Fated Triad: Shadows of the Forbidden Moon
Chapter 13: Secrets of Betrayal

Ariel's POV

I stopped battling for a second while my mind flew. Though I could not identify it, the voice seemed familiar. Squinting, I tried to make out the face of the individual in the low light.

The person stopped then gently let me go. My heart beating, I staggered back to at last have a decent look at them.

"Lucas?," wondered I mumbled, my voice confused and terrified.

He emerged from the shadows, his face white and eyes mixed with both terror and will. You have to pay attention to me, Ariel. You are in peril, but there is no time to explain.

My brain spun. In Alan's life, Lucas had always been a mystery-someone who was constantly in the background, never entirely clear about his actual goals. Though I didn't trust him, his eyes revealed that something was obviously wrong. "What are you chatting about?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "Where is Alan? Whose is it?

Lucas turned to check over his shoulder, as though he expected someone to explode right now. "Time runs short." You are in trouble as Alan is. We ought to leave this place. right now.

My instincts screaming at me to flee, I stepped back to distance this stranger who had suddenly materialized from nowhere. But I hesitated at something in his voice.

"What kind of disturbance?" I asked, my head whirling with options.

Lucas ran a hand through his hair, frustration clearly on his face. "It's complex." There are, however, some deadly persons after Alan. And today they are also here for you.

As his comments sank in, a frigid sensation enveloped me. Alan has been acting somewhat weirdly recently and quite covertly. Though I knew something was wrong, I never thought it would be this.

"Why?," asks My voice just above a whisper, I asked. "What did Alan do?"

Lucas's eyes darkened, and for a split second I saw a flutter of something-regret, perhaps cross his face. "He started hanging around the wrong crowd. tried to shield you, but right now everything is disintegrating. We have to head, Ariel. Any minute will see them here.

My heart was hammering so hard I could hardly think clearly. I wanted to weep, yell, and demand responses. But timing was not allowing for that. Lucas was correct-we had to get moved.

My hands shaking, I pulled on my coat from the rack at the door. "Where are we heading?"?

"Somewhere safe," Lucas answered, his voice steady. But we have to go quickly.

I nodded after just a second of hesitation. Though not entirely, I didn't trust Lucas; if he was speaking the truth, then staying here was far too risky. I had to locate Alan and check on his situation.

Moving silently and fast, we left the home out into the night. The streets were vacant, the gloom enveloping us like a stifling blanket. Though I kept them to myself, my head was running through inquiries. If we survived, later on there would be time for responses.

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I observed an automobile tucked in the shadows as we rounded a curve. Lucas gestured for me to enter, and I stopped just a moment before sliding into the passenger side seat. He slid into the driver's side, and within seconds we were racing down the road, well behind my house and my sense of safety.

Unspoken worries and unresolved questions permeated the quiet in the drive. Lucas grasped the steering wheel, his eyes flickering between the road and the rearview mirror, and I could feel the strain radiating off him. "Where's Alan?" At last, unable to keep the question to myself any longer, I inquired.

Lucas tightened his jaw and turned away from me. "I don't know. Finally I saw him at the warehouse, but...

"But what?" I pressed, my heart still sinking at his expression.

"There was an attack," he murmured softly, his voice tinged with both dread and rage. "He was unconscious when I left; he vanished when I returned. And there was blood, far too much.

The ground seemed to have been lifted from under me. Trying to understand what he was saying, my brain spun. Alan was injured probably worse and now he was missing. "Who did this?" Whispering, my voice quivering with terror.

Lucas waved his head. Though I'm not sure exactly, I have suspicions. Someone a dark figure has been dragging the strings behind-stage. Though I have been looking for them, they always appear one step ahead.

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A shadowy figure? The whole thing sounded as though it belonged in a dream. Alan was then enmeshed in it, as was I.

"We have to locate him," I replied, speaking more forcefully now. "We have to track Alan and get him out of this."

Lucas nodded with a gloomy look. "I'm working on it." But we have to be clever about this. We will both die- or worse if we hurry in without a strategy.

His words descended upon me and for a moment I felt totally overwhelmed. But then I considered Alan of the look in his eyes the last time I saw him, the terror and will blending together. I had not given up on him. Not I would. "Tell me what I can do," I said with a determined voice.

Lucas looked at me, his eyes darting across my face. " Stay near me for now. We will locate a safe spot for me to lie low and get additional information. Knowing what we are up against will help us to move.

I nodded, my worried heart weighing me. Though hardly a strategy, it was better than nothing. I simply hoped we were not late.

For what felt like hours, we drove silently, the anxiety in the car rising every minute. My thoughts kept returning to Alan, to the anxiety and uncertainty he had been carrying for weeks. Now he was the one needing saving; he had been trying to guard me.

Lucas abruptly veered off the main route and onto a small, meandering lane as we got toward the outskirts of the city. The trees closed in all around us, and the headlights of the automobile hardly pierced the gloom. The sensation that we were under observation, that something or someone might materialize from the shadows at any minute, would not go away.

At last we came to a little, run-down cabin buried far into the forest. Lucas pulled out after parking the car and waved for me to follow.