赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Galen moved to her immediately.

“Are you all right?” he asked, touching her shoulder gently.

She nodded, but she was struggling to hold back tears.

“It’s my daughter,” she said. “I was supposed to be at work across the city. But when I saw people carrying weapons… I ran straight here…”

She paused, closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath as her anxiety grew.

“My daughter is at school... I was trying to get to her,” she whispered, tears falling from her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Galen said, smiling at her and gently squeezing her shoulder. “I understand. My son is at school too.”

The woman looked up at Galen, and he nodded.

“He’s four years old,” he continued. “In Ms. Stacey’s class.”

The woman gave a sad smile.

“My daughter was in her class last year,” she said. “She’s a good teacher.”

“She is,” Galen smiled brightly and nodded. “That’s why when she looked out the window and saw something strange, she immediately went to work to get all the students down to the panic room.”

The woman took in a deep breath and let the tears fall.

“They’re safe?” she whispered.

“They’re safe,” Galen nodded. “And we’ve sealed off access to the school for anyone else. So, even if we can’t resolve this problem before the panic room opens automatically, they will still be safe.”

The woman nodded with tears streaking down her face and a heavy sigh.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

As Galen continued to comfort the worried mother and tried to find someone to sit with her, Ashleigh walked around the room. She observed the others gathered here. It was a strange sight for her.

The wolves of Summer were soldiers, scientists, and doctors. They were intelligent, rational thinkers and more strategic than any other pack of wolves. But here, she saw them huddled in dark corners. Crying. Afraid.

It was something that she never would have expected to see.

“What are they so afraid of…?” she whispered with a sigh while looking around the room.

“Have you ever seen a ghost?” a quiet voice asked from nearby.

Ashleigh turned. It was a woman with brown hair. She looked vaguely familiar. She was sitting on the ground. Her knees pulled to her chest as her head rested against the wall, and she seemed to stare off at nothing.

“Were you talking to me?” Ashleigh asked.

“Have you ever seen a ghost?” the woman repeated.

Ashleigh furrowed her brows and walked toward the woman. She knelt in front of her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

The woman’s mouth twitched into a brief smile before falling back into the vacant frown.

“Have you ever looked into someone's eyes…” the woman whispered, she paused to take a deep breath, “someone you have known your entire life… someone you have been with through the good and the bad….”

The woman closed her eyes.

“Have you ever looked into those eyes, the ones you know even better than your own… and seen a stranger looking back at you?” the woman asked.

Ashleigh swallowed but didn’t respond. Memories she hadn’t thought of in a long time flashed through her mind. The sweet and gentle moments they had shared, followed by the manipulation and control she hadn’t recognized. Finally, she saw his eyes. The cold, possessive, and jealous gaze he watched her with during those last few months they had been together.

In truth, Ashleigh had thought very little of Granger after his death. Once she focused on Caleb, on their new life together. She found that Granger had naturally slipped away from her thoughts. There was an occasional nightmare, but Caleb had always been there to hold her and surround her in his warmth and love.

But as the memories of her painful past floated through her mind, Ashleigh felt a cold in her chest, a tight, aching cold. She took a shaky breath.

The woman, with her eyes still shut, smiled sadly.

“It’s like seeing a ghost. The person you knew… there but not, gone, but not.”

“More like a demon,” Ashleigh sighed, pushing away the unwelcome memories.

The woman opened her eyes and looked at Ashleigh. She furrowed her brows and then looked away with a sigh as she shook her head.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I do,” Ashleigh said. “I have made mistakes in who I trusted. I thought I knew who and what kind of a person they were, but in the end, I was wrong. Turns out, I knew absolutely nothing about them. Everything they said was a lie, and trusting them hurt the people I love.”

The woman scoffed.

“That’s funny…” she whispered.

Ashleigh furrowed her brows.

“How is that funny?” she asked.

The woman took a deep breath and lifted her head. She turned and met Ashleigh’s eyes.

Ashleigh gasped. The woman’s eyes glistened with heavy tears, but what surprised her was the anger that stared back at her.

“Because my sister trusted you,” the woman hissed. She clenched her jaw as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

“What?”

The woman smiled as the tears continued to fall.

“We all did,” she continued. “But it was my sister who put her faith in you entirely. Who asked the rest of us to.”

“What are you—?” Ashleigh began when suddenly she realized why the woman looked so familiar.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she remembered the two women who had rescued her in the final game against Fiona. The ones that had put their lives on the line to help her. She looked at the woman again.

“Your sister…” Ashleigh whispered. “She was the one that howled… she dragged me into the safe zone.”

The woman nodded.

“She abandoned the peace for a worthy Luna…” the woman said, her voice holding a bitter note.