The Infinite White

Chapter 28 - The Clearing

I ended up at the ice-cream parlour, I don't know why I decided to come here, but I didn't feel like going home. I didn't want to be at the pack house so for me the only place I feel comfortable outside of my usual comfort zones is here.

"Hey Lily" Nancy shouted from behind the counter, reaching into a tub of mint chocolate chip ice-cream,

"Hi Nancy, how's it going?" I ask, strolling to the counter, resting my arms against the coolness of the case.

"Steady, haven't seen you around in a while" Nancy moved around handing out ice-cream to the kids who were in front of me.

"Yeah, things have become a bit hectic. Haven't been getting out much" I explain, following her around so I can keep my voice low and away from listeners.

"I heard there's been a ruckus at that house of y'alls" to the people in town the pack house had turned into some commune, people starting to think it is a cult and I guess to anybody from the outside looking in it could be called that.

"What makes you say that?" Nancy turns and gives me a look, one that says she knows more than I think.

"Kevin Milner was in a while back talking nonsense about picking up two girls covered in dirt and dropping them off near the Knight House. Saying things weren't right, that they seemed scared but wouldn't say anything." she gestured for me to come around behind the counter and follow her out the back.

"Lotti can you cover the front?" Nancy yells and a small blonde girl appears from the break room,

"Since when do you have employees?" she pulled open another door and we were in the back alley.

"Since I started getting old" I didn't dare say the words that immediately entered my head but the glare she gave me made me feel like she knew exactly what I had planned to say.

I waited until she finished checking to make sure the alley was empty and she turned to me,

"He mentioned a girl named Lily" she paused, "I'm guessing the other girl was Amber" her pointed stare had me looking away,

"I've been in this town my whole life, I know the secrets it holds, the truth of what lies within the Knight House. I never told you because a human finding out might have meant death for me, but I have known all of you since you were children, you were never anything other than Lily to me, so your secret became my secret too. But there is something wrong, a darkness forming, and I need to know Lily, I need to know what is happening" I couldn't believe what I was hearing, Nancy knew this whole time who I was, who we all were and she never let on, not once, and we never caught her out.

"How long have you known? How did you find out?" I didn't know what Nancy's game was but I wasn't able to detect any deception from her.

"A family secret, you'd be surprised at how many of the locals know that there is more to the Knight House and the families that frequent it" they were good at not letting on they knew thats for sure, but it would explain some of the hostility shown to us from the older generations, I just summed it up as them disliking youths but it was us, a stain on the towns name.

"If you know about us then you know too much already, I won't tell anybody Nancy, you're secret is safe with me but if I tell you what's going on you'll be in far more danger, there are other players on the field now and ones who don't seem to have a moral compass that points to true north. Just keep going about your day, keep living your life and maybe buy a gun" I offer her and that was all I was going to offer her, I couldn't have her tip off the hunters that she knew, she was friend to most of the members of the pack, they would use her.