Ava froze. She didn’t know what to say — or do. She could only hug him back. And they stayed that way for a few minutes until Phil let her go.
"First... I want you to talk to one... of my mentor." Ava calmly said, there was a complicated look in her eyes.
"Mentor?" Phil uttered. He looked at the other people inside the room. There were five including him and Ava. The other was Matthew, an old man called Gaas and then there was a woman named Baba. She’s a witch and Phil knew that from the first time he saw her.
"Yes. Baba."
"Why?" Phil asked.
"She wanted to confirm something, Phil."
"Confirm something? What something?"
"Just, please... I will explain everything to you. After she— "
"I will take over," Baba said. "This won’t be easy Mr. Woods. The moment I told Ava about this, she refused to have you checked. But there is no other way, is there?"
Phil took a step back. Baba was definitely smaller than him but there was something about that woman that intimidated him. She looked... fierce and confident. Don’t get him wrong, Baba was beautiful for her age. But there was something about her beauty that screams... death. It felt like she has lived hundreds of lives. Maybe even thousands.
It was intimidating.
"Ava?"
"Phil, please..." Ava said. "I won’t harm you. I promise. I just want to make sure that you and Gabi are safe."
"What?" Phil took another step but before he could even ask them what was going on, he suddenly felt his gaze turning blurry. Then his body hit the floor.
...
AVA WOODS
"A hybrid?" she uttered for the umpteenth time. "How is that even possible?"
"We already have his blood tested. We cannot be sure until we get the lab results back." Matthew answered with a grave expression on his face.
"Does this mean, he is going to turn into one of them, soon?"
"You know the blood that we found... on your car? It smelled the same." Matthew was talking about the time when Ava went to Amelia’s cabin. There was a note there that asked her to leave.
"You mean..."
"I knew it was a hybrid. But... there is a possibility."
Ava immediately shook her head. "That’s impossible. Phil would not try to harm me. It must be an impostor. That’s the only explanation."
"Or... someone else was using his body using magick." Baba chimed in. "That is another explanation."
"When I was with him. I didn’t smell any magick. I knew magick when I see one and Phil... Phil didn’t have those."
Baba and Matthew looked at each other before Matthew let out a sigh.
"The hybrids... we just discovered that the ones whose experimenting... might just be giving them a tablet so they could transform. The tablet would act as a switch that would give them the ability to become a shifter. Though, their transformation differs from that of a normal shifter." Matthew said. He then nodded at Marko who was just standing just a few feet away from them.
In response, Marko gave Ava a tablet.
"We found out that... the particles that turn them into shifters... just disappear into their bodies. It’s going to be hard to trace them. Exactly after an hour of their death, the particles disappear. It was as if their bodies dissolve them." Matthew said.
"So, it’s consumable."
Matthew continued. "Exactly like that. We thought... it could be some vials of liquid. Until we found a tablet. A small one. Inside one of the man’s pockets. Did you know the people at Romeo’s place? When you were taken? One of them has a tablet."
"And you think he is taking tablets... and then does something... things that he couldn’t remember when the drug disappear?"
"Yes. That was the only explanation why the smell of a shifter is faint on him. It was like... the smell of a dead shifter except... he’s not dead and he’s not a shifter. He’s human. A soldier. Just like the others that we found in Romeo’s house."
"Did you happen to trace them?" Ava asked. In the past, she wasn’t too interested in this matter as she thought this does not concern her. But everything changed when Baba called to tell her that her brother had the smell of a dead shifter or a lump of dead meat.
"Yes. Most of them were... AWOL. Some were admitted to facilities and just disappeared. Some were declared as missing by their families." Matthew answered. freёwebnoѵel.com
"So, Phil does not fit the bill. He has a family. He is active in the community. He has friends. When would they get the time to experiment on him?" And most especially... why the hell would someone do this to Phil?
"That’s easy... we can just let him answer our questions." Baba turned towards Phil, who was now awake in the hospital bed. "You heard us... didn’t you, Mr. Woods?"
Phil didn’t answer them. He was just staring at the ceiling, his hands clenched into two tight fists.
"We thought you are what we called... a hybrid of a human and shifters. You do know what shifters are, right?"Baba continued asking. But before she could ask any more questions, Ava moved toward Phil. She stood just next to her brother before turning towards Baba.
"Please leave us alone. I am going to talk to him... on my own."
Ava looked at Matthew. "Please. I want to talk to him. Alone."
Matthew’s lips thinned, but he nodded. Then he walked out of the room, leaving Ava and Phil alone.
AVA WOODS
"You knew that something was wrong, Phil." Ava started. "Didn’t you?"
When Phil didn’t answer her, she continued, "What is it? What happened?"
"A hybrid, huh." Phil sighed. He was still staring at the ceiling. "I’ve never heard of that before."
"But you knew..."
"Knew what V?" slowly, he turned his head and stared at her dead in the eyes.
"Did you notice something different? Something... I don’t know maybe you woke up somewhere. In the middle of the forest or... outside of the house."
"No," Phil uttered. "Nothing like that."
"But?"
"But something was wrong in my body. I felt like... I need something."
"Something? Like a drug?"
He slowly nodded.
"So, when you lost weight. It wasn’t because of the stress?"
"I don’t know." Phil shrugged. "What did your doctors say?"
"We are still waiting for the result of your blood test."
"And your mentor?"
"She told me..." Ava gulped. "She told me that something was clogging your head. She couldn’t get inside."
"So you let a witch..."
"I didn’t have a choice."
Phil slowly got up. He sat on the hospital bed, his foot on the carpeted floor. "You didn’t call me here because you wanted to talk about what happened to Gabi, right? You didn’t call me here because you want to tell me what the hell is going on." He clenched his jaw and turned towards the window.
"I did. I wanted to talk.’
"Because you thought I was this Hybrid."
"Look... a lot of people... thought that you killed Mama."
"What?"
"I know you didn’t. But they have pictures of you around the time when the other witches died. You travel for work so... "
"And does that mean anything, V?"
"It means that it’s either someone— "
"Are you really going to accuse me of something I didn’t do just because they have a few images?"
"I wasn’t accusing you, Phil. I was telling you that something was wrong. And I have to investigate."
"Investigate?"
"I had to know who really killed our mother."
"You told me you are not going to find out who did it. You told me you would keep yourself safe."
"Really, Phil?"
"I knew something was wrong the moment a second witch turned up dead, V. I called you. I told you not to come back."
"You knew..."
"Samuel called me. He told me about the second death."
"What did you say?"
"He also told me about the third death."
"So, you were investigating."
He nodded.
"And then?"
"And then I started feeling ill."
Ava gulped. Was it because of Amore and Romeo?
"I started losing weight. I thought it was because of the stress, after all, Marylis was pregnant and we were redecorating the house for a nursery. I did all the construction so..." he clenched his jaw before he got up and grabbed his coat.
For a few seconds, silence surrounded them.
To her surprise, Phil got some cigarettes from the pocket and lit one. He then opened the windows a few feet away.
"I hope he doesn’t mind," he said.
"You smoke."
He snorted.
"I guess you didn’t know me that well."
"You smoke when you were in high school. But you quit," she said.
"People change, V. Old habits die hard."
She blinked. "Tell me what happened. When did it all start."
"The illness started when I started investigating... our mother’s death."
"You didn’t tell me anything about this," she said
"You haven’t told me anything about your job. About that organization. About Samuel."
Ava could only avoid his eyes. He was right. She didn’t have the right to demand anything, especially after what she did. She left him to deal with his grief. She wasn’t a saint. Ava left because she was selfish. She kept secrets because... she was selfish.
It was that simple.
For some reason, her eyes started feeling hot. She gulped and lowered her head.
"Every time I called you, you say something about school and Europe and traveling to New York for some... research. Did you really think I was dumb or something?" he asked.
"I’m sorry."
"You never trusted me V. You never trusted anyone with your secrets. How could you expect us to trust you when you... don’t even trust anyone else other than yourself? Did you ever wonder what would happen to me if they just shipped your body one day? In a damn casket?"
He sat on the chair not far from Ava.
"Samuel assured me you were safe somewhere. But I don’t trust him. I knew you guys worked like the CIA. He explained that to me. You apprehend shifters and witches who did something wrong. I knew it would be dangerous. But I couldn’t say anything to you."
"Phil..."
He shook his head as if telling her to stop talking. "The illness started just before the third death. I remember sleeping a lot. If I went out of the house, then I couldn’t remember that. All I knew was feeling tired. I knew that something was strange because all I could remember was feeling tired but Marylis never complained about the housework. Everything gets done. The new carpet, the paint. We even have pictures together. I accompanied her to every check-up, cooked her meals, and did my job."
"So, you don’t remember anything?"
"I don’t."
His blue eyes found hers.
"I don’t remember if I was the one who killed those people. But... I sometimes woke up with the smell of blood."
"You— "
"I have no blood on me. Or my clothes. I just smell like one."
Ava blinked then avoided his gaze.
"I’ve heard that Marylis was in a coma?"
"She was."
"Then... I will take Gabi." Ava said. "I will provide him with everything. A nanny, security, and everything that he needs. As long as you stay here until we figure out who really did this to you."
"What about the people who did this to us?" he asked.
"I will take care of that."
"You mean... you are going to kill them?" There was a hint of disbelief in his tone.
"Yes," Ava said. "Those people messed with me. So I am going to mess with them."
....
I started a discord so we can discuss plot and everything! It’s still new so...
Discord: https://discord.gg/mR88WKrx
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