“You should have taught your daughter the dangers of meddling, weaver,” he calls across the space that separates them. “Otherwise, someone else might, and that’s a lesson that never ends well.”
His words are rolling through me as the memory changes shape again, and I’m snapped out of my body, losing physical sensation, and locked in my head. The images start.
I’m watching and remembering all at once, the moments stretching and then slipping, no longer a continuous scene but fragmented pictures rising and falling, one after another, never lingering long enough to let me breathe.
I watch as Mom demands to know what this is, her magic flaring protectively around her fingertips, threads of power poised for a fight.
Merritt’s response is immediate and predictable, his claws sinking into the flesh over past Noa’s carotid artery just enough to draw blood. The threat is plain, needing no words.
That’s around the moment Mom understands the corner she’s been forced into, the cruel game of ‘who can draw their weapon faster’. It isn’t a question of whether her magic is strong enough to take an Alpha—it is—and we all know it. The question is whether it can reach him before he tears out my throat. His enhanced speed tipping the scale in his favor.
Like a flip-book, the memory turns to the next page.
It’s my mom seeking answers, fury humming beneath her veil of control.
Merritt shrugs, deceptively casual, like he’s already run the numbers and accepted the cost of his honesty. In his head, he’s already decided neither one of us can leave this clearing alive. Killing my mom, losing access to her power, would be an inconvenience to him, but at the end of the day, it’s just another loose end for him to tie up.
So, he tells her about the omegas he collects. The network he’s built to take them from neighboring states and packs. How they take from their own ranks when they need to, because if their packs went untouched while omegas disappearedeverywhere else, people would notice. And attention is the last thing they need.
There’s no ‘I’ in anything he says. Only ‘we’. ‘Our’. His partner woven into every confession.
The memory skips forward again, images flickering too fast for me to make any of them out before it settles again. This time to Merritt laying out their operation with unbridled pride. He explains it to Mom like he’s hoping for approval, pleased with himself for succeeding at something so monstrous. As he does, his claws never lift, his threat steady as he talks.
He explains how the omegas are periodically brought onto the territory the night before one of the bi-monthly supply drops. By morning, the helicopter arrives, supplies are removed, the lodge crew leaves with them, and the omegas are loaded up and flown away like they were never here at all. Merritt boasts about his territory’s central location, about how easily it allows his network to pluck omegas seamlessly from the neighboring packs. It seems he wants an extra-large pat on the back when he says using the pack helicopter was the smartest thing he’s done. Flying his inventory out is faster and less trackable. More efficient. And he’s already thinking about upgrading the system in a few years.
All the while, Mom listens to his near-manic explanations. Her face stays carefully neutral, but her hands betray her, fingers twitching at her sides. Fury turns inward. Guilt settles heavy as she realizes how long this has been happening under her watch.
The memory flicks away.
In the next fragment, Mom has gone pale, terror hollowing out her features. It’s a look I’ve seen so rarely on her face that it disorients me. I want—irrationally—to reach into this moment and comfort her.
But this is happening in my head, nothing more than a movie that keeps skipping to the important parts of the plot.
Merritt is speaking to her now. “You have a history with my benefactors. Did you know that?” There’s a faint, knowing amusement to his voice. “People always say you should be careful doing business with witches. That they’re naturally cunning. That they won’t hesitate to stab you in the back if it saves their own skin.” His mouth curves. “But I have nothing but good things to say about Tanith and her coven.”
It’s that name—Tanith—that has my mother going pale further.
It’s a name I’ve never heard before, and different enough I would remember if I had.
Mom doesn’t give Merritt the satisfaction of getting to see her squirm. She keeps her head and levels him with her stare. As steady and unflinching as ever.
The flashing memory doesn’t skip ahead, it stays put, allowing me to watch as he takes eighteen-year-old Noa’s face in his free hand. He jerks her head to the side and slightly back, forcing her profile into view. He studies her with open appraisal.
“She’s pretty enough. What kind of profit do you think your cousin could turn for her? I bet she’d go for a pretty penny. Young and untouched. Not to mention, your daughter.” He lets out a low whistle. “I think that’s what I’ll do. I won’t kill either of you. I’ll give you to Tanith and her young triplet disciples, let them see you to auction and then take my cut.”
Everything fractures, and I’m snapped back hard, suddenly in my body again instead of trapped inside my head. I’m still standing in the helicopter clearing, Mom at my side just as she was before the memories started skipping out of order. I’m heaving, a little nauseous from the whiplash and deluge ofinformation, trying to steady my breathing as I wipe a sheen of sweat from my forehead.
Then I freeze.
We’ve moved closer.
Close enough that I could reach out and wipe the slow tear tracking down my younger self’s cheek—if the rules of this place would let me.
The three people from the past are frozen, paused, as if waiting for us to press play again.
Instead, I shoot a sideways look at my mom, the version who’s been guiding me through this whole ghost-of-Christmas-past bullshit. “You never told me you had a cousin,” I accuse, still sounding a little breathless after being spit out by that mind-fuck of a memory dump.
Her posture is stiff, bracing, as if the very mention of that word has her preparing to fight. Or flee. I honestly can’t tell which.
