Part 2/3 of the triple update!!! Make sure you read the first one before you get here!

I wrote this to Betrayal by Ludwig Göransson, so you can listen throughout, or if you want, I’ll tell you exactly where to play the song for when I think it hits the hardest.

I’ll link it here (please ignore the Tenet poster🤣, this is serious business)

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Hagen: 11, Nikola: 6

Nikola’s P.O.V

Hagen wasn’t late. He wasn’t coming.

I waited every day, in the same spot I always did, and I even made sure I was extra early, just in case he wanted to see me at a different time, but he never came.

Mama said it was because he was busy with school. She said, a new term had started and it was a much harder year for him, so he didn’t have time to see me every day, but I didn’t think that was it. I think Hagen didn’t want to see me.

I rub a hand over my chest where an awful stinging feeling was hurting me, and try to make it stop before it spreads. But no matter how hard I rub, it doesn’t stop, and it keeps hurting the longer I wait and Hagen doesn’t come.

Today was a Saturday. Saturdays meant Hagen didn’t have school, which meant he could see me. So that meant… Hagen really didn’t want to see me.

The itching feeling gets worse.

I stand up and step forward. I wasn’t supposed to leave the house without Hagen coming for me, but he wasn’t going to come, so I had to go to him.

Maybe he was just sad and needed a hug. Sometimes Hagen got sad and he didn’t tell anyone, but when that happened, I knew. I gave him hugs and I made him laugh, and I did whatever he wanted until he was happy again because when Hagen was happy, I was happy too.

I go down the front steps as quietly as I can, looking back with each step to make sure Mama isn’t there watching. She doesn’t come, and neither does Papa.

Each step is a scary one because I think I might get caught, and if I do, then I would be in trouble. I didn’t get in trouble ever, and I was scared to know what would happen if I did.

Hagen got in trouble a lot. When he got caught, sometimes his Papas wouldn’t let him see me. Maybe that was it. Maybe Hagen was in trouble right now— the big type that meant he couldn’t see me.

I didn’t want to hope for Hagen to be in trouble, but I hoped for it now because if that was why he hadn’t come to see me in a week, then that would make the horrible itchy feeling go away.

When I make it far enough that I can’t see my home anymore, I start running a little. Soon, Mama would realise I was gone, and she’d snatch me up. I needed to see Hagen before that happened.

I follow the path Hagen and I always walked down, and I squeeze my empty fists tight as I do. I wasn’t very good with my magic, but I was good with my nose and my memory, so I use that. It doesn’t take long for me to get onto a bigger path where there are other wolves and witches. Some of them look at me with strange expressions, ones I don’t know what mean. I was learning to read people’s faces for the words they didn’t say, but it was still very hard.

The further I run, my legs hurt a little and my chest does too. I’m going as fast as I can, but it doesn’t feel very fast when I’m all the way down here and everyone is so much taller.

I don’t like that either— all the people. I usually stayed away from places where there were lots of them, but I had to do it to see Hagen. So I bite my lip, keep my fist tight, and try to only look forward and not at everything and everyone around me.

It’s very loud. Loud enough that my ears ping when people laugh too loudly, and my skin gets bumpy when so many smells mix together. I want to call for Mama so that she can put the invisible shield she did around me, but if I did that, then she’d take me home, so I don’t.

I did have something that would help though. Stopping in an empty space at the side of the big road, I pull my backpack from around my shoulders and carefully undo the zipper. Inside are my lunch, my headphones, and my wipes. I put my headphones on, making sure they fit right before I zip my bag back up and put it on my shoulders.

It’s better after that. I don’t hear much of anything and I can ignore the smells because I know where I’m going.

The pack is big, but it’s all linked together, and even though the alphas, Hagen’s dads, and all his siblings lived in their own big house, it was still close to everyone. It was closer to everyone than Mama, Papa and I were. I liked where we lived.

As I get closer to the house, the many smells start to fade away and then it’s easy to focus on the main ones that are there. They were fruity scents, sharp scents, sweet scents, and the one I liked the most, Hagen’s scent.

I’d slowed down a little bit, but the moment I catch Hagen’s scent again, I start running. I know a week wasn’t that long, but it felt like forever when Hagen and I usually spent so much time together. Even when we didn’t see each other, sometimes he made his Dad call my Papa so we could talk, or sometimes, just to say hi.

He hadn’t done that this week, and the last time I saw him….

I shake my head and I almost slip on my next step. I didn’t want to think of the last time I saw him. It hadn’t been like usual.

When the big house comes into view, I breathe a little easier. I didn’t think I could keep running like this for very long.

I’m barely up the driveway when the door opens. My breath stops, thinking it might be Hagen, thinking maybe he was waiting for me like I had been waiting for him. But it’s not Hagen. It’s his Papa, the scary one called Julian. Though he’s not so scary when he waves at me, but he’s not smiling.

Smiling meant a lot of different things. It was supposed to mean someone was happy, but sometimes people smiled when they were upset, and then sometimes people smiled when they wanted to hide something.

I didn’t know Hagen’s dad enough to know what his smiles meant, but Hagen looked a little like him, and when he starts smiling right now, he looks like Hagen doesd when he is trying to hide something that hurt him.

“Hello, Nikola,” he greets once I’m close enough.

“Hello,” I reply, but that is all I can say since I have to focus on breathing.

“Are you alright?” He asks as he comes down the stairs. “Did something happen?”

I shake my head. Nothing had happened lately, which was what he meant.

“Kat didn’t mention you coming over.” He’s frowning now and I know he’s thinking about calling my Mama.

“It’s a surprise,” I say quickly as I grab hold of my bag straps. It helped to hold them to stay upright. “I came to see Hagen.”

If Hagen’s Dad’s smile is really a happy one or one meant to hide something, it doesn’t matter, because after I speak, it drops a little. His face changes in little ways, pulling in the corners while his eyes widen a little, and he’s frowning deeper.

I don’t understand what it means, but I do not think it is good.

“Is Hagen okay?” I ask, taking a step forward. If I could control my magic like Mama, I’d already be at his side. I couldn’t, but as a weird feeling began to tumble inside my stomach, I thought I might be able to.

“Hagen’s fine,” his dad replies quickly, letting me go back to breathing like I’m meant to. “It’s just that he just got home from school. I don’t think he’s expecting you, Nikola.”

I nod, “It’s a surprise. Remember. I said it’s a surprise.”

“Right,” he nods. “But sometimes… surprises aren’t always welcomed, Nikola. You know, sometimes, people don’t want to be surprised.”

I nod again, “Yes, I hate surprises. Hagen loves them though, and he loves my surprises.”

“Right,” he says again, this time slower. “But…” he stops to think and I let him because I liked it whenever anyone stopped to let me think. “What if I told Hagen that you came to see him, and then I can let you know whether or not he’d like this surprise?”

He speaks to me like people did before they knew me. The way they spoke to kids because they were ‘too young to understand’, which is strange because he did know me.

But I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I didn’t want him to call my mama, so I nod one more time and say, “Okay.”

He smiles, and I think this is a smile that’s supposed to be a smile. He waits for me to reach his side before he walks up the stairs. He takes them with me, but he stays far away and I want to thank him for that, but my mouth feels weirdly dry as we go into the house.

I knew this house. I came here all the time for Hagen and it was never scary before. It feels scary now though as we walk inside, as if something big and bad is waiting. If there is, I don’t think it can hurt me because Hagen was also in there, and Hagen would never ever let anything bad happen to me.

“Why don’t I get you some water and then you can wait in the kitchen while I check on Hagen?” Hagen’s Dad offers.

“Okay,” I agree before I quickly add, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Nikola,” he replies, and I follow behind him this time as he walks to the kitchen.

It’s big and thankfully clean, with everything put where I think they mean for them to be, and there are no messes around. I wouldn’t wait standing up, so I go to the little table by the window and sit there. I would wait right here.

Hagen’s dad washes my cup after he takes it from a cupboard and then he dries it before he fills it up with water from the refrigerator. He brings it to me and sets it on one of the circle wood things that stopped water from getting where it wasn’t supposed to be.

“Here you go,” he says before he steps back. “Now, I’ll go find Hagen.”

“Thank you,” I say, “for the water and for finding Hagen.”

He smiles at me and even though it’s his third smile, it’s completely different from all the rest. I don’t bother trying to figure it out. I just sip my water and wait.

The house wasn’t quiet but it wasn’t loud either. I could hear people all around and feel them too, but I couldn’t hear their words if they were speaking. I could just hear mumbles and laughs.

I hoped Hagen was the one who was laughing. That would mean he was happy, and not upset like he’d been last time.

I don’t want to play anymore, Nikola.

I shake my head again. We weren’t playing. We were hugging, and then we weren’t and he was running away. I didn’t know why. I just hoped he was okay.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I jump, almost spilling my water as I look up and see one of Hagen’s brothers standing in the kitchen. It’s the mean one, the one with long blonde hair that looked like both of Hagen’s dads. The one called Damon.

“I’m waiting for Hagen,” I reply. “Your dad, Julian, is getting him.”

He whistles then and laughs a little as he heads for the refrigerator. I don’t understand it and it makes me shift my legs where they hang under the table.

“Might want to save yourself the trouble and get out while you can,” he says once he closes the door and faces me again.

I frown, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Instead of explaining, he shakes his head and laughs again, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Then he leaves, and it’s almost like he had never been here at all. Except he had been here and I knew that for sure because that itchy feeling was back and it was spreading all over me. I scratch at my arm and then my legs but it doesn’t help. It still hurts.

I didn’t understand what he’d been saying, but like the rest of today, it didn’t feel good. It all felt horrible and I just wanted my friend. I just wanted Hagen to hug me again and spend the day with me, telling me everything he could think of and then listening when I told him whatever I could think of too.

His Dad had said to wait though, so I wait. Only, it gets harder and harder to wait as time moves by, and it feels like I’ve been waiting a whole week. I finish the water and swing my legs. I look around and try to find something to think about, but all I can think about is Hagen and the fact that he hasn’t run in here to see me.

I think he knew I was here by now. His nose was better than mine, and this house wasn’t big enough for his Dad to get lost. So where was he?

I just think it’s a little weird.

Why? There’s nothing weird about me or you. You said that.

I know, Nikola, and I meant that but— I… I have to go.

I shake my head and I keep shaking it, but no matter how much I do, it doesn’t get rid of the itchy feeling as it gets inside my toes and starts sliding into my heart like a prickly plant. I jump from my chair and start walking.

Maybe Hagen’s Dad would be mad at me for moving, but I would say sorry after I saw Hagen and made sure he was okay— that we were okay.

Nobody else comes as I make my way up the stairs, and even with all the scents in the house, it’s very easy to follow Hagen’s. It leads towards his room, the one he shared with his sister. I head towards it and the closer I get, the more I hear the words that were hushed before.

“I don’t want to, and you can’t make me.”

My heart does a jumpy thing at the sound of Hagen’s voice. It washes away all the pain and aches, making them fade like everything always did when Hagen was close. I move a little faster, a smile already pulling my lips apart.

“Of course I can’t make you and I won’t force you, but he’s waiting downstairs for you and he doesn’t understand, Hagen.” That’s Hagen’s Dad’s voice. So he did find him. “He thinks something happened to you.”

“I just don’t want to see him,” Hagen replies and it’s like the words come to life and become invisible hands that wrap around my legs. They slow me down, making me stop walking as my ears prick and something sharp hits the hidden parts inside of me.

“Hagen…”

“I know you think he doesn’t mean it, but I swear he does,” Hagen says in a rush. “When he says we’re mates and he loves me, he means it, and before I could ignore it because I thought he didn’t get it, but he does, Dad.”

“You’re his best friend, Hagen,” his Dad replies. “You’re his only friend. He probably does love you, he just doesn’t know that there are friendship types of love and then a greater type.”

“He does,” Hagen protests and he sounds angry, like he had when I’d last seen him. “He knows there are different types and he’s saying he love-loves me .”

I did love Hagen. I loved Hagen with all my heart and then everything else. But he loved me too, he told me that.

“And what about the mate thing?” He continues, “What’s up with that?”

His Dad is quiet at first but he replies eventually. “He may be mistaken, but Hagen… remember that Nikola is a hybrid. A werewolf and a warlock.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, witches know their linkers at any age,” his Dad continues. “Nikola’s always liked being around you, even when he was a baby, and we all thought maybe he just liked you more, but maybe—”

“You think he’s right?!” Hagen yells suddenly, so loudly that it makes me shake a little. “You think we could actually be mates?!”

“I’m saying that it’s a possibility that we should—”

“No!” Hagen shouts again, and there’s a shuffle of something. “No! Dad, I’m not Nikola’s mate or his linker! We’re friends, that’s it! Too close friends clearly and maybe that’s my fault, but we are not mates. Now, I’m going to head out the back and you can just tell him that—”

I don’t know what Hagen was going to say because he stops speaking as he steps outside of his room and makes it one step before he sees me.

play song here and keep replaying

I couldn’t read other people well, with all their different expressions that meant different things, but I could read Hagen just fine. So I knew that the tight frown on his face was anger, and when it cleared when he saw me, what came next was surprise. And when his eyes looked between mine and crumpled a little, he looked sorry.

“Nikola,” he breathes, taking a step forward and then another as he comes towards me. It’s all I wanted for so long, for him to come to me, but now that he does, it doesn’t feel good. “You weren’t supposed to hear— What are you doing here?”

“I…” I try to breathe, but it’s hard. Everything feels tight and the itchiness is back and it hurts more than before. It burns now. “I came to find you.”

Hagen crouches in front of me as his Dad comes out of the room behind him. I didn’t know what his faces meant, but he looked sorry too.

“I came to find you,” I say again as Hagen reaches up. He touches my cheeks and wipes them, and they feel wet.

“Nikola,” he whispers sadly.

“I waited for you today,” I say, hiccuping a little. It was so hard to speak now, but Hagen liked it when I spoke to him. “I waited for you yesterday too, and the day before, but you didn’t come. Mama said you were busy with school. It’s okay if you are. I just wanted to see you.”

Hagen doesn’t say anything, he just keeps looking at me with that sad-sorry face as he wipes away my tears. I don’t know why he’s doing that, because they keep coming.

“You were just busy, right?” I ask, pretending I hadn’t heard what I wasn’t meant to. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want it to be true. “R-Right?”

“Nik,” Hagen starts as he shakes his head, looking lost. “We’re friends, and we’ll always be friends, but sometimes, friends need breaks from each other.”

I rub my arm, trying to make it stop. “But not us. We’re best friends.”

“Even… even us,” Hagen says softly, and I know he’s trying to be kind but it doesn’t work because it hurts so much. “If we take a break, then I can make sure we can still stay friends.”

“Why?” I whine, my lips trembling as I step closer. Hagen was right here, but it felt like he was going away. I didn’t want him to go away. He couldn’t go away.

“Because we’re supposed to be just friends, Nikola,” he replies quickly. “I’m happy to be your friend, always, Nik. I promise, but,” he shakes his head, “that’s if we’re just friends and you don’t understand what that means right now.”

He was right. I didn’t understand anything.

Hagen sighs, and looks down, away from me. “Nikola, I’m not your mate. I’m not your… person. I don’t want you to think of me like that.”

“But you are,” I protest, and the tears come faster now as everything inside of me hurts. “You’re the person I love the most and you love me most.”

Hagen stays quiet. “I love you like a friend loves—”

“You love me most,” I say again. “You said so!”

He had. On Valentine’s when he promised to be my Valentine.

“Nikola,” he starts but I shake my head. “Nikola, I think you’re way too close to me.”

I shake my head. I keep shaking it, because then maybe he’d stop, but he doesn’t.

“It’s… if we’re going to stay friends, then we’re going to have to be apart until you can think of me as just your friend.”

“I don’t want to be apart from you!” I cry as I rub at my face. The tears were making it hard to see and I didn’t want Hagen to go. “I don’t want that. I don’t want that. I don’t want that.”

“Nik—”

“Please,” I cry, wishing I’d never come here, wishing I’d never come looking. “I love you.”

“That’s what I mean!” Hagen suddenly shouts, pushing away from me so he can stand up. Hagen’s always been taller than me, but he’s never felt it. Not like this. “I don’t love you like that, Nikola! I don’t and I never will! It’s not going to happen! You need to stop!”

“Hagen,” his Dad says but Hagen doesn’t hear him. He just keeps staring down at me with those scary eyes and his chest puffing as hard as mine is.

“I’m not your mate, Nikola. I’m not your linker. I’m not in love with you. You’re a kid. We’re both kids and it’s weird that you’re thinking like that.”

You’re not weird, Nikola. Nothing about you is weird, don’t let anyone ever tell you that.

Hagen ignores his own words as he stares down at me. “So before it gets worse, we’re going to stop hanging out.”

“No,” I whimper, stepping back.

“Yes,” Hagen says, stepping forward. “Until you can get it through your head that we’re only ever going to be friends, I won’t come see you.”

“B-But—” Hagen always came to see me. Always. Ever since I was little. That’s how we became best friends, that’s how he became the one I loved the most. “Hagen.”

“No,” Hagen snaps. “I’m tired of trying to ease you out of this. You’re smart, smarter than me. You know exactly what I’m saying.”

What did it matter if I was smart? Everything hurt and I felt like I would die and he wouldn’t stop.

“I mean it, Nikola.” Why wouldn’t he stop?

“I’m not your mate.” I just wanted him to stop.

“I’m not your linker.” I wanted to go home.

“And I won’t be your anything if you don’t listen, Nikola.”

I stumble back, away from Hagen who wasn’t the one who’d protect me if anything bad happened. He couldn’t be when he was the bad thing that was happening. He was the scary thing that had been waiting inside all along.

I fall, landing on my butt so hard it hurts, but everything inside of me hurts way more.

I know I’m crying. I know I’m sobbing and I can feel my magic making things move all around but I can’t stop.

Hagen looks at me like he’s sorry, like he wants to cry too, but how can that be true when he was the one that made everything so bad?

Scrambling up, I turn and run. It’s hard getting out, with everything hurting where it had never hurt before. Hagen was always where it was safe. Hagen always made me feel better, not worse. Not so much worse.

I wasn’t supposed to be here, that’s why he was so angry. If I went away, then he wouldn’t be so angry anymore.

I don’t know how far I make it before Mama finds me. She looks worried and then terrified when she sees me, and I have to move as fast as I can to get to her.

“Oh, Nikki,” she breathes pulling me into her arms and lifting me up. “Sshh! Ssh! What happened?”

“Mama!” I scream, holding onto her as tightly as I can.

“He came to see Hagen,” I hear Hagen’s Dad say as steps rush behind us. “He was…harsh.”

“Mama!” I bawl, wanting to go home.

She listens, taking me home without waiting to talk to anyone. She takes me home and I feel her magic come around the house and me as she holds me close, rocking me.

“I’m here, Nikki,” she coos. “I’m right here, Nikki. It’ll be okay.”

It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t ever be okay.

Hagen didn’t want to be my friend anymore. He said he would if I didn’t love him, but he knew I did. I loved him more than anything so he didn’t want to be friends.

He said I didn’t love him the right way, but I didn’t know what the right way was. Wasn’t there just love? He loved me too. He said it. He said it. He said we’d be together and we’d be each other’s valentines forever, and now… now…..

I feel things shake and hear others break, but inside, everything falls down. 

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🥲

Good luck on the next chapter

And if you have any thoughts here, yeah…