“Maybe Stephen? Or Kaden?” Meredith said.
I had no idea who they were. It was easy to forget that I’d only been at St. Ailbe’s for a couple months, but then things like this happened and I remembered that I really was just the new kid in school.
The door opened, and we all quieted as Mr. Dawson strode in. His gray-speckled hair was more messy than usual, which was a huge sign that he was stressed. He wore a pair of sweat pants and nothing else. Not even shoes. That meant one of two things: either he’d just been a wolf, or he was going to go wolf any second and didn’t want to destroy his favorite pair of jeans. “We’ve got a problem.”
My breath quickened. I only had a few vials on me. If Luciana were here, they wouldn’t be enough.
“The wolves we had issues with last night,” he said to Donovan. “They’re defecting.”
I took a moment to calm down. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting—which was good—but it still wasn’t fantastic. What did this mean for the pack?
Dastien started toward the door. “Where are they?”
“The parking lot, but I’m worried they’re part of a bigger problem. Some teenage Weres leaving the pack is one thing, but if Rupert did more damage…”
Even from beyond the grave, Rupert Hoel was being a pain in the ass. My patience was in the negatives and plummeting fast. There was no way I was letting those wolves get away. Not until Mr. Dawson made sure there was a clean break. We couldn’t risk Luciana using them to gain power over the pack.
We booked it from the library, racing for the parking lot. Alpha energy pumped through my blood as I prepared for a fight. It made me tingle and feel alive, as I ran. The sensation built with every step. Dastien kept pace beside me, but I was in the zone, focusing only on getting to the rogue Weres.
I spotted them piling into a white SUV and a little coupe. The same group from the table at breakfast.
“Stop,” I yelled the command at them, throwing a healthy dose of alpha energy into it. Imogene paused for a second, but then jumped into the passenger side of the coupe. Engines roared to life as they gunned it.
What the hell? That much power behind an order, and it just rolled over them?
How was that possible?
Good thing I wasn’t just an alpha. “Stop!” I put everything I had into that one word. The magic built within me—racing down my fingers—as I held my arms out, screaming the word, willing it to be possible.
Everything stopped.
Not just them. Everyone. Dastien had frozen mid-step. Chris and Adrian stood a few feet behind us, totally motionless. Even Mr. Dawson and Donovan had stopped. It was like someone had hit the pause button on the world. None of them even blinked.
It took me a second, but I remembered Claudia had done this. When I first went up against Mr. Hoel, she’d frozen a whole mall full of people.
I grabbed Dastien and shook him, but he didn’t unfreeze. “Wake up!”
He gasped, almost falling forward. “What the hell is going on?”
“No time. I don’t know how long the spell will hold. Let’s get them tied down.”
“One second.” He ran to the line of black SUVs parked in the front of the lot, and popped the trunk of the closest one. After pulling out a bag of gear, he headed straight for the white SUV. “I’ll do the grabbing. You zip tie their hands.”
“Will that hold them?” Weres were strong enough to flip cars. There was no way a flimsy bit of plastic was going to stop them if they wanted to be free.
“There’s some silver mixed in with the plastic, but even that won’t hold a pissed off Were for long. But it sh
ould be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To get them in the feral cages. Until we figure out what they’re up to, that’s where they’ll have to stay.”
We worked quickly, getting all eight Weres out of the cars and bound. Including Imogene and Shannon. I snuck a peek back at Meredith, still frozen. This was going to kill her.
“Okay, so how do you unfreeze everyone else?”
I chewed on my lip as I scanned their unmoving forms. I had no clue how to fix it. “I’m not even sure how I did it in the first place. I guess I’ll go touch them and yell at them to wake up like I did to you.” I stood up, brushing off my jeans.