Chapter 84: They Found Penny, But Where's Mum?

Vale:

“Where is she?! Where is my daughter?!” John Minken barreled through the crowd of people. Angrily, he looked around, shoving everyone to the side in search of Penny.

“John!” Dad rushed forward and grabbed his arm, steadying him. “John, calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Alastair!” he snarled. “Your daughter isn’t out there, lost in the middle of a dam war!”

“John, you know that the perimeter is clear! We have the best people out there-”

“Okay, then why is gone!?”

“Because she wandered off obviously,” I murmured before I could think better of it.

“What did you say?” he glared at me. “What did you say, girl?!”

Dad stepped in between me and pushed John back. “John,” he pushed him in one fluid motion. “You need to back up.”

“Dad.”

“No, Val.” He interrupted me, his wild gaze suddenly on John. “You need to back up, John.”

“We found her!” someone yelled through the crowd.

Immediately the Delta’s attention was averted toward the direction of the sound. “P-Penny?!” he exclaimed, quickly pushing away from him. He gave me one more look before running toward the sound of the voice alerting everyone to Penny.

We all shuffled through the crowd and immediately I bristled through. I needed to know something and I know that dad was thinking the same. I needed to know whether she was alive.

“Where is she?!” I heard dad yell through the crowd. Everyone moved to the side giving him space. He quickly moved so that John could have first space to see his daughter.

Since he let John through, that could only mean one thing. Penny was alive.

“Oh, baby!” John rushed to her and snatched her away from the pack member who found her.

She looked terrible.

There was a gaping wound in her chest. She’d lost a lot of blood. I looked at Harlyn and she was completely cold, and distant, tears falling down her blank stare.

I knew that she couldn’t register anything right now. Not after what happened between her and Talon.

“Somebody help her!” exclaimed John. “I need help!”

“Is there a doctor around!” yelled my father over the crowd, and immediately two showed up.

“She’s lost an obscene amount of blood! We need to get her into an OR immediately!”

Without another word, John disappeared with Penny in his arms. Behind was Agnes.

She was clearly, shaken, her hands quivering as she held them to her gasping lips. Then she did as I knew that she would; she shot a glance over at me and in that momentary eye-lock, I wanted her to see my eyes. I wanted her to realize that she no longer had any assumed superiority over me and know that I felt no sympathy for what had happened to Penny. Or her for that matter.

Agnes gasped when she saw the domineering grin across my face. Then she quickly rushed to Harlyn.

“H-Harlyn, honey, come with me to the hospital! There, we can find out what really happened.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital to know what really happened, Agnes.”

It was clear that Agness didn’t know how to absorb what Harly had said, or even how to respond, really.

“Ah, well, surely you’d like to make sure that she’s alright!”

“I would say yes, because I’m sure that’s what your’re expecting but…I’m not sure that I’d be telling the truth.”

“Harlyn Caris Wade! How could you be so callous? Penny is your best friend! How could you be so cruel to her?”

“Cruel?” Harlyn scoffed. “We both know cruel, Agnes. I’m sure that you’ve mastered on a level that I cannot even comprehend. The height of Penny’s loyalty to me is staying around just long enough to almost see her alleged best friend get ripped apart and devoured by ferals.”

Agnes stumbled back in seeming shock by what Harlyn had said. “H-Harly!”

“That’s enough,” Dad interrupted. “We need to head to the hospital, anyway.” he stoically looked down at Agnes. “There are some things that need to be discussed anyway.”

“Like what?” asked Agnes. “I hope your subject of conversation will be getting to the bottom of what happened to my niece. We need to know who did this?!” she said in a shrill voice.

“Yes, Agnes. After we find out how Penny is doing, we will discuss what, and the who. We will also be addressing the why of the situation.”

He walked past the agitated Agnes and glanced back at us. “Let’s go.” he turned forward and headed off. “Toran, disperse the crowd. You can head to the recreational hall or back to their homes,” he communicated to Toran, who had found his stride next to my father.

“I don’t think now is the time to be partying, Alastair. Everyone thinks that the culprit behind Penny’s attack is a sneaky feral. Continuing the party at the recreational center would cause problems that we don’t need right now among the people. We’ll already, no doubt, have, after one our own being attacked. ”

“You’re right,” he said. He looked around curiously and then glanced at me. Why? I wasn’t sure.

Maybe he was thinking the same thing that I was thinking.

“Disperse everyone to their homes. I still want guards around the perimeters of Shadow Veil in shifts. But I wan’t all of the clan leaders to meet at the meeting hall. It’s best that everyone knows about the truth behind tonight. First, we’ll talk to John, though.”

“Alright,” replied Toran. “I’ll meet you at the dining hall.”

“No, I want you at the hospital as soon as you’re done. I need all of my commanders in attendance. Even Jessica.”

Jessica was the Gamma of the Shadow Veil, and her role was as important as the Beta, Delta, and even Alpha. Her role was to keep everyone together and, make sure that calamity between pack members and even the various species of inhumans in Shadow Veil to a minimum.

“Alright.” said Toran. He started to leave when he paused in front of Harly. “I heard what happened, hon.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”

Harly’s cold demeanor immediately softened and her eyes began to mist again, lips trembling with sadness.

After he left, I approached Harly and took her hand into mine. “Let’s go.” she smiled weakly and nodded. We went after dad.

“Val?”

“Yea?” I replied.

“Your mother? Where is she? Have you seen her?”

“No,” I said. “I was wondering the same thing. You can’t sense her?” I asked as Mates could usually sense one another with ease.

“No. That’s why I’m worried.”

“We’ll find her later,” I said. “She can take care of herself. Right now we need to go deal with this.”

Dad was visibly reluctant on this decision. I know that he was, and truth be told, so was I.

Where was she? It wasn’t like mum, to go off without even reaching out. We weren’t on the best of terms, but even then she made it a point to regularly check in on me while going through my mental instability. I wasn’t sure that I had heard from her at all today. And it seemed that dad hadn’t either.

“Let’s go.” Dad continued off.

“You sure?” Harlyn asked me. “You seem worried.”

I was. Very worried, but after what Harlyn had already done in defense of me. With what just happened to her, and what she had learned about her best friend, I could not risk Harlyn reacting more irrationally than she already had with Penny.

“Like I said, we’ll find her later. Right now, we need to straighten this out. One problem at a time.”

“If you say so.”

Without another word, we headed to the hospital.

Still though…mum…where could you have gone?