I felt like everyone's eyes were on me.
Each step I took as we got closer and closer to the building screamed out that something was wrong.
I looked around and saw the well oiled o'clock I had come to know in shambles, soldiers were running around, various people yelling orders. There were more.
More soldiers. More of the council members.
The more I looked the more I saw that there were more and more important people present.
I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Everywhere I looked there were people talking, yelling - but no one paid attention to Joshua, Mike, Bea or me.
That's how I knew something was seriously wrong.
Joshua grabbed a soldier who was rushing away by the arm.
"What's going on?" He demanded.
The soldier looked bewildered and then ready to snap. But then he seemed to realise who had stopped him and his face softened.
"The alpha has been taken." He spoke.
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.
Mikey let out a small 'croak' sound and stumbled back. Bea was there to steady and hold him.
Joshua was still for sometime, so still I thought he had frozen up.
"Taken by who? Taken where?" He suddenly demanded grabbing the soldier by the shoulders.
His grip looked too tight to not hurt.
I looked around hoping that the soldier had been mistaken that Tristan was here somewhere.
But even I knew he wasn't.
I couldn't feel him.
Not even a little bit.
I could hear Josh still yelling at the soldier.
I spun in circles my mind on overdrive, the panic slowly setting in.
I felt like someone had taken something from me. Stolen from right underneath me.
"Tristan." I found myself saying his name, calling out to him like that would help.
"Tristan." I croaked out.
I saw Mikey sinking, Bea struggling to hold him up and calling out for Josh.
"Crystal?"
I saw Jasmine's face, her long dark hair pulled back behind her fully suited up in a different soldier's uniform from the Silvercrest one.
She walked up to us.
"Crystal, Josh, Mikey - you shouldn't be here." She let out.
Her eyes were tinged red but the look she held was one of a leader, it meant business.
"Where's my brother, Jasmine? Where's my brother?" Josh demanded.
I stayed in my position. I could picture myself in Joshua's shoes being as frantic as he was demanding Tristan's whereabouts but I just couldn't move.
Jasmine let out a breath. Her eyes turned to me then Mikey.
"Tell us." I heard Michael speak.
I thought I saw Jasmine's eyes become watery.
She blinked quickly before clearing her throat.
"I guess you should come with me. After all we have a power vacuum now." She spoke.
"What do you mean by that?" Joshua asked.
Jasmine fixed her eyes on Joshua and stared long and hard. She then turned to look at me.
"I'm saying our alpha's gone. And the law states one of you has to take over."
The alpha is my mate.
The alpha is my mate.
It didn't matter how many time I repeated it to myself, none of it seemed to make sense to me.
But then why couldn't I get him out of my mind? Why did I keep thinking about him each and every second. Why did I feel the need to memorise every single strand of hair in his head just to run my hands through it and then do it again.
Why did I want to get up right now and walk all the way to him? Just so that I could be with him, next to him, beside him... to feel the air that he breathed.
"What's wrong with Crystal?"
I suddenly perked up when I heard Hazel speak.
I hadn't even noticed her enter the room. She stood in her little yellow tutu and two buns by the edge of my bed.
Kat, who was sitting on the floor painting her nails black looked up at home curiously.
She then rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her toes.
"She's in love, Haze, would not recommend."
For a minute I panicked.
How did Kat know?
How could she have known unless she followed me into the forest?
I then relaxed when I realised she hadn't been talking about Tristan but Roman.
Hazel climbed into my bed.
She sat cross legged in front of me, a cute smile on her face.
"Are you, Crystal? Are you in love?" She asked with the innocence that only an eight year old could still truly have.
"Uhm," I hesitated not really knowing how to answer that but also not wanting to disappoint Hazel. "I think so - yeah."
Hazel looked elated. "Mum says the love of your life would do anything to save you. Like - like Shane and Mulan."
"Life's not a fairytale, Haze!" Kat called out sounding grumpy.
Hazel frowned.
I reached forward and tugged on one of her escaped curls.
"I would totally kick butt to save you." I whispered to her.
She brightened up again looking less like Kat now and more like her father.
She leaned in as if to tell me a secret. "I would do the same for you... maybe not Kat."
I giggled and she laughed along.
"Could we please have some order?" Jasmine yelled at the grumbling adults.
"Could we please have someone who's actually from this pack supervising this meeting?" Someone shot back.
Jasmine looked taken aback by the words. She looked like she was about to snap when Raphael stepped up, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"The rules call for an impartial witness." He explained sounding surprisingly calm considering nothing but chaos currently filled the room we sat in.
I was one of the three people seated on the chair feeling like I was on trial all over again before the officials in front of me. The only difference was that Mikey was seated right next to me and Joshua stood beside him, a hard look on his face.
Mikey on the other hand simply looked distraught and tired, his eyes on the ground.
"Where's you father, girl?" A lady I recognised as Mary, the justice wing leader called out.
"He and all the other alphas and their representatives are on their way." Jasmine spoke back, this time Raphael wasn't quick enough to hold her back.
"But if any of you feel I'm not as competent as him then go ahead and leave." She yelled slamming her hand on a table.
An older man scoffed. "Fine."
Jasmine's mouth hang open looking offended.
"We don't need an outsider child telling us what to do." Another man spoke.
"Excuse me, your alpha is missing and might I remind you that your chief of security also turned out to be a mole?" She yelled angrily. "Sounds to me like you need some 'outsider' help."
"We need someone with a experience, not a girl who barely saw blood during the war!" Another lady yelled.
I saw Jasmine clench her fists.
"Enough with being led by children, that's what got us into this mess in the first place." The same lady spoke.
Without warning Joshua jumped to his feet looking furious. "Are you calling my brother incompetent, Rodger?"
The older man stood up as well looking like he was ready to take on Joshua.
"Are you talking to me, boy?" He asked.
"I would be careful if I were you." Joshua continued. "You might as well be talking to your new alpha."
The man scoffed.
"Do you want to challenge me, is that it?" Joshua continued.
The Rodger man moved forward quicker than I was expecting, how Peter leaped into action to hold him back was a mystery to me.
Meanwhile Raphael and Mikey had also gotten to their feet holding Joshua back.
"Josh." I heard Jasmine hiss and she stepped up in front of him and gripped his arm.
She whispered something in his ear and I saw him relax.
She pushed himself out of Raphael and his brother's hold and went back to leaning against the wall.
Micheal let out a huff.
"Listen everyone!" He yelled a deep growl accompanying it.
I was surprised by it, never having heard Michael put that much force behind his voice before.
I could tell I wasn't the only one. The room seemed to have been stunned silent.
He walked forward and placed his palms against the table. I had been expecting to see a strong and confident man take over but Mikey just looked exhausted. Like he could drop any moment now.
"My brother has been taken. Your alpha." I thought I heard his voice crack slightly. "By the enemy."
Mikey stopped and just for a second I thought he would break down but to my shock he kept talking.
"Protocol says we need to select a new alpha before we can make any further decisions. Now, personally I don't give a damn who the new alpha is gonna be as long as they help us find Tristan. So will everyone just act mature for a second so that we can actually move forward!" He spoke.
He leaned back and let out a hard breath, his nostrils flaring.
He then turned around and walked back calmly to slump into his seat.
The room was still silent as if no one knew what to say after that.
Then someone spoke. "Well the new alpha definitely won't be the Van Cliffe over there."
There was so much hate behind his words I felt like I had been slapped directly in the face.
The chattering started all over again.
Mikey turned to look at me with a frown.
He tried to say something to the group but his voice was drowned out.
I gripped my chair and felt my heart pounding.
All I wanted to do was cry. All I wanted to do was disappear.
"Maybe we should evacuate the Luna." I heard Jasmine say to Peter and Raphael in concern.
I felt myself sinking.
I looked at the door wondering if I could just dart out.
But then it swung open.
At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me.
And I could tell I wasn't the only one.
More and more people quietened down until the room was silent when we saw Lady Melrose walk in, ever graceful. But it wasn't her who had caught everyone's attention, it was the person she was assisting.
Bridget's blonde hair, usually tied back behind her was a wild mess on her head.
Her face was pale, her eyes dark. Her lips looked so chapped that I wondered when was the last time she had had something to drink.
She looked up at all of us, her blue eyes piercing into everyone.
She wore a white robe over what looked like pyjamas.
The hand that wasn't around Lady Melrose for support was at her side holding on.
"I know what you're thinking." Her voice was horsey and scratchy. "The bitch isn't dead."
I blinked twice.
With the way she looked she could have been a ghost.
The first person to move was Jasmine as she rushed over to the blonde and wrapped her arms around her squeezing her in a hug.
I saw Bridget flinch and this made Jasmine let go of her.
Peter rushed forward as well.
"Bridge." He spoke, his voice a whisper as if he couldn't believe it.
I found myself rising to my feet.
I didn't even realise I had been doing it.
Bridget's eyes found me.
She didn't say anything.
I stood aside and she nodded.
She let go of Lady Melrose. Jasmine was quick to take over leading her to where I was standing.
For a minute Bridget just looked at me, then she gestured for Jasmine to place her in my seat.
I watched as she did it. A guilt fresher and newer from what I had been feeling all this time arose the minute I had seen Bridget.
She didn't have to say anything this time for me to know that it was all my fault.
Someone brought a seat for Lady Melrose, putting it in the corner not too far from where Joshua stood.
She sat in it and nodded at me in acknowledgement.
The guilt deepened and I could only imagine what everyone in here must have been thinking, from Lady Melrose to Bridget and probably even Jasmine.
I should have been taken. Not Tristan, me.
But they had him.
They had him and I didn't even want my mind to drift to whatever they might have been doing to him.
"What's the agenda?" Bridget asked looking at Jasmine as if this was a normal and average meeting.
As if the whole pack hadn't just been turned around.
Jasmine cleared her throat and I could see her fighting her emotions.
Probably having to remind herself that someone she had grown up with wasn't in the arms of ruthless murders, that her other friend who everyone had pretty much written off as dead was here now... that she wasn't also just a kid like the rest of us.
"The Werewolf Act number 27 states that I'm the sudden absence of an alpha, the following may fill the vacuum until proper inheritance might be reestablished - his offspring, his Luna, his beta or his immediate sibling."
Bridget nodded curtly.
She then turned to look at everyone else.
"I'm taking the mantle." She spoke with finality.
Joshua sat up.
He looked like he was about to protest but one look from Bridget shut him up.
I knew everyone wanted to say what I was thinking, she could barely walk on her own. She still looked like death... how was she going to be the alpha?
But no one spoke.
And Bridget didn't ask.
She looked around the room.
"Is that all or can I get to saving our alpha and this pack?" She asked.
I stood in awe. The power, the authority. No doubt in her words or face.
"Why don't we confront the obvious problem before us." The man who had argued with Joshua spoke. His eyes then turned to me in a glare.
I felt exposed again, offered for persecution.
And it didn't help that the just appointed judge already hated my guts.
I looked at Bridget and I could only imagine how deep her hate went now.
She licked her badly cracked lips, her eyes still on mine.
"And what would the problem be, Rodger?" She asked slowly, her voice taunted me and I could only imagine how much she was thinking of finally doing the things she had always wanted to do to me.
Make me suffer in the way she had always said I deserved.
"We can't have a Van Cliffe among us." He spoke.
A few other murmured in agreement.
"She's not a Van Cliffe." Micheal spoke up. "At-Atleast not where it counts."
I wanted to show gratitude to him but his words might as well have added fuel to the fire.
More voice grew and became louder in protest.
I flinched. They all wanted my head. And Tristan wasn't here to save me anymore.
"Enough." Bridget's voice wasn't as loud but it seemed to carry enough weight.
The room quietened down.
She leaned back in the chair.
Her eyes facing straight ahead.
"Crystal Swan." She spoke.
I looked at her, my senses on alert.
I glanced at the door again. Maybe I could make it out before they tore me apart limb from limb.
"It seems the majority want a witch hunt." She spoke slowly as if savouring each and every word. "Speak."
I looked at her confused.
"Speak." She repeated herself.
I could tell she didn't intend on doing it again.
I looked at everyone again.
Lady Melrose sat still, ramrod straight in her posture as she watched me with a straight face.
My legs felt like jelly.
Peter stood to the side. His arms behind his back. He nodded at me, it was ever so slight, ever so subtle but I could see the encouragement in it.
I stepped forward hopping I didn't fall.
I searched the crowd as if I would find something I had been searching for since I came to Silvercrest.
But I had lived here long enough to know that it wasn't here. To know how much I was nothing but an outsider to these people.
I swallowed hard.
I knew my next words could even mean life or death. Imprisonment or freedom but there's only one thing I could say right now.
"I live Tristan." It came out sure, my voice didn't waver which surprised me considering how frightened I was.
I cleared my throat. "I love him with every fibre in my body." I continued.
No one said a thing.
That wasn't enough for them.
Their alpha had been taken by my grandfather. My ex boyfriend. That wasn't enough.
"The first time Tristan claimed me, I'll admit, it wasn't under true feelings of the bond. I mean... his feelings were true - mine - I hadn't decided who I wanted Tristan to be. But - but he still protected me. He still loved me just as he loved this pack, and all his people."
I turned to look at Micheal.
He looked ready to cry. Like he was really fighting to keep everything in.
"Tristan has done nothing but fight for all of you... his done nothing but fight for me - and... I know you all see me as an outsider and as the enemy but I can promise you I'm not. I stand with Tristan. I will do anything to get him back... even sacrifice myself."
"Then do it." A voice spoke.
Another agreed. "Yeah! Let's trade the Van Cliffe for our alpha."
An uproar of agreement followed.
I gulped and stumbled backwards part of me thinking someone would step forward and grab me any moment now.
But I found that I didn't actually care.
If I could trade myself for Tristan right now. I would. Without a doubt or second thought.
That I was sure of.
"Silence. Silence." Bridget croaked out.
She turned to look at me. No emotion was written on her face.
"No one is handing in the Luna." She spoke.
I immediately begun to hear protests.
"I said no one is handing in the Luna." She repeated her voice louder.
She looked around dating someone to question her.
Except this time, someone did.
"No offence Beta." It was the Rodger guy again. "But if you're going to be alpha-"
"I'm not." Bridget spoke icily. "Tristan is. I'm only filling in for him until we get him back and believe me, I'll have a list of all those who were ready to throw his Luna under the bus prepared for him."
She looked around and for the first time I saw actual fear in everyone's eyes.
Bridget gestured for Jasmine to step forward.
Jasmine rushed over to help her up.
"We're putting the pack on lockdown." Bridget announced. "The Calhoun alpha arrives in a couple of hours, I'm told but still - live meetings with the rest of the Union commence now. Look alive people, they took one of our own. Not just anyone, our alpha - a war has officially been declared."
Chills ran down my spine at her words. The one thing Tristan had been dreading the most had begun.
Jasmine started helping Bridget towards the door.
But she stopped and turned to look at me.
"What are you waiting for Luna?" She asked.