赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Alice looked back at Ashleigh.

“Why would you want someone you have described as sweet, quiet, and easily shaken to learn from someone you think takes advantage of people?”

Ashleigh chewed her bottom lip. She knew it didn’t make sense. She wasn’t explaining it right.

“Alice… I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. We never have and likely never really will.”

Alice smiled and nodded her head.

“I know a lot of great people, and I know that they would do everything they could if I needed them,” Ashleigh continued. “But, if I was in a tight situation, you are the one I would want to know is on the way.”

Alice tilted her head, listening.

“You’re strong,” Ashleigh said quietly. “You have been beaten and broken. Doubted, forgotten, abandoned. Everything that could happen to someone has happened to you, and still… you are strong.”

Alice sat up.

“I fell apart when Caleb didn’t come out of that portal,” Ashleigh continued. “I lost my values, my beliefs, my… sanity. I took it out on everyone I could and didn’t care until it was too late to say sorry.”

She paused, swallowing the lump in her throat and taking a deep breath. Ashleigh raised her head to look at Alice.

“But you?” Ashleigh smiled. “You chose to let Axel go, to go back to your hell… to save me. You broke through mind control to save a group of children and bring my dad…”

Ashleigh paused, her voice cracking. She turned and took a shaky breath.

“You brought my dad home while your mind was shattering.”

Alice turned away.

Ashleigh took a breath and cleared her throat.

“There’s more… so much more... but the point is simple,” she said. “You are strong, resilient. No matter what life tries to beat you down with, you smile and ask in that irritating sickly sweet voice if that’s all it's got.”

Alice let out a soft chuckle. Ashleigh smiled.

“Somehow, even with everything you’ve been through, and with the thick layer of snark and sarcasm you always cover yourself in,” Ashleigh continued, smiling, “you are one of the most loyal and compassionate people I have ever known.”

Alice turned away with a soft smile.

“That is why I brought her to you,” Ashleigh said. “Because you can help her see past the doubts and fears for her to grow into the strong, independent badass I know she is meant to be.”

“You want me to help someone find themselves?” Alice laughed.

“Who better?” Ashleigh smiled. “Spring tried to erase you, but you just kept coming back.”

“Like a cockroach?” Alice grinned.

Ashleigh couldn’t help but laugh.

“Like one of the few people in this world that truly knows who they are,” she said.

Alice tilted her head again. This time her smile turned playful.

“Are you sure you don’t like me?” she asked.

Ashleigh laughed and turned away.

“I’m sure that you drive me insane and that we don’t agree on most things,” Ashleigh replied, then turning back, she considered Alice again. “But, I have learned over the years… that I am not always the best judge of character.”

“Oh?” Alice questioned.

Ashleigh nodded.

“I know I judged you too harshly when you came into our lives, and for some reason… I haven’t stopped,” she said. “Even when you have gone out your way to try and help me… no matter how much I didn’t want it.”

“You are rather stubborn,” Alice smiled.

Ashleigh rolled her eyes and sighed.

“My point,” she continued, “is that I respect you. I recognize that you have a way of bringing out of people what they can’t see for themselves. I know that there is something special about Maeve, and you are the best person to help her find it.”

Alice looked away from Ashleigh and took a deep breath.

“You asked Axel to convince me to return to work because of a threat you perceived,” Alice said.

Ashleigh nodded.

“As I said, we were working with packs we had no way of knowing or trusting,” Ashleigh replied. “It was an issue of safety not just for Winter but all of the packs in our territories. It was important.”

Alice nodded.

“As you know, I did return to work,” she said. Then looking over at Ashleigh, she asked, “Did you feel safer?”

Ashleigh furrowed her brows.

“When Axel told you that I was taking on students, that I was training them,” Alice said, “did you feel like that issue of trust and security was suddenly gone?”

Ashleigh thought back. It had been two years since Alice had started training others. Since then, new alliances had been formed, and the international packs had become easier to communicate and get along with.

Their joint efforts to control fae numbers had been smooth and well organized. And while there had been a few misunderstandings and hesitations to trust. There hadn’t been outright fighting between the packs.

“I don’t know that there is ever a guarantee of security,” Ashleigh said. “But it’s clear that your efforts have paid off. Whatever you’ve done or learned has kept the peace between us all.”

Alice smiled.

“I rejected the request you made to Axel,” Alice began. “I refused to infiltrate these new packs, steal their secrets, hold them as ransom and threats. I refused to train other wolves to betray each other with a smile and flirtation.”

Ashleigh furrowed her brows. She didn’t understand.

“Axel told me—”

“Axel told you what I told him to tell you,” Alice interrupted. “That I was working again, as you had suggested.”

Ashleigh looked away.

“I don’t understand,” she sighed.

“Now, I will tell you what the job I do is. What I train my wolves to do,” Alice said.

Ashleigh didn’t look at Alice, but she had her full attention.

“When I heard your concerns and the concerns of several other wolves weighing in on the conversation. Including your brother, your mother, Galen, and Fiona… I realized that all of you were scared of the unknown. Even the Summer wolves, with all their experience in the human world, working with the international community, even you, who had already spent a full year outside these territories.”

Alice paused. She looked at Ashleigh, who tried to appear as though she wasn’t listening.

“It’s not surprising. The unknown is scary. But that made me realize something far more concerning. The fae had sprung up everywhere, all over the world. Our territory, the territories of all these other packs, and… all over the human world.”

Ashleigh furrowed her brows and looked back at Alice, who only smiled at her.

“I found stories of monsters, people being taken, animals being killed. Now, most of these were entirely ignored by the humans. They just assumed that those posting about them were making up stories or creating fake videos.

“I had Nessa help me create even more sites, pages, videos, and stories about these monster sightings. That way, the real ones would get lost in the shuffle. Then I organized teams to handle the sightings we knew of. You were on a few of those.”

Alice grinned. Ashleigh had completely turned to face her now, shocked by what she was hearing. She had gone on missions to remove fae from areas populated by humans, but she never realized that Alice had overseen it.

“I train my wolves to let go of who they are as wolves, to forget their past, their mates, their families… to blend among the humans,” Alice continued.

Alice paused and looked at Ashleigh with mischief.

“And yes, my wolves are trained to listen to everything around them. In their homes, in their packs, sometimes in the packs of others… and occasionally, they are asked to remove a threat that cannot be dealt with diplomatically.”

Alice shrugged her shoulders and looked away.

“But we don’t use those secrets to force anyone’s hand or to lean in one direction or another of any pack structure. We are only concerned about that which affects the safety of our mission.”

“What mission?” Ashleigh asked.

Alice smiled at Ashleigh.

“My job, their job, is to keep the humans from realizing what goes bump in the night. To keep them safe and unknowing, just as the original Lunas and the Queen that was our Goddess intended us to.”