Four Alphas Chose Her Over Me, Until I Disappeared and They Searched the World for Me Chapter 07

Four Alphas Chose Her Over Me, Until I Disappeared and They Searched the World for Me Chapter 07

Soren and the other three stormed straight into RFRI’s Crown City office.

The staff member at the desk asked one question.

“What’s your relationship to Rhea Wren?”

“Her boyfriend,” Soren said, without a beat.

The staff member pulled up the file.

“Rhea’s emergency contact is listed right here. Your name isn’t on it.”

Soren’s face went rigid.

“She’s just upset with me.”

“Please. Just tell me where she went.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not authorized to disclose that.”

Kellan slammed his palm on the counter.

“We grew up with her!”

The staff member glanced up at him.

“Then you should already know-she officially started today.”

All four of them went silent at once.

They hadn’t known. They’d turned my room inside out the day before, and not one of them had bothered to actually read the agreement.

Lucian forced himself to stay level.

“We don’t need the exact address. Can you forward something to her for us?”

“No.”

“Then when can we contact her?”

“After the initial closed period ends. Five years.”

“Whether private communication resumes after that depends on the project’s progress.”

Soren stood there a long moment, then swore under his breath. “She’s really just going to disappear-and she

didn’t even ask us first?”

The staff member’s brow creased.

“Rhea is an adult.”

“She’s gone to pursue her own research.”

“Why would she need your permission?”

One question.

And not one of the four could produce a single word after it.

They’d barely left the institute when Soren caught the trail of my scent in the air.

They drove flat-out for the checkpoint north of Crown City.

The transport had been gone for hours.

All they found was the silver wolf pendant lying at the base of the stone ledge-cracked from where it had

fallen.

Kellan crouched to pick it up.

The back of the pendant should have carried my name: RHEA.

Instead, a gouged X ran straight across it.

Ronan turned and stared at Maren. “You carved that X?”

Maren’s voice came out tiny. “Back then-Rhea was giving it to me, so of course I wanted the name changed.”

The air went dead cold.

Ronan kept staring at her.

“And the coming-of-age video? Same idea?”

“Cut Rhea out and paste yourself in?”

Maren’s eyes went red in an instant.

“You’re the ones who said it.”

“Said you owed me a complete childhood.”

Kellan opened his mouth to defend her.

But the words made it halfway up his throat and died.

Because she hadn’t lied. Everything of mine they’d given her, they’d handed over with their own hands.

And every single time, they’d told me the same things.

It was just a few objects.

It was just a game.

It was just five years in the Northern Frontier.

Soren pulled out his phone and opened the group chat I’d already left-[Crown City Five].

The chat history was still frozen on yesterday.

Kellan, telling the “girl from up north” to crawl back on her own.

Ronan, saying I’d behave myself after two days.

Lucian, liking the nickname change.

And Soren himself, replying.

[Suits her.]

Soren hurled the phone at the ground.

The screen shattered. Maren stumbled back a step, startled.

“Soren-”

“Don’t.”

She froze.

Soren took the pendant.

The X cut straight through the middle of my name.

He dragged his thumb across the mark, over and over. It wouldn’t come off.

That night, the so-called five-person celebration never resumed.

The little figurines on the cake still stood in a row of five.

Not one of them was me.

Kellan sat on the couch and said, out of nowhere, “She came to find me before she left. Gave the medal back. Said she was scared there wouldn’t be another chance. How did I not hear what she was saying?”

Lucian looked down at the sketchbooks.

“We heard her. We just weren’t listening.”

Then, by accident, one of them knocked the laptop awake-and triggered the last video I’d left behind.