Everyone around me is talking and trying to imagine what will happen when we get there, but I can’t bring myself to participate in the conversation. What is going to happen?
It’s been ten years. I’m not the young girl I was when I last saw my parents anymore. I’m older, scarred, and a part of me is always going to be broken because of what happened. I don’t know if they’ll even recognize me.
Tara tries to lighten the mood by playing some music in the car. The only songs I’ve heard up until this point were from the movies and shows I’ve watched over the past few days. She triesplaying a lot of different types of music,genresshe calls them, to see which stands out to me.
Most of it is a little too brash and loud, but then she finds a song with a very soft and mellow guitar melody and a woman singing over it. It sounds so soft and gentle, and it soothes my already frayed nerves. She plays more of the artist’s music, and I feel myself relaxing during the back half of the drive.
When we finally arrive, Declan stops the car and tells all of us to wait just outside the perimeter of the Echo Ridge territory. He gets out on his own and crosses the space. A group of three wolves eventually comes running through the trees. Everyone else is calm seeing this, but every muscle in my body tenses thinking Declan is going to get attacked.
They shift back into their human form, revealing three people standing proudly and strongly on their territory. The one at the front is a man, older with black hair dotted with gray. The man behind him is much younger but looks similar, like it could be his son. And a woman is standing there, too. She has long, flowing blond hair and eyes so blue they almost look clear.
I can’t shake the idea that they look familiar. I can’t place their faces, so a part of me wonders if I’m trying to find something I know in them to convince myself that thisismy home.
Declan says something to them, and I see the Echo Ridge pack’s protective stance soften. After a while, Declan walks over to the car and climbs back in, putting it in drive and moving forward.
“The Alpha, Roderick, said he’ll see us,” Declan says as we make our way deeper into the territory.
I stare out the window with wide eyes, thinking that this could be where I came from. This might be where I was born, where my parents are, and where my family is. I don’t want to miss a single leaf in the trees along the way.
Eventually, we drive forward until we see a small village appear. The houses are much more modest than Zeke’s house. They’re smaller, made of wood like old log cabins. A few people are roaming around and looking at us, but everyone seems calm.
We stop driving when we see the same three wolves who approached in the woods running toward a building and shifting back.
Declan opens the car door and gestures for all of us to do the same. Everyone else gets out, and my stomach twists from the anxiety. I don’t know what’s about to happen. I just hope it’s good.
Zeke holds his hand out for me, and I take it. I cling to him as we walk toward the doors of the building where the others are already heading inside.
“Welcome. Our apologies for the hostile introduction,” the man with dark hair says. “We’ve heard a lot of rumors of violence in the area, and we’ve been on alert because of it. But I want to welcome you to our home. My name is Roderick. I’m the Alpha of the Echo Ridge pack.”
“Jenny,” the woman says with a soft smile. She points at the younger man beside her. “This is my mate, Thane.”
Thane gives us a quiet nod.
Declan introduces all of us, and at one point, Roderick whispers something in Thane’s ear, and he nods his head before walking out of the room. The entire time he talks, Jenny’s eyes are on me. As I look at her up close, the familiar feeling only gets stronger. It’s not like it was with Zeke, where I felt a connection so strong that it felt like a memory. With her, I feel like it’s an actual memory. Like we have a history, but I just can’t remember.
“Addison Snow,” Jenny says when Declan finishes. My skin burns when I hear her say my name, because I can sense the familiarity in it. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t really remember anything. All I know is there was a fire, and then all of my other memories were from a facility I was being held in.”
“The facility you mentioned, Declan?” Roderick asks. Declan nods. Roderick looks at Jenny, and I can almost sense the tension growing in the room. “If you were being held in a facility testing on shifters, that explains what happened to you. And your parents.”
I stand straighter and take a step forward so I’m in front of the crowd. “What happened to my parents?”
Jenny swallows and looks at the ground before her eyes meet mine again, filled with sadness. Water pools on her lower lid, and she blinks it away.
“If we had known you were being held somewhere, we would have come looking for you. But there was a fire at your family cabin. It killed your parents, and we couldn’t find you in the ruins, but we assumed you were killed, too,” Jenny explains.
“No,” I say, not accepting that as an answer.
We came here to find my parents. They have to be here. They can’t actually be dead.
“I’m afraid she’s telling the truth,” Roderick says, his voice somber. “It brings us no pleasure to tell you this. It hurt us when the fire happened. That day, I didn’t just lose a member of my pack. I lost my brother. Ethan was his name. He was your father.”
I brace myself against the wall, and Zeke is beside me in an instant, wrapping his arm around my waist to keep me upright.
“The fire happened so suddenly. Afterward, we couldn’t figure out what started it to save our lives,” Roderick continued. “We didn’t smell any other shifters in our territory, so we didn’t think it was an attack. We thought maybe a heater was left on or the stove burned out. But now...”
“It was intentional,” Declan adds. Roderick looks at him, nodding his head. “They were looking for shifters to test, and they must have seen Addison while she was young. The perfect age for experimenting on. So they burned the house down and kidnapped her while leaving her parents.”
