The Possessive Alpha
Chapter 103

ELLE POV

FLASHBACK CONTINUED*

I have been sitting in this uncomfortable office chair in the security room for the last two hours staring at the code in front of me. A similarity screaming at me, but I don’t remember where I had seen it before. The answer is sitting in my mind somewhere. I feel it like a heaviness sitting atop my head, begging to be remembered, but Goddess help me, I can’t.

‘Alpha,’ Charity’s cheery voice rings through my head as I stare blankly at the screen, lost for the first time when it comes to deciphering a code; there is a reason I don’t have to waste my time with class or school. I can’t remember where I am from, but I can remember every book I have read. ‘We are back in the territory.’

‘Security room,’ is my reply while I crack open a Redbull I grabbed earlier from the mini-fridge. I am lost in my own world while Damon’s playlist rings through the speakers at ear-splitting volumes. For some reason, I am calmer with it playing in my ears as I try to drown out the guilt slowly tearing at my insides. Logic dictates that I include Damon and Slade in this, but a small part of me knows this isn’t about them but me.

‘If we include them,’ Scarlett sighs, ‘we will never be taken seriously as an Alpha and only looked at as Damon’s Luna. Slade’s Luna. I love them, but I have gone through too many lives for this position. I have had to work ten times harder than Slade for my Alphaship. It’ll never be ours.’

‘Are you sure this is the decision we want to make?’ I ask, double checking that she is secure with this choice we are making, with the possible consequences.

‘Elle,’ Scarlett replies, her voice stern, ‘I can handle Damon and Slade’s anger, but I will not tolerate wasting the hard work of hundreds of lifetimes. I will not apologize for making the same choices Alpha males make daily.’ Before I can reply, she is already in the far reaches of my mind giving me the silent treatment.

Returning my attention to the screen, I continue my blank stare before the frustration gets the better of me, a g***n leaving my lips as the door opens. Turning in my chair to look at Theo and Charity, the giddiness rolling around them in spades.

“So, what did you find out?” I ask them, wanting to jump straight to the point. Maybe they found something more useful than I have.

“I don’t know, Penelope, you tell me,” Theo replies with a smug face, and as soon as the name comes out of his mouth, a shudder of revulsion at the name course through my entire body.

“Eww, why would you call me that?” I ask, practically choking on the words, as my glare finds Theo with a devilish smirk on his lips.

“It was your name in Silver Run,” Theo explains.

“Well, it’s a crappy name, and I hate it,” I say, my voice like steel as I look between the two in fair warning that they are not to call me that, “thank god I won’t ever have to use it again. What else you got?”

“You have specialized weapons training,” Charity reads from the paper where they had everything written down.

“What kind of weapons?” I ask as I take a drink of my Redbull while Charity continues reading from their list.

“Daggers, swords, axes, and knife throwing,” Theo responds while grabbing his own RedBull from the fridge and sitting in the office chair next to me. “But also advanced weapons as well. You can build bombs and chemical weapons.”

“Cool,” I smile devilishly, “that’ll definitely come in handy if it’s muscle memory; let’s hope to the Goddess it is.”

“We can always find out after this,” Charity suggests taking her own seat in the last chair of the small office, “I am sure Toby wouldn’t mind letting us borrow his weaponry; in fact, I think he would be giddy about it.”

“Of course, he would,” Theo mutters, “I have never seen a Gamma family more ready to fight, and I have seen a lot as a councilmembers son.”

Looking at my watch, I notice the time and realize we need to hurry this gab sesh along and move to another area before Damon comes searching for me. A pang of guilt squeezes my heart, the pressure nearly unbearable about lying to him, but Scarlett is right. She worked her a*s off for the right to be a female Alpha; I cannot dismiss that for Damon.

If she is willing to live with the consequences, then so am I; the Goddess paired our souls together for a reason. We complement each other, and she will be with me until the end of time. “Alright, what else you got?”

As I am asking the question, a memory is thrown into the forefront of my mind of a newspaper article I found in my room the morning we left for New York City. No wonder the name Silver Run sounded familiar when Simon mentioned it earlier. Why didn’t I make the connection earlier? So many things starting to snap into place.

“Well,” Theo says, taking the sheet from Charity’s hand to read the next thing, “you didn’t look like this in Silver Run, and your name was Penelope. But we called you-“

“Little Luna?” I ask, interrupting him, “And I didn’t look like this, did I?” Referencing the brunette girl with hazel eyes in the picture on the front page of the newspaper with a male who looked just like the father. Now I am a spitting image of the woman with my red hair and green eye, making me wonder which version is the real one.

‘This version,’ Scarlett assures me, bringing herself to the forefront of my mind to listen in on the rest of the conversation.

“That newspaper from your birthday?” Charity asks, making the connection herself, “holy s**t, why didn’t I think of that? I was the one who cleaned it up. But how did you know about the “Little Luna” nickname?”

“My guess,” I say, with an aggravated g***n, “it’s all these goddamn spells. I ran into Theo’s father earlier, and he mentioned the nickname.”

“Wait, my father’s home?” Theo asks, with a grunt, clearly annoyed that his father is home and he was never notified.

“Yeah,” I reply, shooting him a sympathetic look, forgetting how touchy the subject of his father is, “and I feel he will be around a lot more now that he knows I am alive. He made it pretty clear he is available for whatever we need.” I reach out and squeeze Theo’s arm, and a part of me wishes I could remember our past.

“It’s okay,” Theo shrugs, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I also remembered this code, although it’s not one I recognize. However, that was never my thing as much as yours. Cynthia was more psychotic than thorough with your instruction. You had to learn more s**t than any male Alpha I had ever met. You’re basically a walking, talking weapon once you get your full memory back.”

“Did you write it down?” I ask eagerly as he hands over a separate sheet of paper. As my eyes scan over it, a smile spreads across my face. “Oh, Theo, you glorious bastard. I could k**s you right now!” I squeal as I spin around in my chair, my fingers flying rapidly across the keyboard.

“I’d rather you not k**s me,” Theo remarks, “I don’t need Damon killing me before our plan comes to fruition. What was that anyways?”

“It wasn’t a code, but a decipher of how to infiltrate Silver Run’s firewalls,” I say, as my eyes scan the screen and my fingers type faster than ever before as I start breaking down each wall like I have a virtual bulldozer. “In about two seconds, I will be a ghost in their mainframe, giving me access to everything from their security procedures, infrastructure, security cameras…” I trail off as I put a hundred percent of my attention into the task.

“And we are in,” I say, as they both lean in to watch the screen as floor plans start flashing in front of our faces, “Turn on those monitors,” I instruct them as my fingers continue flying across the screen. When the monitors are on, I throw the security feed from Silver Run on them. “Charity, start learning what you can about the pack.” I am about to say something more to Theo when a filtration plan flashes on the screen, grabbing my attention.

Pulling it up, I notice that this system is different than the one used in New Moon and built to filter out way more than the one here, “Theo why would Silver Run need such a heavy duty water filtration system? One that filters out heavy metals?” I ask while my fingers keep flying across the keypad as plans for hydroponic gardens and greenhouses, which is strange too.

“I saved the best for last,” Theo says, and I can hear the grin in his voice while Charity looks at me with a sly smile, “There is a reason our pack is named Silver Run… Our pack sits on a giant silver reserve in Pennsylvania. It’s in everything from the soil to the water.”

“Okay,” I say, not making the connection he wants me to, as I look between him and Charity, waiting for them to explain why this is important or helpful. “Wait…doesn’t wolfsbane also grow in the mountains found in Pennsylvania as well?”

“Yes,” Theo comments, sitting forward, “running straight into our water systems. The silver and wolfsbane nearly killed all of the founding pack members, leaving those remaining to want to find a new territory to claim their own. But your distant Alpha grandfather decided against it, seeing it as an opportunity to make his pack members immune to the poisons that can make us weaker. It’s one of the pack’s heavily guarded secrets.”

“Wait,” I say, as my brain catches up to his words, my fingers stopping as I turn my chair to face Theo’s smug expression, “are you saying we are immune to sliver and wolfsbane?”

“Not completely immune,” Theo shrugs, “but we have a damn high tolerance. Enough to handle those cells,” he says, grabbing the keyboard from in front of me before typing a few keys and pulling up a building plan for state-of-the-art cells. Leaning in to look closer at the plans, I see there is silver embedded into every conceivable surface.

“Holy f**k, that’s barbaric,” I murmur as I examine the blueprints of the space. Noticing that each cell is temperature controlled, with an air vent reminding me of the gas chambers used by the Nazis in the human’s second world war.

“Yeah, whoever it was that took over is one sick f**k,” Charity includes as she scans through the security cameras of Silver Run.

“Does Charity get this immunity too?” I ask, glancing at her, slightly worried about how this newfound information will affect her and the plan we create once we have all the facts.

“Summer says yes,” Charity replies, her eyes never leaving the screen as she scans through the different areas of Silver Run. As we sit in silence, each of us going through our different documents, a sinking realization starts to settle in my stomach. While having these plans and access to the security cameras is a great advantage, it’s not the same as having someone on the ground doing recon.

Sighing, I close my eyes while my fingers rub my temples as I file through every person I know to find the right person to track and do recon. My options are extremely limited without tipping my hand to Charles, Olivia, and Damon.

“What’s wrong?” Theo asks. I can sense the heat of his gaze on my face as I continue to massage my forehead in frustration.

“I have just realized this would be so much easier with someone doing physical recon on the pack,” I respond, not opening my eyes. “Having these plans and access to the security cameras is great, but we need someone trustworthy enough to do it and has no problem going against a pack.”

“I might know the perfect person,” Theo says, leaning back in his chair and taking his phone out of his pocket when my phone starts going off, but I don’t need to look at the screen to see who texted because I already know.

“I guess that’s Elle’s cue to go,” Charity snickers, giving me a sideways glance as Theo goes out in the hallway to call whoever he knows for this recon mission. Ignoring her teasing, I unplug the laptop and shove it into the case. I am not sure if I’ll be able to work on it later, but I can’t leave it here either.

“Yeah, hopefully, Olivia sends the guys on last-minute errands so I can keep looking over this stuff,” I sigh, my mind not stopping as I think over all the stuff we need to get answers about still, like where Jonah fits into this whole mess because I am still sure he is part of it somehow or how the prophecy fits in or if it’s important enough for me to acknowledge. Could this plan be successful without Damon’s venom in my veins?

Turning off the computers, we throw away the empty Red Bull cans and exit the building to find Theo standing outside on the phone; turning to Charity, I give some last-minute instructions before going through the forest to the packhouse.

“Don’t forget to ask Toby to borrow his weapons,” I remind her before breaking into the treeline with my bag slung over my shoulder. As I get further away from the security building, the more an ethereal glow starts to shine through the trees.

Letting my silent footfalls carry me onward, I see a woman standing in my path, her back facing me as she stares out into the forest in amazement and wonder. Her long midnight black picks up slightly from the breeze weaving its way between the trees. The sound of a twig snapping under my boot startled her enough to look at me, causing me almost to faint when my eyes meet her intense gaze.

“Selene?” I ask, completely flabbergasted by her presence here in the corporeal world, as she’s not made an appearance since the origins of the werewolf species, instead choosing to communicate via dreams.

“Hello, Elle,” She returns with a tight smile, grim eyes, and a stern voice, “we need to talk.”