Chapter 78: is it connected

Chapter 78: Chapter 78: is it connected

She stared, stunned into silence.

After a few long seconds the twins released each other’s hands. The current vanished. The chairs dropped back to the grass with dull, scattered thuds.

Amelia found her voice. "How...how did...this happen?"

Lila rubbed her palms together, still looking faintly amazed.

"Right after we woke up. We just... wanted to comfort each other. Next thing we knew, things started moving."

Lana added, a little sheepish, "We might have ruined our rooms in the process. We think your lightning somehow gave us a shared gifted ability."

Amelia couldn’t quite process it. Something that had nearly destroyed everything—something that had terrified her—had left them with a gift instead of scars.

"What if you inherited it?"

The twins’ expressions dimmed at the same time. Before either could answer, Kate stepped in.

"I don’t think so. You can’t inherit a gifted power like that. You can only enhance biological abilities you already have."

Amelia knew that was true. Still, the timing sat wrong with her.

"We still have to be sure. It could just be a coincidence that it happened right after... everything."

Marcus folded his arms.. "That’s possible. But we also can’t ignore the chance that you had a hand in it. Since when do you have gifted powers, Amelia? You’ve always been known as wolfless. With no special or even normal abilities."

Amelia kept her face as normal as possible. "I still don’t have a wolf. And I honestly don’t know where the powers came from." The lie sat smooth on her tongue. "I just... wish they’d shown up earlier."

Kai followed the conversation. "Anyway. We didn’t come out here just to talk about that. We’ve got some leads on the Underworld Territory."

He glanced toward Theo. The quieter man stepped forward a little awkwardly, tablet already in hand.

"I have a recording," Theo said. "From five days ago. During the incident."

He started the playback. Amelia moved closer with the others.

The drone feed was slightly shaky but clear enough. On the screen, several heavily built men in dark clothing moved through the chaos with unnatural speed and force. Debris crashed down around them as they retreated from the area, yet they smashed through falling stone and timber as if it were little more than an inconvenience—clearing paths, shielding one another, disappearing into the distance.

Amelia’s thoughts snagged on something Enzo had said earlier.

You saved our lives back there.

If these were the kind of men the brothers had been facing... did that mean even the Ellington brothers couldn’t handle them alone?

A chill slid down her spine.

Kate spoke as her eyes left the tablet.

"Amelia was right about something she had mentioned to me before." She glanced at Theo. "Zoom in on their arms."

Theo adjusted the feed. The image sharpened on the dark ink marking the men’s forearms. Designs that looked more like ritual markings than ordinary tattoos.

Kate’s voice dropped. "I’ve seen those. We all have. The exact same designs are carved into the walls of every secret room we’ve found under the college."

Marcus gave an exhale, feeling frustrated. "And that’s still all we’ve got. Patterns on walls. No history. Nothing about their sole objective."

Amelia’s mind shifted as she remembered something. "What happened to Dylan and Jade?"

Kai answered. "They’re under protection. Claimed their home was attacked by UTs—Underworld Territory subjects. We know that’s not what actually happened, but they scrubbed the evidence clean enough that no one’s questioning it."

Kate continued. "Those secret rooms have to be holding more than just wall carvings. We should start there again. And we could try the library—"

"Yeah, because ancient Underworld secrets are definitely sitting on the public shelves next to the chemistry textbooks." Kai cuts in with a mocking sneer.

Kate’s eyes narrowed.

"If you had let me finish my sentence, I was talking about pulling intel from other students and teachers who actually use the library. Every library has some kind of restricted archive. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that—your brain’s too busy being impressed with itself."

Kai opened his mouth to fire back, but Marcus raised a hand sharply.

"Enough. Not every meeting has to turn into the two of you arguing."

He looked around the small group, as he has already made a decision.

"We’re splitting up. The girls take the secret rooms. We take the library and pull whatever we can, like restricted access, anything."

A few more practical details were settled before the campus siren cut through the air, signaling the end of the break. The group dispersed toward their respective classes without further delay.

**

Elsewhere, in the private office of the Moonfist estate, the three brothers stood in a heavier silence.

"We’re stuck. Those people know how to erase every trail they leave. And we can’t get anywhere near Dylan without looking like the aggressors—he already claimed we attacked him."

"We’ll have to talk to her again." Enzo remarked.

Reid’s brows lifted slightly.

"Night Menace?" A short pause. "Yeah. It’s been a while."

He had missed that chaotic, sharp-tongued presence more than he wanted to admit.

Dean spoke up as he played with a sword, rolling his hair around it. "We should also be figuring out how to recover the memories from our past lives."

Enzo shook his head once. "It’s not that simple. Everything we have found says the same thing—it’s nearly impossible unless the moodgoddess allows it."

He turned toward the tall windows, his gaze was distant as he looked beyond the forest that spreads wide.

"Something still isn’t right."

Reid watched him.

"What?"

"Night Menace claimed the Underworld wants us dead so that their future plans won’t be ruined. But look at the pattern. The first time we were completely immobilized under that spell, Amelia was the reason we broke free. If she hadn’t snuck onto the estate that night, we would have been taken. The second time, if her power hadn’t erupted the way it did, they would have finished us in Dylan’s territory. Both times we were trapped, she was there."

He paused.

"If the Underworld is as informed as they appear to be, they already know this. So why haven’t they targeted her?"

The question settled heavily between them.

None of them answered immediately. There was a connection—something from their past lives that tied them to Amelia far more tightly than any of them had been willing to accept. Something they had begun to sense but still refused to name out loud.

Because if it was what it looked like...

It was rare.

Almost impossibly rare.