Rejecting Him Back

16. Too Pretty To Die

No one knows what to say at first.

The tear falling down my cheek remains lonely in her journey, with no others following behind it. The impact of Cami's news was sufficient to dry out my eyes and leave me with my mouth hanging open from shock.

Almost all our wolves are surfacing, shining through our eyes in a yellow glow that indicates a barely controlled instinct to shift. Our animals sense danger and they want out of their human cages. They want to defend.

Aiden is the first one to act.

"Tell me everything." He orders our friends. "No one leaves this room until I have all the details. Then we need to tell the packs and activate a safety plan."

"Shouldn't we call dad?" I question my brother.

Colton nods in agreement. "He'll want to know. River too."

"Mom is going to freak out," I comment, already imagining her panic at the idea of my brother and me so close to danger. My dad will worry, too, but he'll be able to maintain a cool head. It's part of his job as alpha to think clearly while in distress. I can only hope he's able to calm her down.

"Wait-Aiden said he has news about how the virus works." Noah reminds us. "If it isn't transmitted by close contact and it's been purposely spread around, how did it get here?"

"It's not airborne. But if an infected wolf scratches or bites someone to the point that it breaks the skin, the virus is able to enter the body of the victim." Aiden informs us.

Ryland asks the question we all want to be answered. "Who has the virus?"

Cami shakes her head. "I don't know her personally. A girl was missing from our class, and her friend told the teacher she must have eaten a sick animal in her wolf form because the girl was puking and had a fever."

It's normal for her friend to assume that's what happened, considering it's infrequent for wolves to get sick. One of the only occasions where it happens is the exact scenario she described. Our wolves love to hunt, and sometimes the meat may hide something that doesn't agree with us. Usually, we can smell it, but if we don't, we're bound to spend the next day feeling miserable while our body expels it.

"Cami practically yelled at the girl, asking more about the symptoms," Finn added, still standing very close to my friend.

"It was useless; she didn't know more. I only managed to scare her."

"Do you have the girl's name?" Aiden questions, his face blank.

"Mora Caddel. From the Freecrest Pack." Finn states.

"How do we know if it's the virus?" Zander raises the question. "She may really only have eaten something bad."

"That doesn't normally cause a fever." Colton offers. "It happened to me once, and all it did was confine me to the bathroom."

"I remember that." The memory of my brother pale as a ghost and puking out his guts when I was thirteen is the thing that made me really careful about what I let my wolf sink her teeth into.

"Do you know if she lives in the dorms?" Aiden asks Cami.

"I'm not sure. But I can find out."