Chapter 158: Faye Is Missing
Princess kept staring at the entrance, her eyes fixed on the heavy doors of the club. She was waiting for her girlfriend to walk through them, but with every passing minute, the knot in her stomach tightened. The club was already filled with teenagers and regulars. The lights were flashing, the bass was thumping, and the party had officially started, but Faye wasn’t there.
She kept glancing at her watch, the glowing numbers mocking her, then she would look back at the entrance as if she could make Faye appear by sheer force of will.
MG noticed the way she was pacing and walked up to her, his brow furrowed. "Is there a problem, Princess?" he asked, trying to be heard over the music.
"She’s not here yet. She said she’d be here before the party started," Princess replied. The worry was evident in her voice, a sharp edge that usually wasn’t there.
"Oh... I texted her earlier to get me some donuts. Maybe that’s why she’s late," he said, shruggeing.
Princess immediately turned to him, her eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous light. She took a step into his personal space. "Why did you send my pregnant girlfriend to get you donuts? What happened to your legs? Are they broken?" she snapped, her annoyance flaring into genuine anger.
MG gulped, looking absolutely terrified. He took a hasty step back, his hands raised. The Alpha was clearly pissed, and he had no interest in becoming a scapegoat for her frustration.
"Look!" he said, quickly pulling out his phone and tapping the screen. He showed it to her with a trembling hand. "I’m not even sure she’s getting the donuts. She didn’t even read my message. See?"
Princess snatched the phone and checked the message thread. It had been sent 4 hours ago and remained unread. Then her eyes moved to the top of the screen, focusing on the contact name.
Mr. Starfish.
"Why did you save her name as Mr. Starfish?" she asked, her voice dropping to a low, suspicious growl.
"Oh... that’s just our nickname. I’m Mr. SquarePants by the way... It’s just a BFF thing, I swear," he said nervously, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.
Princess would have pressed him further, seeing how incredibly uneasy he was, but right now she had bigger problems than weird Spongebob nicknames. Faye was missing. That was the only thing that mattered.
She handed the phone back and pulled out her own, dialing Faye’s number. It rang and rang. No answer.
"She always picks up on the first ring. Every single time," she muttered to herself, her heart starting to race. She dialed again, pressing the phone so hard against her ear it hurt.
Still nothing. Only the cold, digital voice of the voicemail.
"Turn the fucking music off!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade.
MG didn’t hesitate. He rushed to the DJ booth and gave the signal to cut the power. The music died instantly, leaving a ringing silence in the room. Everyone on the dance floor froze in mid-motion, looking around with confused and annoyed expressions.
"Is everything alright, Princess?" Beam asked, hurrying over after noticing the sudden change in atmosphere and the visible tension in Princess’s shoulders.
Princess didn’t answer. She kept redialing, her thumb moving in a blur. "She’s not picking up. She’s not picking up," she repeated, the words sounding more like a prayer than a statement.
Then she snapped her fingers, a sharp sound in the quiet club. "Whoever has Yuki’s number, call her. Now!"
Immediately, Sasha pulled out her phone and dialed. The room was so quiet now that everyone could hear the faint ringing from the speaker. It rang once, then twice, and then the line went dead.
"Yuki’s phone isn’t going through. It’s turned off," Sasha said, looking up with a pale face.
Sensing the shift from worry to a full-blown emergency, Kiara and Beam began moving through the crowd, escorting people toward the exits and clearing the club. They didn’t give explanations; they just moved people out.
Malo suggested calling Eriko. When he finally got through, he put it on speaker. Eriko’s voice sounded confused; he said he hadn’t seen Faye since yesterday afternoon when she left to head back to the club.
Princess didn’t wait to hear more. She quickly opened the tracking app she used to keep an eye on Faye’s phone. A red dot pulsed on the map, showing a location on the outskirts of town. Without waiting for the others or even grabbing a coat, she rushed out of the club and into the night.
Princess returned thirty minutes later.
The club was now empty of strangers, leaving only her inner circle and Faye’s close friends standing around the bar area. They all turned as one when the doors swung open.
"Did you find her?" someone asked, their voice small and hopeful.
Princess didn’t speak at first. She just walked toward them, her face like stone. She shook her head slowly. "I found her phone. It was lying in the middle of the road. It was completely smashed...."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.
Princess sat down on a barstool, rubbing her temples, trying to rethink every detail of the day. She was looking for a gap, a mistake, something she had missed.
Kiara was the first to speak, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "Maybe she just misplaced it. Maybe she dropped it and someone else ran over it. She could just be delayed, right?"
Beam shook her head, already pulling out her tablet. "I’ll make some calls to the local towers and check the town’s CCTV. We’ll find something on the cameras."
Malo leaned against the bar, his expression dark. "She might be with Yuki. They were supposed to meet, weren’t they?"
Princess nodded slightly, her eyes distant. "She is. Faye told me she was going to meet her, Yuki texted her."
Malo frowned, his mind clearly working through something. "She might have gone to Blackjack. She’s been obsessed with searching for information on the Moon Wolf."
Princess looked at him sharply, her eyes narrowing. "What are you talking about? What Moon Wolf?"
"Faye’s been looking for info on this ancient white wolf. The Moon Wolf. Yuki told her she had some leads. They supposedly planned to meet a were-witch out in Blackjack to get more answers," Malo explained.
He suddenly froze when he saw the sheer confusion and hurt on Princess’s face. He realized his mistake instantly. "Oh... she didn’t tell you that part, did she?"
Princess was about to roar at him, to demand why he knew things about her girlfriend that she didn’t, but she was interrupted. Beam rushed back into the room, her laptop open in her hands. She dropped it onto the table with a loud thud.
"I found something," Beam said, her fingers flying across the trackpad.
It was CCTV footage from one of the traffic cameras. Everyone gathered around the small screen, their breath held. They watched Faye’s last known movements in Oakland. They saw her meeting Yuki at the pastry shop. They watched them get into the car. Then they watched the car leaving the town limits.
Princess watched with an intensity that was frightening.
Then she saw it. The moment the car passed a certain stretch of road. The driver’s window rolled down. A hand reached out and threw an object, Faye’s phone, straight onto the asphalt. It was the exact spot where Princess had found the shattered remains earlier.
The room went completely still.
"That... that doesn’t look good at all. Why would the phone be thrown out like that...?" Haley said quietly, her voice trembling.
"Beam, track that plate number. I want to know everywhere that car has been in the last 6 hours," Princess ordered. Her voice was cold, devoid of any emotion now.
"On it," Beam replied, the clicking of the keys the only sound in the room.
Sasha spoke up, looking at Princess with wide eyes. "What about tracking her scent? You should be able to find her easily. You two are bonded, right?"
She remembered Faye mentioning that Princess had marked her, creating a link that was supposed to be unbreakable.
Princess went silent. Her hands, resting on the table, began to shake. Her expression shifted from anger to a deep, hollow realization. Then came the fear.
"I can’t," she whispered.
Everyone looked at her, confused.
"I can’t feel her scent anymore. I’ve been trying since I found the phone," Princess said, her voice cracking for the first time. "I don’t even feel the bond. It’s like... it’s like she’s just gone."
