Tangled

63 Ava: Homecoming (V)

The next few days are agonizing.

1

There are shifters outside my house every hour of the

day.

Mom and Dad have disappeared, doing… Honestly, I don’t know what they’re doing.

Phoenix was never around much to begin with, so I’m not surprised that I don’t see him.

It occurs to me that I haven’t seen Jessa even once

since I’ve been home, but, again, not really surprised. It

isn’t like we were ever close.

So I pace in my childhood home, trapped, with no idea what’s coming next, building nightmare after

nightmare of assumptions in my mind. Sometimes I catch Selene’s show on TV and watch that. Other times I watch the news, a habit I’ve gotten used to since working at The Novel Grind. Mrs. Elkins often had it on in the background.

It’s amazing how sheltered I was from the human world, even when living in it. I see why Dad never let

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<63 Ava: Homecoming (V)

me watch the news; it’s enlightening to see how things. are outside of the views of your pack.

I always knew they were a little outdated. After being in the Aspen territory, I’ve learned that my family pack is barely out of the Dark Ages. Now that my eyes have been opened, there are so many details I can pick out that are just wrong.

The fact that I had a phone at all was a miracle–of course, I bought it with my own money.

Jessa begged Dad for one when she was twenty–one, and he relented. But so many women in the pack don’t have a cell phone at all. My dad is sometimes

considered a little too lenient on his women.

for me, of

don’t have jobs. They’re

At The Novel Grind, I would often see a father come in with his child, looking for a book or having them read while they do their work. It’s a

home.

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Homecoming (V)

think I

amazing what a few months of

you.

Mrs. Elkins, and Carlos, and Franklin. Of Clayton and Ivy. Of

about me. If they’re worried. How long they’ll

get me wrong…

to

just don’t know how quickly

wrack my brain, I don’t know how

but I can’t shift. They’d catch me within hours. The only way to escape

if we weren’t in

country.

interrupts my

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Homecoming (V)

door opens without waiting for a response. Alpha Renard strides in, smiling sweetly, but the

wrong–his eyes too calculating, his face too smarmy, his voice like poison to the little happiness I’ve managed to store within my soul.

fight the urge to recoil. “I trust you’re settling back

me, and I resist the instinct to cover myself, even though I’m fully dressed. There’s something predatory in the way he looks at me that makes my skin crawl. There’s no desire there, only a

discuss a few things with you, now that you’ve

hard, bracing myself for whatever twisted scheme he has in store. “What did you

discuss?”

toward the couch,

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Homecoming

a scene. “Please, have a seat. This might take a

I perch on the edge

#25

beside me, entirely too close for my

woman of your age, unmated and unshifted–it’s quite the conundrum. You have no direction, no purpose. These are all things you need to get your mind off your

dalliances.”

my ears, but I keep my expression blank, giving him no reaction to latch onto. Renard studies me

no wonder you were drawn to them, in your confused state. And yet look at the lies