Valerian POV

A few hours earlier.

“Valarian, are you dressed yet?” Mum yells out to me. I grab the piece of paper with my dad’s address on it and a small list I made of his description. Mum said I should recognize him, and the funny feeling I get in my tummy should tell me he is my dad.

“Coming, mum, ” I call back to her while unfolding the paper again because the corners didn’t match. Why doesn’t it match? I refold it. Casey walks into the room, and I hate how she taps on my door. Two taps, it should be three, odd numbers, odd numbers. I try to refold the paper, but her knock irritates me making me stuff the corners up again.

“Valarian, we are gonna be late,” mum calls again.

“Casey, knock, ” I snap, not meaning to. Casey was my best friend.

“I forgot, you are so weird, Vally, ” Casey laughs but knocks on the door again, and I let out a breath. I know the other kids think I am weird, they all do but I don’t mind when Casey says it, she doesn’t mean it in a mean way.

” Did you get it?” I whisper to Casey and she kneels pulling her bag off her shoulder and pulling out torn pieces of paper.

“I tore them out,” she says excitedly before stuffing them back in her bag when we hear footsteps.

“Valarian, come on, come on,” Mum says ushering us out of the bedroom, Casey giggles at our little secret. Today I find my dad. Mum is getting sick, I know she hides it, but I see the puffiness under her eyes, how she is always too tired to play and lately she has been falling asleep when she reads to me, she never has time, time, time, never enough time to play with me anymore. Dad will have time for me, I know he will have time, or I hope he does, then maybe he can make mum not so tired no more.

Maybe then she will play more , I miss when mum played but now she gets tired too quickly and needs to rest. She thinks I don’t notice but I notice everything about mum, she is the best mummy.

I follow mum out of the house, trying not to think of the torn- up phone book pages. I wanted the maps, I wasn’t sure how to read the maps, but it can’t be that hard, like a pirates map, dad is the golden chest at the end, and I was going to find him and surprise mum.

“Valarian seatbelt, ” mum hisses; she was always in a hurry. I clip my belt in and Casey does hers, and then mum puts the car stick on the D, and the car moves and we are on our way to school.

We stop out the front of my school. My teacher is waiting out the front, I don’t like her, and she always smells funny, smells like burnt grass and cigarette smoke, and she talks too slow. Mum gets out of the car and opens my door before walking me to the gate.

“Aunty Macey is picking you and Casey up, I have roster meetings this afternoon, okay, but I should be home for dinner, ” mum tells me with a kiss on the cheek before she rushes back to the car, honking the horn as she leaves. I hated when she did that; the other kids stared.

“Come, come,” my teacher calls and tries to take my hand, but I don’t let her. Her hands stunk bad like the rest of her, and she always looked like a poodle with her weird puffy hair and big round glasses making her eyes too big for her thin face.

recess. I try to flatten the pages out, looking

the right pages?”

to know? You said get the maps, I got the maps, ” I huff, trying to think of another way to find my dad. Diego’s and Dora’s maps weren’t this hard to follow, these ones have lots of lines and cross-sections, and none said the Alpha

must

I tell Casey.

I come to find the pirate treasure,

I pulled the jumper on over the top of my shirt and the

iron for me. I don’t want creases. They make my

lines will go away,” Casey tells me, and I nod, stuffing the maps in

a thumbs up and I run out the gate before stuffing my bag in the dead hedges out the front. I glance back at the school, feeling

light was gone now. Mum would be worried. When I came across a man at the traffic lights I stopped. I didn’t know if I was going in the right direction when I saw a man dressed in a suit, like those coming to Mum’s Hotel. He glances down at me,

know where this place is?” I ask, showing him the piece of paper. He huffs and takes it from

where

why would a rogue boy want to see him for?” “I ‘m not

and who is

Solace, ”

“Is that so?”

“Yep,” I tell him.

boy, maybe he will give

take me to

there anywhere. He lives in that big building in

work

he says, and we walk up the hill toward the big building with the bright lights. The door opens as we climb the stairs, and a man that looks

boy, Tatum?” The man

who thinks the Alpha

their kid up this time

is not a rogue-whore. He is her mate, she

white and gold. The elevators are so clean I can see my reflection in them, and something

anyway, ” The man asks.

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