Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Chapter One Hundred Fifty Seven

Katie had let Cole escort her once they were done with the school. They walked on in silence, thoughts running through Cole’s mind while he thought about the new arrivals at the hotel. Katie must have picked up on his discomfort and poked, “What’s wrong? You’ve been on edge for quite some time now,” he said.

“Just remembering what I have to deal with back at the hotel. Anything to delay my arrival there,” he said. When the others had joined him at the hotel, he’d discussed the matter of there being Royals in the same hotel as they were. As of right now, they were to lay low and not cause any alarm as they did not know the reason for the presence of the Sirius family. His curiosity eventually got the better of him, “Hey, have you heard of Royals in town?”

“No, I haven’t... Are there any Royals in town that I don’t know of?” she asked.

“I was under the impression you would be able to detect them with your weird mojo...” Cole said, waving his arms around to emphasize his point. Katie rolled her eyes over his foolishness.

“That’s not what it is... I don’t know why the Chase family doesn’t simply teach this, but apparently, it’s frowned upon because of how far-fetched it sounds. Anyway, it’s just a gut feeling that every...”

“You can spare me the lecture. I know about that. I learnt it from the branch of the Chase family that serves the Lycaon family. They told me all about it, but when I carried out my own research and tried to find out more about it, they revealed that there was nothing I could do about it since that ability is drained out of a werewolf or simply because Prometheus doesn’t aid werewolves as much as he does humans,” he said.

“Talk about the gods really gives me chills,” Katie said.

.....

“I was under the impression you weren’t afraid of anything,” Cole teased. They were finally reaching the house that they walked up to just the day before. Katie could tell there was something wrong with the werewolf, but she decided to avoid poking any harder than she’d already tried. If anything, the one thing she could relate him to was someone who was trying his best to be patient about something and if she was right, he only needed to wait one more day...

“The gods are something else entirely... To think that this entire war was a result of one of their disputes is proof of that. The moon goddess plunged the human race into the...”

“Don’t speak like that of the moon goddess. She is the guardian deity of the werewolves. I would not have you sully her name so lightly,” Cole spat. Katie was taken aback by the sudden outburst. If anyone, he was the one person that shouldn’t have minded talking that way of the moon goddess and yet he defended her. This behaviour amused and yet pleased her at the same time.

“Does that mean you have nothing against her?” she asked him, seeking his gaze. They had reached the driveway that led to her house as their argument dragged on.

“I have nothing against her indeed. She’s not perfect, but she’s done a lot to try and make up for it,” he defended.

“Is the attack on the Sirius Royal family part of what she has done to make up for all this? The moon goddess has the ability to communicate with werewolves at will. Unlike Prometheus who doesn’t share the liberties of communicating with humans, Celeste has the...”

“That’s enough, Katie... What are you trying to achieve here? My thoughts on the moon goddess will remain unchanged regardless of what you say about her. Besides, even as you say all that and continue to point out all her faults, I do not detect any malice behind your words. Only sadness... Is there something you would like to share... or is it something you also can’t tell me right now and I should be patient?” the question was a direct attack. Just like the day before, he probed into information that she had no wishes of telling him.

“What’s the harm in telling you?” she said, this time to herself, “This question I’ve asked myself over and over again. What’s the harm in telling you, but everyone involved tells me not to. And that you must know at the right time. I don’t know what the endgame is or what they are trying to do...” Katie fell silent, having let her emotions spill enough, her mind quickly curbed her irrational dialogue and forced her to shut up. She kept her gaze to the ground while she spoke, “Good night, Cole. Trust me when I tell you that you will find out when the time is right, but for now, there is nothing I can tell you...”

With that said, she walked up the driveway, with no plan of looking back to see what was going on with the face of the Royal. Cole watched her walk up to the front porch, trying to decipher the ramblings she’d let slip if only for a moment. He knew now that she wasn’t the reason the information couldn’t be relayed to him, but something else was bothering him. He was thinking over whether to reveal it or not. It didn’t feel important at first, but the more distance she put between them, the more he felt like saying it, “The Sirius Royal family is in town and they are staying at my same hotel.”

Katie froze at the mention of the Sirius Royal family. This was not at all what she’d expected when he told her that some Royals were in town. In fact, she expected him to be talking about the rest of his family. It wasn’t that much of a surprise to have the Sirius family present on the day that their long lost daughter finally got to shift, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I’ll be looking forward to meeting them,” she said before opening the door and entering the house.

She shut the door silently leaning onto it with her forehead with her eyes closed when she heard the click that signalled the locking of the door. Sighing, she was about to go through what had happened that day, but the room did not feel empty. No, in fact, both her guardians sat by the kitchen counter watching her regain her composure. “Long day, huh,” Uncle Tom began having noticed her awareness.

“Yeah, long day,” she replied. She walked into the kitchen, hugging Aunt Marie and going for the coffeemaker. The one addiction that this house could not get rid of. Once she had taken in a couple of sips, the guardians began their barrage of questions, asking for details on everything that had happened during the investigation. They asked for what she’d been doing the whole day after that and complained about how worried about her that they were.

She took her time answering each of their questions as she had only one mouth to speak and an audience that she trusted with her life. There was no doubt about it, she loved her guardians unconditionally. After what Cole had told her about the Sirius family that was living in Brigadia, she couldn’t help but watch the smiles on her guardians’ faces more intently almost as if it were the last time.

She arrived at the part of the story where she realised Kyle was Ash’s killer and paused to let it sink in. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I am. After I found out, I ran to school to see if he was lying about having set up his project for the Founder’s Festival tomorrow,” Katie said.

“I don’t understand... How does that have to do with proving he was the one that killed Ash?”

“When I talked to Chandler, he told me that the perpetrator won’t need to hide from her much longer and yet on my phone call with Kyle, he hinted on having coordinated the project remotely. I spent part of my day checking on missing students and managed to realise that one of them was supposedly working on his project, but when I remembered talking to them, they’d been playing video games the whole day and not working on the rocket instead. One more thing that drove me to that conclusion was the fact trust...” she said.

“The only way to get under the radar of a Chase hunter,” Uncle Tom said, mid-explanation.

“Exactly... That helped me realise just how much I was on a wild goose chase. I thought I was missing something when I interrogated the students at the school on that day, but nothing was being misread. All the students were innocent. The one student who wasn’t was also the one I couldn’t suspect just because he was my best friend...”

“That about sums it up,” Aunt Marie said.

“By the time I had those many pieces of the puzzle sorted out, it should have been obvious. But Chandler had given me one more clue that would lead me to him. He said the culprit was someone close to me. Someone I wouldn’t see coming and that he’d been here for much longer than I’d realised. At first, I took that to be some kind of twisted game he was playing to try and get a reaction out of me, but it fit within the puzzle nicely. Unfortunately, when I got to the school project, nothing had been set up and there was no sign of the booth was going to be used the next day...” she continued to tell them about the recording and everything that happened after that.

“Umm, Uncle Tom, where have you been the past few days? My last memory of you is you torturing me about sleeping with Cole,” she said, cursing herself for noticing later than she should have.

“Took you long to notice... I feel so loved,” the man pouted.

“Yes, you are, Uncle... Yes, you are,” she replied, raising her cup to him as a toast to how much he was loved.

Uncle Tom chuckled at the dismissive behaviour and gave up the tantrum before it got any further, “I have been tending to some new esteemed guests in our small town,” he said.

“Would it happen to be... the Sirius Royal family?” Katie asked, forcing the words out of her mouth.

“Who told you about that?”

“Cole told me... He picked up on their scents earlier when he was at the hotel,” she said.

“Fair enough...”

“Why can’t I tell Cole who I am?” the question came faster than she could stop it. It had been eating away at her for a while and the way they’d reacted to her simply knowing that her biological family was in town did not help her curiosities.