Clentine:
I walked upstairs and saw Oriana visibly shaking with fear.
"What are you doing here?" she almost yelled.
"Don’t fucking raise your voice at ," I shot back. "That monstrous man is gone. Why are you keeping them here like you’re their mother and they have to obey you?"
I was finally stepping up, realizing that all this ti, she had been up to sothing, and my mates needed saving.
A lot had happened, and even though I knew who I’d chosen, there was no reason not to help my mates.
The least I could do was free them from her claws.
"What? They don’t need you siding with them. They’re perfectly happy here," she said, sitting upright with her spine stiff and proud.
The three of them just stared at her, motionless.
"Well, you need to co downstairs," I told her, folding my arms. "Everyone’s eating dinner and then resting. There’ll be three people, one from each squad, staying up for night rounds. Unless you want to piss everyone off and have no one show up when you need help."
"I don’t really need anyone else anymore," Oriana replied with a smirk. "But I am hungry. So, we’ll co."
Of course she wouldn’t skip dinner. She’d bagged herself three strong alphas to use as shields and was proud of it.
"Co on, boys. Get up," she said, and they obeyed without question.
I was beyond annoyed watching them follow her, especially now that I knew sothing was wrong.
Once we all sat down, Mira woke up and ca out with Renee.
It seed the two had already talked and cleared things up.
"You’re so silly for feeling bad about it," I heard Renee say, holding Mira’s hand.
As we ate, so on the couch, others at the dining table, I noticed Joshua glaring at again.
His reasoning was ridiculous, he wanted to feel guilty enough to hurt myself.
And then there was Oriana. As expected, she made the three sit completely apart.
Even Jack kept glancing at them, leaning over to whisper sothing to Joshua.
"Red squad, co sit with us at the dining table," Jack finally called out.
I noticed Oriana looked over at us, then at the white squad, before returning to her food like nothing mattered.
I got up and joined the white squad. I would’ve preferred to stay quiet, but it was obvious they wanted to talk.
As soon as we sat down, Jack leaned closer and whispered, "That girl is up to no good."
He pointed subtly toward Oriana.
We all turned our heads before Joshua grunted.
"Co on, guys. Don’t be so obvious," he complained.
"What do you an?" I asked.
"One of them is your mate, isn’t he?" Jack pressed.
I nodded. "Yeah, sure, Haiden is."
"Well, aren’t you worried he’s dancing around her like he’s possessed?" Jack asked. He wasn’t mocking this ti, he sounded genuinely concerned.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I don’t know what’s going on." I wanted them to share what they’d noticed, to confirm what I already suspected.
"She keeps touching her stomach all the ti," Joshua muttered, watching her from across the room.
"What did you guys do while we were gone for vacation?" he asked, turning his gaze to .
Even though we weren’t talking about Suki, the way he looked at made it clear, his eyes still held the sa silent accusation every ti we t.
I took a deep breath, trying to gather everything that had happened during those fifteen days of vacation when the others weren’t with us.
All I could think about was how ssy it had been.
"A lot happened. Oriana and I fought most of the ti. The others got involved, and then we were punished. Oriana and I were sent to jail."
I paused, trying to recall the exact details, but I could tell everyone looked confused by how chaotic things had gotten.
I hesitated again when I noticed Jack watching .
"What kind of punishnt?" he asked.
"Well," I shifted in my seat, "that punishnt was mostly for . Anyway, after that, we got into another fight, and then we were punished again, this ti sent to the north to complete a task."
I stopped speaking, waiting for their questions before continuing.
"So all of you returned from this task?" Joshua questioned.
"Yeah. Sad news for you, right? You’d have been thrilled if I hadn’t co back." Bitterness slipped into my voice as I said it, and Joshua rolled his eyes.
"Did they start acting strange before or after the task? Did sothing happen during it that made your squadmates behave differently? Maybe they were upset with you for not being there?" Joshua pressed.
His questions were good ones, but he was drawing the wrong conclusion.
I stared at him, montarily lost in thought.
"The task took place in the underground tunnels," I murmured, "where we had to collect a bag of diamond coals and fight the Earth Eaters." I drifted off every few sentences, feeling as if I were back there again, sothing about it clicked in my head, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.
"Earth Eaters? That sounds terrifying," Mira comnted, swallowing hard.
"Yeah, they were tough to defeat. We had to make our own weapons from wood. But that’s not the point." I paused, my eyes searching the ground. "Oriana went missing for a while, and when we found her, she already had her coals, but she wouldn’t say where she got them."
I blurted the rest quickly, noticing how confused everyone looked except for Joshua.
His narrowed eyes told we were the only ones sensing how odd the situation really was.
"What do you an she already had the coals? Didn’t she fight any Earth Eaters?" Jack asked.
"That’s the thing I forgot to ntion," I replied. "Her father passed away, not sure if all of you knew. After that, she was terrified during the mission in the north, but suddenly she was found with the coals. Normally, to get them, you had to fight the Earth Eaters because they guarded them. But she had them without a weapon, without any sign of a struggle. After that, everything changed. My squadmates stopped listening to . Whenever she’s around, they act like she’s controlling them."
I ran my hand through my hair, confused.
"Yeah, sothing definitely happened," Joshua muttered, clicking his tongue. "Can you tell where this underground tunnel is?"
"It’s under one of the Fleshmingo Houses," I told him. "If you look out the window, you’ll see a house with a big tree, that’s the one."
We were still in Fleshmingo Town, and Joshua’s growing interest in the tunnel made uneasy.
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