Chapter 048
CHASE
Cade paused to let everything he had just told me sink in before he said, "And then he said it's the weirdest thing he had ever seen. I know Hannah has had some weird stuff happen to her, but this... this is crazy."
Jace moved restlessly. "I just want her to wake up. I don't care if her hair turns purple or fucking green. I just want to see her alive."
Cade didn't seem to be listening. He shoved his fingers through his hair and continued, "Do you guys think the doctor is inexperienced? Maybe Hannah's condition is not as rare as he would have us believe. Gosh! I wish Dad was back from his trip."
Jace said something else in reply but I wasn't listening. Not really. Cade had just told me everything the doctor had said, his lack of a theory about her white hair and the theory about her body reacting like it was rejecting the wolfsbane. Something about those two occurrences stirred something in my memory. Somehow, somewhere, I had heard about similar things happening, but the annoying part of all this was that I could not recall where or even any details, which was damn irritating. The harder I tried to remember, the more the memory slipped away like something slippery.
A tap on my shoulder jerked me back to reality.
"Hey," Cade hesitated when I turned to look at him. "Are you going to say something? Anything?"
I blinked. "Um. I'm sorry. What were you saying?"
"We want to kill Asher," Jace snarled. "The bastard is probably responsible for what happened to Hannah, so I say we kill him, and we do it soon.”
"We just need the perfect ambush," Cade added, nodding in agreement. “Hannah would want us to avenge her.”
I zoned out again, my brow furrowed as I tried to remember.
White hair and getting saved from the brink of death... Where had I heard that before?
"Chase, are you even here?" Cade barked. "We are talking about Hannah, who is..."
And then, at that moment, it felt like a lightbulb went off in my head.
"I remember now!" I exclaimed.
I shot to my feet so fast that my chair nearly toppled over. Jace and Cade flinched in surprise.
"Sorry I wasn't contributing just now," I said. "I was trying to remember something."
"This is not the time for such nonsense, Chase," Cade rolled his eyes. "We need to-"
"Do you know where the keys to the old library in the estate are?" I said, looking from one to the other.
Jace scoffed. "Are you being serious right now? How could you be talking about books with everything that is happening with Hannah? Are you insane?”
I was already moving towards the door. I stopped and turned. "It's not unconnected, okay? I have read about Hannah's symptoms in an old book. At least, I think I have. If I'm right, then I might know what is actually wrong with her. And if I know what's wrong with her, we can help her."
Cade and Jace exchanged a look and immediately began following me.
"So, do any of you know where the keys are?" I called over my shoulder.
They didn't, but Jace had an idea that it was in our father's study. After a few minutes of searching, we found it there amongst other keys,and then we ran out of the house and towards the library.
The library was in a separate building on the estate. It was the oldest library on the estate, a structure that had existed for hundreds of years but had modern alterations made to it over the years. The building housed old texts and books that mostly contained information about the history of the pack and ancient practices.
The place was dark and dusty and filled with the smell of old books. It could be months before someone visited the place last.. As I stood in the semi darkness to reorient myself to the place, Jace went hunting for the light switch. The moment the light flooded the place, I began moving, between the huge, towering shelves and towards the section I thought my answers lay. When I got there, I began riffling through books, completely unmindful of the fact that my hands and shirt soon became covered with dust from the thickly bound volumes.
"So... what exactly are you looking for?" Cade asked after a few minutes of my search. “And how are you so sure about this? How does the book look like? Would you recognize it?”
"I don't know," I said, not pausing in flipping open books. "But I think I will know it when I find it."
"You sure?" Jace asked. “You don’t exactly sound reassuring.”
"I will find it," I said, mostly to myself.