I met up with the M1 outside of Crookshollow, and followed it for a little way before turning off into some backwater village. I drove and drove until the roads blurred into one endless stream of black measuring tape stretching out in front of me.

I lost Bianca.

Raw fury beat out the hopelessness of Bianca’s final words to me. Of all the things that could have split us up, of all the crazy fucked-up pieces of our past that could have come back to haunt us, of all the stupid things that could have split us up, why did it have to be this?

I didn’t do it. If you really knew me, you’d know I would never do it. If you’re willing to believe Rolf over me, then you two deserve each other.

My hands tightened around the wheel. I wanted so badly to believe there was some way to fix it, but I couldn’t see how. Even if I could come up with some convincing proof that it wasn’t me – and I didn’t see how – and I convinced Bianca and Caleb to take me back, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back, not now, not when they’d thrown everything they claimed to love about me back into my face.

The road narrowed, and I rounded the corner, and came to a dead end. Roaring with frustration, I slammed on the brakes, halting the car in the middle of the road. Fuck it, it’s not like anyone was coming.

I’m completely alone.

I slammed my head against the steering wheel, jumping as the horn honked. Howling with frustration, I drew my fist back and punched the dashboard, cracking the plastic shell and sending a sharp pain through my knuckles.

The pain drew me back, reminding me what I was – a wolf without a pack, a cast-off from what would soon be the most powerful shifter clan in the entire world. Word would get around that Caleb had kicked me out, and I’d never find another pack to take me in.

I’d left my father’s pack in order to join up with Caleb. I’d trusted him and believed in his vision. I’d tried my best to help, to do my bit to make the pack a success. I’d done nothing but care about Bianca, try to protect her, try to be kind. But all of them had just assumed the worst. They believed Rolf over me. When they looked at me, all they saw was a criminal who would hurt those he loved just to prove a point. If that’s what they believe I am … I was never part of their family in the first place. I was always alone.

I’d thought I’d found a family, a real family that would support me through horrible times, the way the families in Mum’s storybooks always did. I thought I’d finally started to understand what all those fairytales were talking about. But it had all been a lie.

Family, love, trust … it was all a lie.

I’d burned all my bridges. I had nowhere left to go.

* * *

I drove until night fell, then pulled the car over to the side of the road, parked up, and tipped the seat back. My back ached from being in the seat all day. My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten anything since … I couldn’t remember when. The idea of turning the car around and heading back to civilisation made my stomach turn.

The moon shone in the window, taunting me with its hypnotic pull. It would be full tomorrow night. I’d need to be far away by then. My inner wolf was already desperate to be free, chomping at the bit to return to Crookshollow and fight Rolf. But without the support of the pack, that would only end in death. I longed to be outside, running in the moonlight, sleeping in the soft leaves or in the hollow of a tree. But I couldn’t leave the car. It would be just my luck that it would get stolen. And I could smell other wolves on the breeze. This was already someone’s territory. I’d be safer in human form, for now.

I closed my eyes, hoping that exhaustion would wash over me and grant me a few blissful hours of oblivion. But as soon as my eyelids closed, Bianca’s face danced across my vision, her blazing eyes burning me as she banished me from the home we’d built together.

My fingers flew to the wedding band on my finger. The metal felt ice cold.

Bianca. How could you think I would do such a horrible thing? How could we be so close, and yet you didn’t know me at all?

* * *

Light blared in front of my eyes, pounding inside my skull. I opened my eyes, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Blinding light blared through the windscreen. The sun had well and truly risen.

I tried to roll over. A cramp arced down my side. The gear shift dug into my thigh. My temples throbbed. I used to sleep in a hollowed-out car when I lived in the forest, but then, I’d mostly stayed in my wolf form. Clearly, Ladas weren’t designed with the comfort of humans as a forethought.

I leaned over the backseat, searching through my backpack for a muesli bar. I know I have a stash from when I went to the library … maybe they’re buried under my clothes … My hand brushed something hard and square.

Silvia’s scrapbook.

In my haste to throw as much stuff as possible into the car, I must’ve picked it up by mistake. Guilt sliced through me. Bianca loved that scrapbook, and it rightfully belonged to her. I pulled the volume out and rested it on my lap while I tore the end off the wrapper of a muesli bar and shoved the whole thing in my mouth. I opened the book, sniffing the edge of the page. A pang shot through my chest as a whiff of Bianca’s spicy perfume wafted past my face.

I slammed the book shut again, and tossed it on the passenger seat, the rage rising in my gut once more. But after a few moments, I dragged the book back onto my lap and flipped it open to a random entry. Right now, Silvia Sinclair was the closest person I had to a friend.

I didn’t bother reading the entries – I knew most of them by heart. Instead, I stared at the illustrations and scraps of fabric and lace that had been lovingly glued into the pages.

I paused on one particular page – the entry where Silvia had first declared her love for Hattie, and alluded to their night together in illicit discovery. The image printed on the page was of a woman’s silhouette, her hair rendered in an elaborate period style. Silvia had use a scrap of ivory lace and a blue ribbon to create a bridal dress. Another scrap of lace formed a veil. Silvia had coloured in the bride’s hair with golden pastels. I knew from the portrait that Silvia's hair was brown, so I guessed she was trying to draw Hattie. I noticed Silvia had made other doodles on the page with ink and pastel. She’d even drawn in a choker around the bride’s neck, and a …

Hang on.

I squinted at the picture, wondering how no one else had ever noticed it before. On the hand of the bride in the image was a beautiful ring rendered in tiny, perfect detail – two coiled snakes and a red stone.

The Benedict Ring.

Silvia drew Hattie wearing the Benedict Ring.

Excited now, I turned the pages, forgetting the words entirely and just focusing on the many tiny doodles Silvia had made on the pages. There were so many details we hadn’t even looked at, like little hands reaching out of cupboards to pluck cakes from the kitchen while the cook’s back was turned (Hattie, I presumed), or a funny doodle of a boy carrying a huge stack of groceries and bags down the street, while a girl walked next to him and laughed. I wondered if the boy was meant to be Ben, the gardener’s son.

I noticed a couple of the other female silhouettes had been turned into Hattie, with their hair coloured golden and their lips drawn on in blood-red.

I couldn’t believe it. Everyone who’d looked at the book, even me, had been so focused on the words that we completely overlooked the hundreds of images that brought to life Silvia and Hattie’s relationship. There were love hearts and lips and kisses, cakes and card games and teacups, hands reaching for each other and gift boxes tied up with string.

I came to the page where Silvia wrote about Hattie’s death. My book fell open on my lap. My fingers dug into the seat as I focused on the image.

The printed figure on the page was a woman holding a bouquet of flowers, the obvious idea being that the scrapbooker would place a posy of dried flowers over the space. Here, Silvia had placed a single white dried flower, now grey and brittle with age. The girl’s eyes had been crossed over with black ink, and Silvia had drawn a long cloak around her body, or perhaps it was a shroud. A thick black line around the picture formed the distinctive shape of a coffin, and a dove flew overhead.

Bloody hell, she’s drawn Hattie in death. How did I never noticed it before?

I squinted at all the details, taking in the love and devotion that Silvia had rendered her lover. My heart pounded as I noticed that Silvia had added jewellery to the image. At the nape of the woman’s neck, hanging from a string, the edge of a tiny ring with a red stone peeked out from the edge of the cloak.

The ring … it was around Hattie’s neck when she died. Somehow, Silvia had it buried with her.

Find Hattie’s grave, and you find the Benedict Ring.

I reached across the seat to grab my phone. Wait until I told Bianca. She won’t believe it—

As soon as my hand grazed the edge of my phone case, I remembered. I couldn’t call Bianca. She hated me. I couldn’t call Caleb, either, and by now word would have spread to everyone in the pack. Not one of them would take a call from me.

You don’t owe them anything, I reminded myself. You could just toss the book out the window, and drive on. After all, you’re the one who’s been wrongly accused, and if you’re caught near Lowe territory in your wolf form …

Sighing, I set the seat upright, tossed the book onto the seat beside me, and jammed the key in the ignition.

Looks like I’m going back to Crookshollow.