"W-what do you mean?" Maeve found herself stuttering. "The witches are involved?"
Melanie lost the sparkle in her eyes. The news rocked her out of her craze.
Ryan shrugged.
"Well, we can't be too sure, but so far, we have no reason to doubt it," he said and took Melanie's place on the bench. "We extracted all we could from Jake before we… Ahem. In any case, he had no reason to lie. I'm doubtful the witches would care if such a thing was exposed – if it's true, that is. Though, I don't know what benefit the witches would extract from eliminating just the aspiring Lunas. They seem to hate vampires and wolves equally."
Maeve's brain went into overdrive. Cold fear ran through her veins.
As if the witches on their own weren't already a frightening fantasy that was living rent-free in her head.
She thought of Jennifer Haslow, and the letters. If the witches wanted the Lunas gone, did that mean that the invitation to the Vales Gathering was only perfunctory? Was it meaningless?
Maeve cleared her throat, making a herculean effort to sound composed.
"What exactly did Jake say? His precise wording. Isn't it possible that you interpreted his words wrong?" she asked.
Ryan looked offended.
"What do you take us for? This concerns every wolf, whether they have ties to Glendale or not. We didn't half-ass the interrogation. Believe that," he said harshly. "Jake confessed that the witches helped them find your exact locations and figure out how much protection you had. Vampires can't smell us like we can them, so they needed some help."
Maeve damn near quivered.
Her concerns about the shocking knowledgeability of the witches…
'Fuck.'
Suddenly, she began to rethink the Vales Gathering.
"Wait. What if… What if the vampires and the witches plan to kill us all at the Vales Gathering? I mean, now that I think about it, if the witches have so much influence because of their… powers, they could easily gang up on us with the vampires and wipe us all out, right?" Maeve didn't mean to, but her mask faded. She was terrified. Her eyes seemed to bore through Ryan, looking for answers. She hated the feeling.
Ryan didn't meet her desperation with ridicule, as much as he might have wanted to. (He did.)
"No. If the vampires and witches had the power to do something like that, they wouldn't have started shaving away at the participants – aspiring Lunas – before the Vales Gathering. Aaron thinks this was more of a proposal by the vampires to the witches. By eliminating all aspiring Lunas, they would win the right to Glendale by default. Not sure if that's how the whole matter would end though. Witches are unpredictable," Ryan explained calmly. "In any case, the Vales Gathering is still valid, and trust me, there's a lot of werewolves invested in this. There couldn't be some open war to end a species in that one gathering."
Melanie trusted Ryan's explanation way faster than Maeve. By the time the hunky werewolf ushered the two ladies to his car, the former's bubbly, cheerful shtick had been restored and she didn't make any mentions of the dark conspiracy she'd just heard again.
Maeve, on the other hand, couldn't stop thinking about it. She was drowned in low, dark spirits, so much so that Ryan's words didn't reach her until he barked them a third time.
"Hey! Are you ignoring me?"
Maeve slowly turned to him from the backseat, looking annoyed.
"What?"
"I said, should I take you to your workplace or home? Both options are closer than Melanie's." When Maeve's face contorted in confusion, Ryan added, "I'm supposed to be protecting you, remember? Part of that is making sure you're not alone early in the morning or at night."
Maeve doubted whatever Ryan could do could contend against whatever powers the witches could use to kill her, but she chose to keep the thought to herself. Since it was still early, she wanted to go home, but…
She gave a look to Melanie in the passenger seat. The plump girl seemed to understand the reason for Maeve's hesitation at once.
"Oh. Sorry. I could—"
"No, no. It's fine. I can't keep where I live a secret to my enemies, so why bother keeping it from friends," Maeve said, cutting Melanie off.
Melanie beamed.
It didn't take long for the car to reach the Pages' house… and pass it. Ryan parked several houses away.
"I won't bother you in the afternoon, but you can be sure I'll be lurking," he said to Maeve. "I'll pick you up after work."
Maeve couldn't find the angel in her to say something nice. She got out of the car and walked straight into the house. She was glad that Bridget had already left, otherwise she might have needed to explain why she had left the house in such a hurry before. Mrs. Page didn't ask, of course.
Instead, she commissioned the girl's help in adding some complements to yesterday's muffins and scones. This helped Maeve's brain maintain some semblance of calm, but she couldn't stop dreading the fact that she was being watched.
She kept eyeing the windows and at one point, she thought she saw Tony peeking from the kitchen window. Her reaction to the hallucination was perfectly masked by the ringing of microwave, thankfully. Mrs. Page had turned to it just in time to miss Maeve recoiling, her lips quivering.
Maeve had opted to take care of the chicken leftovers from yesterday rather than to subscribe to a bowl of cereal today. After helping Mrs. Page, she took her food to the lounge and tried to eat it as calmly as possible. It could not be done. She fussed over her thoughts without end and rarely took a bite of the food.
Her journey to work was easily the worst part of the day. She saw many familiar faces in the streets, terribly paranoid. At work, she nearly jumped a few times at the slightest sudden movements from customers. She saw witches and vampires everywhere.
Perhaps the spell her wolf had cast on her through her dream was finally wearing off, and all the inexplicable calmness she had felt after the traumatic encounter with Tony, Jake and Luke was catching up to her.
The anxiety grew intense.
Maeve cursed so much that Chris had suggested bringing a swear jar to the counter. Whether it was meant to be a joke or not, Maeve didn't find it engaging at all.
At the end of her day, what she dreaded more than stepping into the 'stalker mobile' – what she had decided to call Ryan's car – was the fact that she STILL had to look pretty, perhaps even pansy at the Vales Gathering or else she would meet the wrath of the witches of the Coven of Mareeda all the same.