockers as they all chuckle. They chuckle as I lean my head against the locker I am standing next to. Archie leaned down and placed his hand on the back of my neck before pulling my lips towards his in a soft kiss. "I have to go talk to my math teacher, I'll seeyou later."He walked away with a smile, catching up with some of his friends who had just walked in the door.I looked over at my friends, who both had smirks se
"You want my dad and I to drive together?" He asked me. I gripped his hand in mine, staring down at it as his thumb lightly runsagainst my knuckle. "We talked and he had some questions about what it was like for you growing up. He feels like he failed you, Archie, and you need to tell him that he didn't.""He feels like he failed me?" He asks, sitting up with a concerned look. "He just doesn't understand why you hid it for so long. He just wants to hear it from you of why you did what you did and maybe you two finally talking this through will help him understand that he is a good father and always has been" I tell him, tightening my grip on his hand.We hear footsteps from behind us and look when Elder Collins walks up. He takes a slight step back when he sees the position we're in. "Oh, sorry, am I interrupting anything?"Archie shakes his head before standing up and shaking his hand. "No, man, you're good.""Well, just wanted to let you all know that you're good to go. We're curre
"How old's your brother?"l ask him since I haven't even heard anything about this brother until right now. "That's the thing, Ryan's 15. He's notsome kid that can't handle his own shit. My mom's a psychotic bitch that doesn't understand that I'm 19 and can handle things myself. She thinks we'restill kids and can't do anything ourselves, he says and I can just see the anger boiling on his face as his hands tighten into fists."You just gotta help her understand that. Even if you are legally an adult, she'll never see you as one because you're her baby. As is Ryan probably, so you just gotta help her see you as the real age you are,' I tell him. He nods his head, visibly calming himself down. "Yeah, you're right. I'm Sorry, it was just pretty irritating."I heard more rustling behind us and I turned around, looking for any visible signs that someone or something was there, but came up empty. I turned around in my chair again, feeling the heat of the fire warming up my freezing body. "
The man says and Stephen immediately stops moving. I notice the way his eyes scan the situation to find a way where he can get the gun away, but he can't find a situation where a bullet doesn't go straight into my head.The man reaches blindly behind him to grab a needle that's already half filled with liquid and I yelp when the needle goes straight into my bicep. Stephen has to physically restrain himself fromlunging at the man as my body starts to become dizzy, but not so much that I fall to the ground.The man reaches out and grabs my shirt collar and presses the gun to my temple. He motions for Stephen to go in front of us, so he can't do anything behind him while we walk out of the room. As we walk down a hallway, I notice the metal walls and the rust building up on it and it tells me that we are definitely in a warehouse. The gun is pushed even more into my temple and I wince, then realize that I have a perfect opportunity to get the gun away from my head. I have to mentally p