Evaline:
The mole's last words kept echoing in my mind long after the three of my mates carried his lifeless body away.
"You can't stop it. No one can."
It.
Not him.
Not her.
Not them.
Just… it.
I sat in what looked like a eting room on the ground floor - a plain rectangular table, a few chairs, a tal filing cabinet with numbers scratched into the paint, and a flickering bulb that buzzed every few seconds. My elbows were on the table, fingers rubbing the ache forming between my eyes.
There were too many questions, but barely any answers.
And the little we did know only made the entire thing darker.
Whoever... or whatever.. was behind the Soul Death cases had been playing this twisted ga far longer than any of us had realized. And every ti we found a lead, it dissolved in our hands like sand.
The mole hadn't broken.
Not even when River let his temper slip, or when Kieran's voice turned icy, or when Oscar's patience finally snapped.
He had chosen death over the truth.
I exhaled slowly, staring down at the cold tal surface of the table.
The mont the body was secured and handed over to their warriors for transport, we all headed back to the cars. No one spoke. Not even Oscar... and he always had sothing to say.
The drive ho was silent in a way that felt almost unnatural. Like all of us were trapped inside our own minds, replaying the sa useless scenes, hoping sothing new would magically appear.
By the ti we reached ho and locked ourselves inside the study, tye brothers looked ready to tear the mountain down stone by stone if it ant finding answers.
The heavy silence stretched until Oscar finally broke it.
"We got nothing." His voice was lower than usual, a growl vibrating beneath every word. "Absolutely nothing. After all our work… we are still exactly where we started."
Kieran pushed a frustrated hand through his hair. "Every ti we get close, every damn ti, we hit another dead end. Whoever this mastermind is… they are always a step ahead."
River sat on the edge of the desk, his arms crossed, eyes darkening. But for once, he wasn't the one talking. He was studying us... studying ... and I could feel his gaze on even though I was staring at the floor.
I didn't say anything.
Not because I didn't have thoughts.
I did... too many of them.
My brain had been racing nonstop since I stepped out of that cell.
It was River who finally asked, "What are you thinking, angel?"
I blinked and looked up.
Three pairs of intense, expectant eyes rested on .
My gaze shifted to the whiteboard standing in the corner. I stood up without answering and dragged it across the room until it faced them. Then I grabbed a marker and uncapped it.
"Let's start with what we do know."
I wrote 1 and circled it.
1 - The Secret Academy Group.
"They are involved," I said, turning slightly. "Maybe not directly behind the Soul Deaths, but they know sothing. They are connected. They have to be after what I heard that night."
Kieran nodded, his lips pressed into a hard line.
2 - The victims have no pattern.
No ties.
No shared activities.
No visible link.
"Which makes it impossible to predict who's next," I murmured.
Oscar exhaled sharply... agreent mixed with irritation.
Then I wrote 3.
3 - Black veins = warning sign.
They appear roughly a day before the victim ends up Soul dead.
"Whether they are caused by sothing parasitic, magical, or engineered… we don't know yet." I looked at them. "But if we can at least get people to report these signs - without using the words 'Soul Death' and causing widespread panic - we could monitor possible victims in real ti."
River nodded slowly. "That part's workable. I can talk to the council about a low-alert health advisory. But…" His eyes sharpened. "Doing this might alert our enemy. They'll know we are catching on."
"I know," I said softly. "But right now, we are always reacting. Never preventing."
I took a breath and wrote 4.
This ti I didn't speak right away. Monts later, I finally turned toward Oscar.
"You are wrong about the mole not giving us anything."
Confusion flickered across all of their faces.
I tapped the board.
"He didn't say 'him.' He didn't say 'her.' He said it. Like… like he wasn't talking about a person at all."
River shifted, uncrossing his arms. "aning?"
"A force," I whispered. "Or sothing ancient. Sothing non-human? Sothing that doesn't belong to this world or hasn't been awakened in centuries."
Silence.
A cold, heavy silence.
I continued anyway.
"Think about it. These cases first showed up four hundred years ago. If it was a person… they would have to survive unnaturally long. Because neither werewolves nor the witches lives this long."
"Unless there are two masterminds," Oscar said, frowning. "One in the past, one now."
"Yes. Possible." I nodded. "But sothing about this doesn't feel… human. I keep thinking... what if all this ti, we have been chasing a person when really, it's a force? A power that soone is harnessing, or trying to control, or trying to release?"
Kieran's jaw ticked. "A force capable of ripping a wolf from soone's soul."
River murmured, "Or capable of corrupting it."
I nodded. "The black veins. The sudden collapses. The identical symptoms across victims who have nothing in common…" I swallowed. "It feels like sothing unseen is spreading. Like it's moving from body to body. Like a… like a dark current."
Oscar leaned back in his chair. "If that's true, then our 'enemy' might not even be a person."
"Exactly."
All three of my mates went quiet.
The air in the room seed heavier now. More suffocating. As if the walls themselves realized the gravity of the theory.
Kieran was the first to speak. "We need confirmation. We need evidence."
"We will get it," I said, trying to steady my voice. "But no matter what the truth is… human or force… they want sothing. And they are willing to kill for it."
"Or wipe out entire souls," River added quietly.
My fingers tightened around the marker.
"We need to find out what 'it' is before more people die."
Kieran nodded once - a sharp, decisive movent. "Then that's what we'll do."
Kieran pushed off the desk, walked over, and took my wrist, gently lowering the marker from my hand.
"You are brilliant, little mate," he murmured, a ghost of a smirk appearing. "Terrifyingly so."
I would have rolled my eyes if the situation wasn't so grim.
But being wrapped in the warmth of his voice - despite everything - steadied sothing inside .
He then turned to face his brothers. "How about we track down the graduated students? Maybe we could locate the ones who were part of the secret group. Though the chances are slim, we should take a chance."
We all collectively nodded.
"And I'll contact the council," River added. "See how we can discreetly issue a warning about black veins."
Oscar pointed a finger at . "And you," he said firmly but gently, "need to rest. You have training lessons in... less than three hours."
I opened my mouth to argue.
Three sets of narrowed eyes landed on .
I shut my mouth again.
"Fine," I whispered, already picturing the three hours of torture awaiting .
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