Page 67 of Forbidden Mischief
"Left," I say.
Ten minutes later: "Another left."
The roads blur. Pine trees whip past the windows, dark and thick. I guide us like a damn GPS. Every flicker of connection, every faint tug, I follow.
An hour in, Alice gasps.
Dad glances back at her, then at me. "You sure, Zayne?"
I nod. My pulse is a drumbeat. "Yes. Why?"
Alice’s voice is barely a whisper. "This is Pack Canton territory."
My stomach flips. Cold spreads down my spine.
"This is where we lived," she adds. "His dad still does."
My mouth goes dry. "Shit."
Alice looks back at us, eyes wide and glassy. “He can’t be here. His dad…We thought we were far enough away. Laid low enough. But if they find out who he really is...they’ll hurt him.”
"We ran into some of the pack not long ago. They talked shit. About me. About him being with me."
A flicker of static cracks at Dad’s fingertips, the air around him humming with restrained magic.
"They probably ran back to Billy. Told him everything. He’d be furious," she says. Then louder, with sudden panic, "We have to get to my son. Now!"
We drive without words. The air inside the cab fills with unspoken dread.
We pull off the road near an abandoned service depot, swallowed by moss and vines. Dad kills the headlights. It’s too quiet. Not even crickets chirping can be heard. Alice clutches the door handle. I reach across and touch her arm. She jumps.
"He’s gotta be okay," I whisper. A shimmer builds under my skin.
"We need to go in discreetly," Dad says, voice low. "No one can know we're here."
I nod, watching the tension coil in his shoulders as he steps in front of us.
He closes his eyes, lifting a hand. "This might tingle."
Magic stirs. The air shifts around us. Dad murmurs the veil spell, each word sharp and sure.
“Umbrix tenebrae, audi silentium, claude vestigia.”
The shadows bend, wrap around us like a second skin. Scent, sound, presence—masked.
Even Asher wouldn’t be able to sense us like this.
Dad leads. I follow. Alice brings up the rear.
We move through the pack lands like ghosts. The spell clings to us, hiding our presence as we pass houses with moss-covered roofs and porch swings swaying on their own. Children play near a creek, splashing water at each other, giggling. A pair of women hang linens on a line between trees, chatting softly as the moon filters through the branches.
I see a man repairing the steps to a cabin, a toddler perched beside him with a toy hammer. It's jarring—so much normalcy while Asher and Alice described this place to be a cage…a prison.
We pass an old cemetery tucked between two oaks. The stones are cracked, some leaning, others totally demolished. A raven watches us from the archway like it knows we're not supposed to be here.
The houses thin out as we near the edge of the pack homes. The land changes slowly. Grass grows taller here, untended and patchy. The road turns into more of a dirt path, with weeds pushing up between old tire ruts. The trees crowd closer together the farther we go, branches hanging low like they're trying to block us from moving forward.
We pass a rusted-out swing set, the chains swaying though there's no wind. A plastic toy is tipped on its side in the dirt, half-buried like it’s been there a long time. No more kids laughing, no more laundry flapping on lines. Just stillness.
