The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 152

Chapter 152

**Paige’s POV **

The forest is quiet and still. The only movements are the leaves as they flutter in the breeze, and the enforcers who are spread out wide, keeping a perimeter around us.

Remy’s the one who breaks the quiet. “There’s residue,” he murmurs, crouching beside the bank. “I can’t tell if it’s chemical, it doesn’t have a scent that I can detect.”

Ronnie joins him, rolling up his sleeves. “Don’t touch the water directly,” he warns. “Even trace amounts of the poison can be lethal.”

Before I can stop myself, I move closer. The pull is instinctive… a strange, magnetic urge that makes my pulse speed up. The creek looks ordinary, but something hums beneath its surface, like a heartbeat buried under layers of dirt and stone.

I kneel, ignoring Ryder’s sharp, “Paige…” and reach out. The moment my fingers touch the water, the world

seems to still.

Ripples shimmer outward, and light blooms where there shouldn’t be any, soft, liquid gold laced with silver, swirling out in patterns. It doesn’t reflect the sky. It creates its own light, pulsing once, twice, before fading into the current and turning the water clear.

I pull back, startled. Droplets cling to my skin, glowing faintly before vanishing, leaving behind only warmth. It’s not burning. It’s not cold. It feels alive.

The others stare.

Ryder is the first to move, stepping closer, his voice low and careful. “Paige… what did you just do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, breathless. “I just touched it.”

Ronnie’s eyes are sharp, darting between me and the water. “That’s not anything I’ve ever heard of,” he mutters. “I’m almost certain it’s not a gift the Moon Children possessed.”

“What does that mean?” Callen asks, frowning.

Ronnie doesn’t answer right away. He leans in, studies the water as if it might whisper the truth. “I’ve

studied everything I can find on Moon Children,” he says finally, his tone quiet, unsettled. “And whatever that was… it’s not something I’ve ever seen mentioned before.”

The wind stirs, rustling the leaves overhead. I look down at my hands, still tingling, the faintest trace of shimmer flickering under my skin.

“It didn’t feel dangerous,” I whisper. “It felt like it was… listening. Like it knew me.”

That earns me a few uneasy glances. Ryder’s gaze softens, protective. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. Whatever this is, we’ll handle it.”

”

Ronnie doesn’t look so sure. He stands slowly, eyes lingering on me with a mix of awe and something else

worry, maybe. “Let’s hope so,” he sighs. “Because that wasn’t Moon Child magic. I’m certain that was something older.”

The current resumes its slow movement as though nothing happened. The forest hums softly again,

birdsong, leaves, life… and yet everything feels different. Changed in someway I can’t identify.

I stand, brushing my hands on my jeans, but the warmth lingers beneath my skin. It spreads through my

chest like sunlight breaking through clouds, steady and alive. It should comfort me, but instead, a thread of unease winds its way up my spine.

Ronnie doesn’t move for a long time. He keeps staring at the water, his jaw tight, eyes distant. Then he clears his throat and straightens, dusting off his hands.

“I’ll take samples,” he says finally. “We’ll run them through the lab, see if anything residual remains.”

No one questions him, but I can feel their eyes on me. Ryder’s especially, that steady, assessing gaze that

sees too much. He steps closer, his fingers brushing mine in silent reassurance, and the warmth in me

steadies.

“I’m fine,” I murmur.

“I know,” he says quietly. “But it’s not you I’m worried about.”

Ronnie looks up from where he’s crouched, studying me again with that mix of curiosity and wariness that

always seems to live in his eyes. “Paige,” he says after a pause, “tell me something. What do you feel now? Any lingering pull? Is your vision making any more sense?”

I open my mouth, then stop, frowning. I try to focus, to find that strange thread that pulled me upstream earlier, but it’s gone. The hum that had echoed through the earth, that heartbeat I felt under my skin,

they’re silent now. The more I chase it, the fainter it becomes, slipping like water through my fingers.

“I don’t think so,” I admit. “It’s fading fast. The tug I felt earlier… it’s just gone. And the vision…” I pause, trying to recall it, but the details blur, disappearing with each breath. “It’s like it’s unravelling in my head. I

can’t hold on to it anymore. The water, the man, the voice… it’s all slipping away. I can remember how I

explained it to you all, but not the vision itself.”

Ronnie hums thoughtfully, standing and brushing the damp from his knees. “Then whatever the vision was trying to show you,” he says carefully, “it might have already served its purpose. Sometimes that’s how it works. The message burns bright until it’s fulfilled, then it fades.”

I tilt my head. “Fulfilled how? I don’t even know what I was supposed to do.”

He shrugs. “Either you’ve done what it needed you to do, or the path it showed you has changed. Visions aren’t always fixed. They adapt to decisions, to outcomes. Maybe the danger it showed you has passed, or maybe it’s shifted somewhere else.”

That explanation sits uneasily in my chest. “Then why did I see a man kneeling by the creek? And hunters, I remember that clearly. But there’s no one here.”

“Visions don’t always show things as they are,” Ronnie says. His tone softens. “They speak in symbols. The figures you saw might not have been literal people. They could’ve represented forces or events. Hunters might symbolise corruption… the toxin, maybe. The man could have been something else entirely. Guilt, sacrifice, warning, suggestion. It’s hard to know until the pattern repeats.”

I nod slowly, though the explanation feels too neat, too logical for something that felt so alive.

“Maybe,” I whisper. But even as I say it, a chill runs through me. Because while the rest of the vision fades like smoke, that image of the man remains, still, kneeling, hands blackened to the wrist, the darkness spreading from him into the earth. There was pain in that image. A kind of desperate stillness.

Ronnie moves a few feet away, kneeling again to fill another vial with the darkened soil. I can tell he’s trying to give me space to process.

“Could the man represent the poison itself?” I ask after a moment. “Something dying or corrupted?”

“Possibly,” Ronnie says without looking up. “Or maybe the part of the forest that suffered because of it. The earth feels energy. When it’s poisoned, it leaves echoes. Some beings are sensitive to those echoes, you might’ve just… seen one.”

The idea makes sense, but it doesn’t feel right. “It didn’t feel like an echo,” I murmur, shaking my head. “It

felt real. Like he was real.”

That gets Ronnie’s attention. He straightens again, eyes narrowing slightly. “Real how?”

“I don’t know,” I say, frustrated. “Like he wasn’t supposed to be there. Like he didn’t belong, but he mattered. The vision wasn’t about him, but everything else revolved around him somehow.”

Ronnie studies me in silence for a long moment before nodding once, more to himself than to me. “Then we’ll keep it in mind,” he says finally. “Sometimes the details we can’t explain are the ones that matter

later.”

I glance down at the water again. It’s calm now, pure and glassy, with no trace of the thick dirt, or the gold and silver light that bloomed moments ago. But when I blink, I almost swear I see a flicker of shadow beneath the surface, a faint shape, gone before I can focus on it.

“I’ll run these to Jake as soon as we’re back,” Ronnie says. “Maybe the results will tell us something the

vision couldn’t.”

I nod, but the unease lingers. Deep down, I know the vision isn’t done with me. It’s changed, maybe, but

not gone.

Ronnie’s already moved a few paces away, crouched again with a small vial and a pipet. I watch him, and even from here I can tell he’s rattled. He keeps glancing at the spot where I touched the water, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to fit what he saw into a box that doesn’t exist.

Remy shifts his weight beside me, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “You think she purified it?” he

asks, voice low.

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