We make it to the cave entrance, and I spot a small sitting area around a fire that has been out for a long time. It looks like there is barely anything left from the wind, just burnt rock under the debris. I place Jonah down, and my father uses his flashlight to look inside the cave.
Jonah runs away to a tree with some red and purple berries. I furrow my brows because the damn tree looks so out of place here. I have a feeling it isn’t supposed to be in these surroundings as such, let alone grow here and have the shady-looking berries.
Jonah quickly plucks some off and happily tosses them inside his mouth. He’s still chewing on the berries as my father approaches him.
“Oh, a mulberry tree,” my father point out, picking one of the berries off.
“Yep, I love mulberries,” Jonah chirps while eating some, his lips staining purple.
“Are you alright with him?” I ask my father, and instead of giving me an answer, he tosses me his flashlight.
I enter the cave, it isn’t very deep into the mountain, and it doesn’t take long before I trip over and kick some beer cans. Using the light, I spy blankets on the ground, a couple of garbage bags and some clothes, a man’s jacket, a crate with empty food cans in it, but that’s it.
It’s clear someone has spent time here and actually lived inside this cave, but I’m not sure if everything I find are just leftovers or everything was owned by them. While I would boldly assume some rogues must have found this place and cleared it out of everything of use, I can’t be an ignorant prick and take it as a fact either.
So, either I am looking at freaking leftovers after a robbery, or it’s everything an entire family once owned.
Stalking back over to the bags of clothes, I huff as I pull the clothes out of the bags and check every pocket. I find nothing of use until I pick up the jacket and rummage through the inside pockets.
Finally a lead, a club card with the name Marshall Peters on it. There’s a photo on the card too, and the man looks very similar to Jonah. I suppose this could be his father, but thankfully, I have Jonah right here and he can tell me who the owner of the card is.
I bring the card with me as I leave the cave and hike back to find my father and Jonah. They are standing at the edge, looking at the trees down the mountain. Hearing me approach, my father turns around and waves me over, a pair of binoculars in his hands.
“Found the camp,” he calls, and I walk over.
I pass him the ID, and he hands me the binoculars. “Marshall Peters?” he reads the ID. “This your dad?” He prods Jonah while I look for the camp.
“Yep, that’s him,” Jonah says, just as I spot the camp in the distance amongst a small clearing in the forest.
Alright, now that we have found a lead, an actual name of a relative, I can focus on surveying the rogue camp from a distance. It’s a rather large camp with tents and small structures set up all over the area. It’s big even for a rogue camp, easily a hundred people could fit. Children frolic around, dodging back and forth in their play and women hang their clothes on makeshift clothes-lines, chattering amongst themselves. Small fires dot the area.
“Pretty big for a regular rogue camp, Kat told me they have had reports of a growing number of rogues. It has to be because there are far too many packs at war these days, and people have decided to flee from their homes to stay alive.” Derrick notes next to me, and I nod, handing him back the binoculars. “What do you want to do?” My father presses.
“Nothing, let’s head back, I want to do a background check on Jonah’s father,” I tell him.
To be honest, finding this camp leaves a weird aftertaste in my mouth. I know we need to head home, but I still hesitate, if only for a brief moment. There are so many families down there. Children, women, and elderly.
Shaking the feeling off, I grab Jonah and place him back on my shoulders. Once again, he acts like the happy little shit he is and starts running his hands through my hair. God, I’ll need a shower after this trip. One with bleach possibly.
“Are we going home now?” Jonah asks.
“Yep.”
Sage
Jonah has once again managed to force everyone into panic mode. We scour every inch of the forest and the road leading into the town. And yet, no matter how far some of the pack members were ready to go, there is no lead to the little guy.
Even my heart beats out of rhythm in fear for where he might have gone. However, just at the very peak of the panic, Malik receives a phone call from Andrei and the worry fades from his features.
The entire pack seems to have regained the ability to breathe and exhale as Andrei tells Malik that Jonah has joined him and Derrick. Unexpectedly of course, but at least the boy is safe.
During the entire time of the search, Malik looked beside himself at the thought of losing Jonah, and he kept repeating to himself that he had lost Andrei’s little buddy.
Apparently, all Jonah talks about is Mr. Andrei and Mr. Andrei’s wife.
Malik’s words about Jonah fills me with some foreign feeling that I’m not, and probably can’t get used to. The more I listen to the praises that have come from Jonah, the more I wish I could have kids.
I can only imagine how amazing it could be. To have a tiny copy of my mate and watch this kid grow into an amazing person, to hear our child speak so fondly of us. And yet, I am sane enough to understand and accept that it’s impossible.
Although many things must be written in fate for Andrei and I, kids aren’t one of them.
Looking around, at the faces of the pack members, who were looking as desperate as ever just minutes ago, I smile. The moment we found out that Jonah went missing, Casen was the first to try to convince everyone that someone had kidnapped the boy.
Every single pack member dropped everything to go and search for the little boy. This is what it means to truly be part of a pack, not just a community with everyone living beside each other, but a family looking out for each other. I have no doubt that it doesn’t matter which member would go missing, the reactions would all be the same.
While I’m sure all of us have enough work on our hands, I find myself sitting aside with the rest of the pack. We are waiting until Jonah returns and we can see for ourselves that he is safe.