"Anne, wake up! Wake up!" Strong hands are shaking me violently out of my sleep and I feel overwhelmed with nausea.
"Chris, if you don't stop shaking me, I'm going to throw up." She stops immediately.
"I'm sorry, but this is urgent. Three exclamation points urgent!!!" I open my eyes to see it's still dark outside. No amount of sunlight shines through my bedroom. Just darkness.
"Why the hell are you up so early?! Why are you waking me up this early?!" My mood swings are seriously coming out to play with the lack of sleep I have, but I think anyone would reacted the same way I did.
"I got their location," she blurts out fast. I look at her confused, but she pulls me up from bed and races us out into the living room. "You have to see this."
She pulls me to the computer that she's on all day and night. The light from the computer illuminates the space around us and I can see her face properly now.
Her eyes are bloodshot red from never getting sleep, face pale from dehydration, and just all around looks like the walking dead.
I look at the screen and I'm surprised by what I'm met with. It's a globe and there are red dots scattered everywhere. I don't know what they mean, but it can't be anything good.
"What is this, Chris?"
"New Orleans isn't the only place. They're everywhere. All over North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, North Asi-." I clamp my hand over Chris' mouth before she can continue with her panicked rumbling.
"Who, Chris? Who are you talking about?" I don't know if it's just me who's still disorientated from sleep deprivation or I'm supposed to be understanding what she's saying.
"The rogue pack, Anne! The ones that attacked us! I've been doing location spells all day and I couldn't find anything about them. They have powerful witches on their side. I went back to my computer and this popped up. It's no coincidence or luck. They knew I was looking for them and they sent this on purpose. They want us to know how big they are. It's their way of telling us to back off or else."
I look back at the map. This can no longer be called a rogue group. This is a world-wide organization. This situation just got a whole lot bigger. I've never seen any pack this big. There were some that spread over regions, but never this big.
Arsenio's pack isn't even one-third the size of this one.
"What do we do, Anne? I want them to get what they deserve for all the people they've hurt, but we can't do this alone." I can tell Chris is on the brink of crying, but she's trying to hold it in.
I breathe out a sigh, not knowing what answer to give her. There is no way we were going to be able to do this even with a pack. I take one more look at the map and make a decision.
"It's currently five in the morning and now I'm already fully awake, thanks to you. So, we're going to check out one of their bases here. We just have to be careful," I tell her. I know this is going to be risky, but we just have to stay far enough to where they won't sense us and we can see something that'll give us a clue on what to do next.
"Are you crazy, Anne? Your pregnant. You can't go running around like some vigilante."
"Then what's your plan," I ask her and she has nothing to say. "The longer we allow them to grow without getting some kind of information, the faster this situation is going to grow out of hand and we won't be losing only one person we love this time. It'll be everyone we love."
"Fine, but we keep our distance. One site of danger and we're getting out there," she says sternly.
"Don't worry. I've got Dragon's Blood by my side."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Ugh, there's rogues all over this place," Chris complains, covering her nose. The overpowering smell of fish coming from the rogues makes me want to vomit.
After driving for hours, we finally got to where the pack of rogues in New York are stationed. They're hidden deep in the forest, but to my surprise, they aren't heavily guarded.
There is this mansion sitting in the middle of this large forest. There aren't any guards in front of the mansion or any border spells.
This is weird.
"It's hard to tell if anyone has been here in the past hour with all these strong smells. It takes a while for rogue sent to disappear. I can't tell if anyone is actually here," Chris says.
"Want to do a stakeout?" I swing Dragon's Blood in my hand. I was actually looking forward to some action, but this is just disappointing. I've found out that everytime I hold Dragon's Blood, it turns me into a cold person.
I don't know what it is, but I feel this new power and energy, and I feel like going on a slicing frenzy. I get blood hungry and it's only intensified by my pregnancy. It could also just be my schizophrenic brain talking, but I can never tell now and day.
"Let's find somewhere in the woods to stakeout," Chris agrees.
We find a hiding spot and stakeout the mansion, waiting to see if anyone comes out or goes in, but no movement occurs.
Hours pass and the sun sets all over again, but nothing happens. I become hungry and I dread ever coming up with this idea.
"Anne, there's nothing here," Chris says, giving up. I'm about to agree with her, but I hear a car rolling through the woods and up to the mansion.
Chris and I freeze in motion and we hold our breaths, waiting to see who comes out of the car.
The shiny, grey Jeep comes to a complete stop and someone comes out of the driver's seat. I can see them clearly, but it's no one I recognize.
They walk over to one of the back doors of the car and open it for whoever is seated in the back. The person takes slow, powerful steps out of the Jeep, as if they know we're waiting in anticipation.
Without even seeing them yet, I can already tell it's someone important and possibly, the alpha of this "pack".
When the person finally comes fully out, I'm completely in lost of words.
Chris looks over at me with her mouth hanging open in the same expression I'm sure is on my face.
Before we can fully process what this means, a force hits me in the back of the head and I'm knocked out.