Chapter 777

Jackson and Rafe stand up straight, their Alpha hearing picking up Daphne's sobbing shouts before I do. But the moment I hear her I go very still, my eyes going wide as they snap for the door. Rafe's already moving towards it, yanking it open just as Daphne reaches it, stumbling into the room with one hand raised, Mittens clutched to her chest with the other.

"Daphne!" Rafe gasps, staring at her, shocked. Jackson and I are already moving too, and somehow I get to her first, gasping in fear, reaching for her bleeding cheek.

"Daphne, what happened?" I whisper, wrapping one arm around Daphne's waist and pulling her against me as Jacks moves to look up and down the hall, already growling protectively, and looking out for whatever threat was chasing here. "Rafe, get the first-aid kit -"

"Where's Jesse?" Rafe growls. And I gasp, realizing his point - that something must truly be wrong- because Jesse would never, ever leave her like this - would never let her go running through the halls unless-

"She - she took him -" Daphne gasps out as Jackson steps back into the room and slams the door shut. Daphne's head spins to look at us all at once. I loosen my arms and she takes a step back, her whole body trembling as she cries. "The girl - the darkness - she took him -"

"Took Jesse?" I whisper, horrified and confused.

"Where?" Rafe snarls.

But Daphne just frantically shakes her head, clutching Mittens with both hands now. "I don't know! She appeared out of nowhere in all this shadow and smoke and then she kept saying 'mine!' and then she took him - and then they disappeared - and -"

Daphne's words fail her and she just stands, staring between us all, trembling.

Jackson and Rafe burst into action as I again step forward and wrap my friend in my arms, cradling her against me, doing everything I can to assure her that it's okay - that everything's all right - even though it absolutely, definitively is not.

Jacks strides across the room for the first-aid kit as Rafe turns on his heel and moves for his dresser, where the cell phone he used all week to keep tabs on me is still sitting. Instantly he makes the hall to our parents, explaining everything he can in as few words as he can.

That Jesse was taken - we don't know by whom - we don't know where -

Then his eyes go wide and he locks them with mine as Jackson comes close, reaching for Daphne with

some gauze in his hand, wanting to clean the three long cuts across her cheek.

"What do you mean?" Rafe says, low and slow. "That Jesse was taken...too?"

My breath stops in my chest as I stare at my brother and watch horror sweep through his expression,

watch his fingers sink deep in his hair as he listens to whatever our father is saying.

"Juniper," he whispers.

Jackson's hand falls and the three of us freeze, staring over at Rafe at the mention of my sister's name. "Juniper...is also gone? Vanished?"

My stomach goes cold as I stare at my brother, who stares back at me, as one question echoes betweennoveldrama

us.

What the fuck is happening to our family?

Things move incredibly fast after that, so much so that I can barely keep my head. Jackson and Rafe demonstrate their coolness in a time of extreme confusion and panic much more than Daphne and. Even Ben responds with cool action when we tell him and he joins us in the room.

Kel

Jackson keeps me close to his side the entire time, a hand on me at least at every turn as we get my father's order to come to the camp as planned, to bring Daphne. And while I would usually find it annoying to have someone shepherding me along like that, I'm so incredibly grateful that Jacks is constantly there, tensed and ready, his eyes wary. Because I keep getting worried that I, too, am going to be snatched out of thin air like both Jesse and Juniper did -

On the same day -

The same day that Atalaxia is moving against us with extreme force - But why?

Even as the helicopter lifts off and moves through the air, and Daphne sniffs next to me with Mittens clutched in her arms, and Rafe and Ben tatk quietly on the other side, and Jackson sits stoic with his hand on my knee...