Hidden Away

Thirty-Two: Her Highness

The packhouse is buzzing with noise at seven in the morning, which is early for most days, but was to be expected for today as it is the day before my brother is due to become the next alpha of the Bloodmoon pack. Pack members have been busy making sure every detail will be perfect for Rowan's special day. As I scurry through the halls, going from room to room and knocking on the doors of my friends, making sure they're all ready for the day we're about to have. Today is the day we get to interrogate those wolves Bennett has captured in the dungeons that belong to the palace.

When I knock on Evan's door a few times and don't receive an answer, I open it slowly and peek my head through the small crack I've opened. I can see him on his bed, his back to me and he's covered in his sheets. His back rises and falls slowly, which tells me that he's still sleeping, so I decide to let him sleep for a few more minutes. I close the door and move on to my next destination.

Rowan is already up when I reach his bedroom, but he's showering, so I leave him be. Lily isn't in her room; she must be somewhere else in the house.

I finally arrive at Carlina's room and she opens the door after the first knock. "Hey." She smiles at me and I offer one of my own in return, soft and warm. Carlina's hair is wet, her tight curls stretched out from the weight of the water.

"We're leaving soon," I tell her. She steps to the side and lets me into her room. I step through the door, taking a moment to take in the neatness of it. There's something I've noticed about every empty room we've given away to newcomers: they all look the same at first, but it's what each person does with it that makes each one so different. "I was just seeing if you were ready to go," I say, turning to her.

"Almost." Carlina walks past me. "I just have to pack my bag. She makes her way to her closet and enters it. With a backpack in her hand, she comes out of the closet a few seconds later.

"Pack your bag?" I ask. "We're not going for long. We'll probably be back by the end of the day." She nods, telling me she knows.

"I'm just packing the essentials." I'm about to ask her what she could possibly need, but she continues speaking before I can. "You never know what you could need." I look over to her bend and see a few piles of things. A fraction of those things I gave her when she first got here. Carlina takes a change of clothes and stuffs it into the very front pocket of the backpack, and I watch her intently as she takes something else and bites her lip, strategically thinking about which pocket she wants to put that item into.

"Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm excited now," she says, stuffing more things into each pocket of the bag. I sit on the edge of her bed and continue to watch her. For the past week leading up to today, she had been telling me how much she's been dreading the interrogation of the Destroyer spies. She would tell me that she's afraid of confronting them after what they did to her. I let her know that she doesn't have to come with us, but she has been insisting that she tags along, saying she wants to do anything she can to help us. "I want to see if they know anything about my parents." This catches me off guard because her missing parents don't have anything to do with this situation. She sees the confusion on my face. Her head cranes downward at the shrinking pile of things on the bed. She looks up at me through her eyelashes, smiling. "You never know."

I nod, watching as she walks around the room, searching for things to pack. She comes up with a first aid kit —one I had given her when she was discharged from the pack hospital after she was treated for her injuries— and a few other necessities. "I hope we can find something out," I say, not only talking about her hope to find something out about her parents but also about this entire mess I've been wrapped up in even before I was born.

"Me too," she mutters, then looks up at me, making eye contact. "For your sake, I hope so too." Carlina zips the bag back up once she's finished and then pauses again, letting out a heavy sigh. "They've done a lot to all of us," she says.