Chapter 34: Betrayed and Banished
On Alex's fifteenth day at the encampment, something happened.
A crowd had gathered outside his modest camp. The murmur of voices, sharp and seething, stirred the morning air like a swarm of angry bees. Alex, still half-lost in sleep, was rudely jolted awake when two figures stormed in and dragged him outside. The cold bite of the dawn wind and the rough tugging snapped him fully alert.
His grogginess faded the moment he saw the eyes.
Eyes brimming with hatred. Glares laced with venom. Anger and contempt swirled like a storm around him.
It wasn't new. Alex had grown familiar with the stench of false judgment. But then—he saw her.
Anna Greymoor. Crying. Her face buried in the shoulder of a girl clad in sleek, black leather—Meika Noctshade. Her expression was thunder incarnate.
Behind her stood two other girls Alex hadn't seen since arriving—Rina Roarhart and Selene Frostreign. They glared at him with the same cold accusation that pierced deeper than blades.
Then Alex's eyes swept to the other side—boys, each gaze like a predator's, hyenas leashed with rope, ready to pounce the moment it snapped.
"What's going on here?" Alex demanded, locking eyes with Meika Noctshade. His voice was calm, but his heart pounded like war drums. "Why is everyone ready to jump on me?"
Meika's fury flared like fire. Her voice sliced through the murmurs like a whip.
"You dare?" she screamed.