Chapter Forty-nine

I plucked my lips together and stared at myself in the reflection of the shower door. My hair was neatly pulled up into a high pony and my lips were painted with lipstick which I had borrowed from Rosie. I glanced at the clock and realised that they should be here any minute now.

With a final glance at myself, I headed to the entrance where I would officially meet Leon's parents. Earlier on, when Rawer had come to talk to me during my training, I had thought something had happened to Leon. In reality, it was just Rawer warning me about Leon's parents coming over.

Leon had made some sort of deal that allowed his parents to be released. I didn't know what the deal was but I knew that the deal would cost Leon something.

Once I was near the entrance to the safe house, I noticed a small group of warriors waiting there. I looked around, trying to find Rawer.

"Miss Winslow," said a voice behind me. I turned around to meet with my principal. "It's nice to meet you again though it's unfortunate that we had to meet in such circumstances."

"Yes, it is." I gave him a tight smile in return, my eyes barely meeting his as I tried to Rawer.

"I am sorry about your parents. That must have been really heartbreaking."

"Thank you, I really appreciate it. If you could please excuse me, I have to meet someone now." Giving him another smile, I continued with my search for Rawer.

"Ashley!" I whipped around to see Leon waving his hand slowly in the air. I didn't realise how much I had missed his voice until I heard it now.

As I got closer to him, I noticed his appearance and my eyes widened in surprise and worry. His hair was sticking out in all directions and his arm had a bandage around it. His clothes were wrinkled, almost as if he had been wearing the same clothes for a while. Behind him I noticed a few warriors forming a circle around him, almost to stop people from looking at him. In the circle formed there were three other people. One was Rawer, while the other two people were Leon's parents I assumed.

The moment I was in arms reach of Leon, I got pulled into a hug. I wrapped my arms around him and inhaled his scent- instantly regretting it. Instead of smelling like he usually did, he had a bad odor. I tried to not let the smell get to me but finally, I pushed against Leon's chest to pull away from the hug.

"You stink," I said, causing everyone to laugh.

Leon squinted his eyes, pretending to be offended by what I said but then leans in for another hug. I immediately Step backward, causing another roar of laughter from the crowd which seemed to have grown.

"That's what I told him, but he wouldn't believe me." The lady behind us said.

"Hi, I am Ashley." I extended my hand towards hers. She ignored my hand but accepted me into a hug. When we pulled away she smiled warmly at me.

"I'm Leon's mom, but you can call me Johanna."

"And I am Gavin." Leon's father extended his hand for me to shake.

"Nice to meet you."

"It's so good to finally put a face to the name."

"I'll show you all to your rooms now." Rawer abruptly said clasped his hands, gaining everyone's attention. "I am sure you all tired and want to get refreshed. Some of us more refreshed than others." He said winking playfully towards Leon's direction.

Everyone was forced to form a pathway for us became of the way the warriors had switched their shape. The warriors had formed almost an oval shape as we walked towards the allocated rooms for Leon and his parents.

Rawer grabbed my arm, pulling me away from Leon, who was entering his room. "Ashley, tell Leon to meet me in the meeting room."

Without another word, Rawer released my arm and broke free from the oval snap formed by the warriors. I didn't what the meeting was about, but it must have been important for his emotions to change so quickly. I glanced at the warriors' faces, trying to get a clue of what was going on, but all of their faces were blank. I realised that I'd just have to wait until the meeting is over to know what it was over.

I walked into Leon's room to hear the shower being switched on. I glanced around the room, to see that nothing much had changed except there was a bunch of files on his desk that weren't there the last time I was here. Seeing as I had nothing else to do, I grabbed the file at the top and glanced at the first page. The heading was

'All emails from Sarim to somebody via her official email'

Even though there were times where the lines between humans and werewolves were blurred I immediately knew that this wasn't something that was easily accessible, and if probably wasn't even legal.

The next page had a content page with all the years and months in order from today. Whoever had prepared this file clearly was very well organised. The next few pages were the most recent emails Sarim had sent to someone else. All of them were work-related- at least to me, it looked they were about to work, though there could very well be a chance that it was written in secret code.

I heard the shower being switched off and considered putting the file back and acting like I hadn't touched them at all, but then I realised if he found out I had touched them and I acted like I hadn't then it would just be creating an unnecessary mess of things. At this moment in time, we didn't need to worry about those messes.

"What are you looking at?" I craned my neck to see Leon pulling a shirt over his head.

"It's a file containing All emails from Sarim to somebody via her official email," I said, quoting the words from the cover page.

"Do you know who send that?"

"No, it was just lying on top of the files on the desk. Rawer asked me to tell you to meet him in the meeting room."

"Now?" Leon scrunched his face, showing me how tired he is. After his shower, the dark circles underneath his eyes were more prominent than ever and every action he did, looked forced.

"Yes, he sounded pretty serious about it too." Leon sighed loudly and rubbed his face with the palms of his hand.

"Hopefully this meeting is quick."

With a quick peck on my lips, he left. I wasn't sure of what to do so I continued reading the files. When I reached the third file, I noticed this file was the largest. I had to use both my hands to pick it up from the desk. The file was labeled All emails from Sarim to somebody via her private email." A part of me felt a little bad because we were invading her privacy but I then reminded myself that there were no rules in a war and that there were worse things in a war than invading someone's privacy.

Sarim had started using her private email almost ten years before she started using her official email. At the start of the third file, she just sent a few emails to what looked like a selected group of friends.

Over for years, the emails between her friends became scarce and she as emailing another individual frequently. I wouldn't say the individual was her friend because they mostly talked in short, formal tone emails. Their emails were mostly about politics more specifically the upcoming election. It wasn't the human election. I didn't recognize anyone's names' except Leon's. I noticed how as the elections got closer, the emails they both send become more frequent. The one person they talked about in almost all of their emails was Leon. 

At first, they were just stating their opinions, but soon the opinions turned to anger. I noticed how the individual, started pulling away and his emails were taking less frequent when Sarim started talking about murdering Leon or to help to rig the election. Sarim's anger had turned to hatred- the individual knew that. That's why finally his emails stopped. What was so very suspicious about this was that Sarim had wished him goodbye in her last email and he never replied back.