Gamma's Energy Attracts

Part 8

Caly’s POV

“Most of those files I can access on my laptop. I will call the Council and get them to check for paper files as well.”

“Aren’t the files for us electronic?”

“Yes, mostly. I know for a fact that you have a paper file as well, Caly. Two, in fact, one is your Mother’s. Darius might still have yours. The Council volunteered the files to the Alphas of everyone who was kidnapped a few years ago, to see if they could maybe get clues on your disappearance. Giles was furious that another Elder had handed out those files, especially yours. Darius was the one who suspected you were fathered by some unknown Alpha at the time. I’m not sure why that was kept from you. He also threatened to convict Darius of crimes against the Council if he dared copy or share that information. He threatened to take Artemis from him.” I never even realized the risks Darius took for me.

“Darius did share, though. He contacted Colin. I would bet the Packhouse he made photocopies, too,” I say honestly. Darius didn’t fear Giles, he would have done it purposely just to antagonize him. If fate hadn’t handed me to a strong Alpha like Darius, my whole life could have ended up much much worse. I look guiltily down the table at Julia who is scarfing down pasta like she’s starved. Julia’s life was hell under Alpha Alwic. What did all these missing she-wolves go through? “You phone the Council, I’ll call Darius.”

I take my phone out of my bag, I realize it must be set to silent, I have several missed texts. “I miss you already,”  “I love you,” “Let’s video chat with the kids at bedtime,” all from Stavros. From Colin I have “Text your Mate,” and “Will you please call him so he can focus on work!” followed by a string of angry emojis. 

I give Stav a quick call, hoping today is one of those days his tolerance for talking on the phone is nil. No such luck, but after five minutes I tell him I need to get back to work. I can feel him stressing over the phone, but I promise that video chat at bedtime.

“Good Morning, Calypso! How is life treating you?” My former Alpha says cheerily into the phone.

“I’m good. How are you and Kat?”

“Good. I think she is with Kyrie trying on her dress for Friday. She’s excited that you and your family I staying with us at Darryl and Anne’s. When are you heading to Blue Moon’s Bite?”

“I’m already here, I left this morning to work with Darryl on those missing werewolves.” 

“Do me a favour and don’t mention that to my Kat, she will want to go see the pups and I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon I don’t want to cancel.”

“You can tell her that the pups aren’t arriving until Friday with Stav.”

“You left them with the Alpha?” I can detect the slight panic in his voice, his usual calm demeanour slipping. His blood pressure probably skyrocketed at the thought. “Please tell me Beta Colin is there helping him.”  I roll my eyes, which he thankfully can’t see.

“Yes, I left Colin with him.”

“Good. Let’s change the topic before Kitty Kat comes to see what’s distressing me.”

“I was wondering if you kept a copy of mine or my Mama’s Council records?”

“It is a criminal offence to keep, copy or disclose information in confidential Council files. It is considered treason.” He says in a perfunctory manner.

“Is that a yes?”

“Absolutely,” can you hear someone smiling through the phone? I think I just did. “Did you need it immediately? What are you looking for?”

“We are trying to figure out the codes we’ve been finding on the back of some of these files. Julia’s wolf thinks we might need to look at our own files to see a pattern.”

“Interesting, I can have a wolf run to you in under an hour.”

“That’s not necessary. Can you scan them into a PDF and email me? I need any writing on the backs of the pages or on the folder itself.”

“I remember seeing a bunch of notations on your file, letters and numbers. I tried figuring them out.” I can hear Darius opening his squeaky old file cabinet, it was barely used these days.

“Really? I’m putting you on speakerphone. Did you have any luck?” Darius is an incredibly smart man and I am willing to accept any help I can get at this point.

“I did. Give me a few minutes to email this to you, and we will look at it together.”  I receive my email and two attachments, one labelled ‘file’, one named ‘code’. “Open Code.” 

This is what I see:

CJ B.M(16)-->D ART. See File (Com 2)

(5)No COMS 

Int B.M. + Witness (Calm)

BF A?

(11) Tests: Psy H.A. (Com AMP, SEEK, FS, DIV, HEAL)

(12) E.S. (Common HEAL, AMP, DIV) 

Ass. C. Art OBS (Warm, Calm, increase EN)

(16) Incident C. Art RE: B.S. J (Concern neg EN, Com DIV, AMP)

X T ->WIC Testing + DNA

X T-> MR PP 06/17

(17) New Ass.  C MR, T HM (Cond)

 T ->WU Testing HEAL, DIV (INC) AMP 

Ass. J. Art

(18) 08/07/16 Incident C. Art RE: Ass. J (AMP ADD Confirm)

(19) T-> WIC, Ass. G.M BP Declared Missing

(20) Int A.S, B.C BP (X T)

M? S BP No M 

 Ext. Plan

What. The. Serious. F*ck. I sigh deeply in defeat. It looks like a bunch of garbled letters and nonsense. The few files I’ve had the chance to look at have maybe three lines. How am I supposed to make any sense out of this crap? Why is there so much?

“I heard that, Calypso! Of course, your file would be extensive. Giles followed you very closely. I’m sure there will be a few other files he paid special attention to.” I could have lived quite happily without any of Giles ‘special attention’ as Darius put it. “Come now. You know better than to just throw your hands up in defeat. Take a deep breath and pull yourself together.” I start to sigh again but cut it off so I don’t get scolded by Darius again. 

I close my eyes and take a few cleansing breaths. When I open my eyes, Tucker pulls my laptop back a bit, only to push a foil tray of pasta in front of me and a plastic fork. He mouths the word ‘Eat’ and I dutifully take a bite. Holy smokes this is delicious, I need to find out the restaurant. 

‘Focus, Babe. But keep eating.’

“Take it one line at a time,” Darius says gently.

“Okay, CJ could be Caly Johnson. No, it says ‘16’. So Cassandra Johnson. Then BM, I don’t know. The arrow is ‘moved to’ and D. Art is likely Darius of Artemis.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Your Mother was pregnant with you, I think BM could be Biological Mother, who she is to you,” Darius comments. That makes sense. “I think those brackets at the front of some lines is your age. You were five when we reported that you didn’t flinch under commands. So No COMS,” it’s his turn to sigh now. “The biggest mistake I ever made as an Alpha was calling the Elder’s Council. I’m so sorry, Calypso,” he whispers in a broken voice.

“Please don’t worry, I can’t take it. How could you have known?” My chest tightens and I blink back the wetness in my eyes. Nope, not going to cry. I’ve got to be thankful for what I got, “You were the best Alpha I could have hoped for. I bet a lot of these missing werewolf files are she-wolves who weren’t half as lucky as I was. Let’s keep going. It looks like they interviewed my Mama and all the witnesses one of which felt calm after being near me.”

“They did interview the other little girls, it’s probably the pup you were defending. If B.M. is Bio Mother, I think B.F is Bio Father.”

“The ‘A’ is for Alpha,” I say as soon as I realize.

“Yes, I think they knew from your Mother’s letter you were the child of an Alpha, but they never informed me.”

“I doubt they were hiding it for any altruistic reason like keeping my Mama hidden, either. If an Alpha had a gifted child, he might want them back.”

“Agreed. The next line is (11) tests. I’m not sure if you remember, but you saw our Pack Doctor several times for headaches around the age of eleven. They didn’t find a physical cause, they believed it might be your wolf, and the Council labelled it as a psychic headache. They wanted to do other tests, but your Mother and I refused them.”

“I bet Giles pitched a big hairy canary over that,” I say and Julia chuckles out loud without looking up from her phone.

“He did. I think ES is an early shift, and the rest is the common symptoms and the gifts they could be related to Ampere, Seeker, Foreseer, Diviner, and Healer. By that time in your life, they were convinced you were gifted, and that I was trying to act against them discovering your true abilities.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, Ass. C Art, Jase’s Dad Carl was assigned to report on me, I had no idea they started watching me so close, so early on.”

“I don’t think Carl had to OBS ‘observe’ you very often, it came secondhand from Jason. At sixteen, Carl was very concerned that Jason was always clinging to you, he was convinced you were poisoning him with your energy.”

“Might be why Carl hated me so much.” 

“That and ignorance,” Darius huffed out, I knew was displeased by the way his Beta and Gamma treated me when he wasn’t around. They never did anything really bad to me, it was more of them making me feel unwanted or keeping me away from Jase. It always had the opposite effect, Jase wanted to spend more time with me so he could always protect me. “I haven’t figured out the next two lines.”

“Terri thought ‘T’ might be transferred.”

“You were never transferred anywhere at 16. Perhaps the ‘X’ was added after, for ‘Not transferred. I don’t recall any other testing they did at that age. I am drawing a blank on the next line.”

“Me too. Let’s skip to the next one. New Assigned C MR.” I rubbed my temples as I wracked my brain for answers. Tucker took his own fork to tap my lunch container, reminding me to keep eating. I took a bite, “Could be Cyril of Moon’s Rage, I remember my Beta telling me he started following me at regular intervals just before I headed off to Wolfgard U. That might be the previous line then, they wanted to send me to Moon’s Rage, then postponed it so I could attend school. It looks like maybe they had someone else watching me as well.”

“I wouldn’t put anything past the Council, my Dear.”

“I’ll look into it!” Terri says with a mouthful of fettuccine alfredo, causing it to drip onto her chin. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, even though Tucker offers her a paper napkin.

“Good. Did they do some testing on you at Wolgard without informing me?” Darius asks agitated.

“Not medical tests. I think that might be when Giles said I should look into volunteering at the campus hospital. He said it would look good on a resume, but I think he was hoping he could narrow down my gift to either healer or Ampere.”

“That would certainly fit. Diviner must have come back as ‘INC’, inconclusive or incompatible. By the end of your first semester, he was calling you Ampere and had completely forgotten your name. Jase was reporting on you instead of Carl, but we knew that.”

It was the next line that caused my heart to pound. The incident. My 18th Birthday, when Jase couldn’t come to terms that I was not going to be his Mate. He wanted to make me his, and Athena nearly killed him. AMP ADD confirmed, he was well and truly addicted to me by then. Thank the Moon Goddess, she knew what he was going through and she sent him Joy. The Mate Bond is what finally withdrew his need for me, she became his everything.

“I think we know what the incident references,” Darius says in a soft voice, bringing me out of the guilt bouncing around my brain. “There’s that acronym WIC, again.”

“Yeah, and I still have no clue. The next part is assigned to Gamma Marcus of Blood Pact.”

“Yes, when that @sshole stole you from us!” Darius’s voice has gone deep and husky. While Darius has a way of speaking formally, his wolf isn’t above swearing or saying what’s truly on his mind.

“It’s okay, Alpha. Fate works in mysterious ways.” I say trying to soothe his wolf. If I wasn't taken, I might never have had a chance to be with Stavros.

“Fate. Right.” Darius says curtly, but he is back in control. “Next is Interviewed Alpha Stavros and Beta Colin. No transfer.” 

“I told him I was working a contract. He also tried to bargain a handover of me with Colin. He was so p*ssed,” I let out a dry humourless laugh.

“Thank Goddess Giles talked with Beta Colin, not that Alpha of yours.” Ouch. Darius is letting his anger at Stav show, this time I can’t even blame his Alpha wolf.

“Stavros and I weren’t a couple back then, but he had no intention of letting me go anywhere.” 

“Getting to know your Mate is a far cry from forcible confinement,” Darius responds the embers of his anger reigniting. “The next line says Giles suspects Stavros was your Mate, but you were unmarked and unmated.”

“I agree,” I ignore Darius’s snide comments. I don’t need him remembering how much he hated my Mate back then, especially since we will all be under the same roof all weekend long. “The last part might be exit plan?”

“Or extraction plan,” Terri adds ominously. “The Elder’s Council was in on those kidnappings three years ago, whether we can prove it or not. They worked very hard to get you out of Stav’s safe room without being detected.”

“So the only mystery is who or what is WIC?”

*****

Alpha Darius ended up having to go break up a training fight that had escalated into a bunch of the teen wolves brawling out on the field. Whoever had been working with the juveniles clearly didn’t have the control over them that Gamma Jase did, but my friend wasn’t working today.

We hadn’t had a chance to go over my Mama’s files. There was so much I never knew about my Mama. The first page was a handwritten letter she wrote to the Council explaining how she met her Alpha and became his companion. How she found out she was pregnant. How she left in the middle of the day with nothing but me in her belly, she shifted to her wolf and never looked back. I excused myself to go to the washroom for a quick cry. Then I put away my tears with renewed determination.

I poured over every page of Mama’s file and studied every word, code or squiggle. What the file alluded to made me sick. The Council tried to piece together her history after my early shift. Mama wasn’t born into Moon’s Heart, which was the name of the Pack before my pr*ck of a Father took over and renamed and nearly ruined it. It looked like she had been shuffled around different Packs as a teenager, but I couldn’t figure out from where to where, not even after Terri printed me off a list of every Pack in North America. It would take a while to figure out what packs existed nearly 25 years ago. Things can change so rapidly in our world. We would have to create each Pack’s ancestry. Another heavy task, but we would need it to do if we were to have any luck with the other files.

They tried to narrow down my parentage, discreetly when Darius refused to submit me for medical testing. They had a hard time deciphering what my gift actually was, so they had rather smartly looked at the wolves who had a strong ability to ignore commands- My Father and whoever this ‘T of HM’ is. They pretty much knew I was Apollo’s brat but hid it from everyone.

Then there it was, in glaring bold letters on the back of the folder: WIC, $T-> A MR. I had a feeling that Apollo didn’t just fall in love with a young Pack member who happened to be gifted. He had a f*cking Mate and Luna but paid money to have my Mother transferred over to him, and he couldn’t keep his disgusting paws to himself. Was he using her for s*x or because of the gift? Was he trying to get her pregnant? Did he even truly want either of us?

I don’t know how long I had been stuck unmoving staring at the screen of my laptop. Tucker stepped up and pulled me from my chair. He told me I had done enough work for one day, I should go back to his parent’s place have a nice dinner, call my pups and get some rest.

He was right, I wanted to talk with my Mate and pups. Right now I missed them so much.