It took more time than Sebastian ever thought he would spend in Nightshade, but he didn’t care, not when his mate was on the verge of an emotional breakdown and becoming hysterical.

Before Sebastian got into the business of intimidating anyone into telling the truth, he made sure to calm his mate first, sitting her down and getting her to take a sip of the water they had brought from the car, before straightening up to face Miss Lara, who looked terrified and close to collapsing herself, with Julia supporting her by the arm. It was almost like they had never been put through anything like this before.

But if Sebastian had to pick a side and decide who he believed was telling the truth, it would be Viola without hesitation. She had no reason to lie about a sister she didn’t have, and she had worked herself to the bone to become a Luna for her sake.

Try as he might though, none of the people in that orphanage gave away anything that suggested they were lying. In fact they all looked so firm and certain on the fact that Ivy had never had a twin that it was difficult to find a crack in any of them.

"I swear on the moon goddess and all of her grace that we never had twins in this orphanage." Miss Lara said tearfully, looking up at the intimidating man who seemed to be trying to make her confess to something that simply wasn’t possible. "I loved Ivy and tried to protect her all the time from the mistress who ran this orphanage before me. If she had a twin I would never have hidden it."

"Are you trying to tell me she is lying about having a twin sister?" Sebastian said with narrowed eyes, pulling the woman aside to speak to her separately, not wanting to stir Viola up again.

He could see her sitting quietly from where he stood, peeling at the skin around her nails, and as much as he wanted to stop her from hurting herself, if it helped her calm down, he forced himself to pretend that the way she was pulling at her skin wasn’t getting to him.

"I am not saying she is lying, sir. All I am saying is that she may have things mixed up. I didn’t want to say this at first, but while Ivy was still in our orphanage, i noticed some patterns about her that set her apart from the other children." Miss Lara muttered, dabbing at her cheeks with her handkerchief.

Sebastian arched a brow at her. "What kind of patterns?"

"Ivy had always been a strange one, ever since she was a baby. We received her on a winter night, dropped at our gate in a basket. I was the one who took her in and cared for her from the beginning. When she was old enough to walk and talk, I noticed she would sit down and smile and carry on full conversations with someone no one else could see. When I would ask her who she was talking to..." Miss Lara’s already tired face grew more troubled as she said,

"She would tell me it was her sister. I never made too much of it and tried to keep that habit hidden from Mrs. Agustin because it would have gotten her into serious trouble. Many times she would set aside food and share it with this invisible sister. But I never imagined she would grow up still holding onto that belief. I am telling you the truth when I say there was no real sister here with her."

Having heard everything the woman said, Sebastian no longer knew what to think or believe. Judging from her expression and the emotion on her face, she didn’t look like a liar and seemed to genuinely care about what was happening to his wife. But if he believed the woman, he would also have to consider that his wife had been mentally unstable this whole time, and that was something he couldn’t bring himself to accept. Not Viola.

"How many children have you taken into this orphanage over the years?" Sebastian asked suddenly.

Miss Lara frowned and went to check a file before returning to him. "Since this orphanage has been in operation, we have taken in more than a hundred children and more than eighty have been adopted."

"And how many death records do you have, and what were the circumstances of those deaths?" He questioned again, his expression blank and unreadable.

"We don’t keep track of death records, especially not after our pack came under attack a few years ago and we lost many of the children to the fighting between rogues and our Gammas. We lost the death records then."

He looked at the woman’s face as if trying to gauge whether she was lying. He had heard about the fight with the rogues that had further damaged Nightshade, but he couldn’t fathom how the other records were still intact while the death records were lost. Something just didn’t sit right with him about this situation.

"Take me on a walk around your grounds," Sebastian said, not phrasing it as a request.

Miss Lara didn’t hesitate to agree, for even though she wanted to use the night as an excuse not to take this man around their place, as his silver eyes were terrifying, like staring into the bottom of hell itself with silver flames burning within them, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse. Besides, she had nothing to hide in the building that she didn’t want him to see; it was only that his presence was overwhelming.

Sebastian turned and went back to take Viola’s hand. She looked up at him with a lost expression, like a child who was lost in the middle of nowhere and had been approached by a stranger. Her expression stabbed at his heart, but he gave her a reassuring look.

"Let’s look around the place. You can show me that well while we are at it, and I will try to track the bodies inside."

Viola’s lost eyes came to life instantly at his words. She nodded and followed, moving ahead of even Miss Lara as she pulled her husband forward.

If her sister had been killed and thrown into the well, Sebastian was an Alpha, he would be able to sense if her remains were still there by tracking her scent.

Night had already fallen and the sky was darker than anything she had seen in other parts of the werewolf world. Sebastian turned on his phone flashlight so Viola could see ahead while he used his own sharp vision to his advantage.

Viola led them around to the back of the building, moving faster than Sebastian had ever seen her move. But when they arrived at the back she stopped dead in her tracks. As if not believing what she was seeing, she took the flashlight from his hand and walked forward slowly, shining it around and searching the ground beneath her feet.

"Where is the well?" Viola asked with a deep frown. "And the slaughter board that used to sit beside it? It used to be right here." She shone the light down at her feet. She could swear on anything that there had been a well in this exact spot, but instead of a well all she could see was cemented ground staring back at her.

"We don’t have a well on our grounds. We get our water from the river nearby. Nobody pays us enough to have the funds to dig a well out here." Miss Lara said, pulling some of the smaller children who had followed them outside closer to her and wrapping her arms around them as they peeked at Viola from behind her skirt with wary eyes.

Viola let out a short bitter laugh and pressed her hand against her head. "I don’t know what game you are all playing with me right now, Miss Lara, but I am not a fool. There was a well right here years ago and you didn’t use it for water but to hide the remains of what you did to some of the children in this place. I witnessed it once as a child with my own eyes. I don’t care about your other deeds as much as I care about what you must have done to my sister."

Miss Lara looked toward Sebastian as if silently begging him to reason with the woman, clearly unable to understand why she kept accusing them of things they insisted they hadn’t done. First a twin sister who didn’t exist and now a well hiding the remains of dead children.

Sebastian reached for Viola’s hand but she yanked it away from him and turned red swollen eyes on him. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"I am not leaving here without my sister. Leave if you want to but I am staying." She gritted out, stepping away from him. These people were hiding something and trying to paint her as unstable, and she could see in even Sebastian’s eyes that he was beginning to doubt her. Hadn’t he said he believed her not even an hour ago? So why was he looking at her like that?

Viola knew what she was talking about and she would stand by every word of it until they told her what had happened to her sister. Honestly, if they had simply told her something terrible had happened to Ivy it would have been easier to bear than this, easier than having them look at her like she was slowly losing her grip on reality, and the sister she knew was nothing but her imagination.