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Chapter One
Leanne
Why am I moving to the city where I almost died?
That’s the question that keeps popping into my head as I look around the house where I was born and raised. It looks so empty now. Everything important has already been boxed up and taken to Cressidan City.
“Are you sure about this?” Secret asks, giving me a worried look.
It’s almost like looking at myself when I was twenty-one, except she’s much more present and together than I was back when I was still trying to drink my problems away. We might have the same long, dark hair and big, dark eyes, but appearances are the only thing we really have in common.
“I need to be in the city,” I assure her, ignoring answering her question directly because I honestly can’t bring myself to say yes and mean it.
“It’s so strange to say goodbye to this house.” Secret looks around and shakes her head. “I mean, I know I already left to go to college, but I guess I just kind of thought you’d be living in Silver Lake forever.”
“Me too,” I admit. “But that was before …”
“I can’t even imagine,” she cuts me off, going with the obvious assumption that my abduction from this house must have helped me make this choice.
The truth is it didn’t.
I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would be safer if I stayed in this cozy little Beta town.
The city is where I almost died, and it’s full of Alphas. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to find a job when I can barely be around Secret’s mates without falling apart. I know Cassidy and Seth are completely devoted to my sister and their pack. Still, my gut reaction to Alphas is hard to fight.
That’s because unknown Alphas are a different beast entirely.
They can be predatory like Frank Palmer.
Or self-centred, like Secret’s father.
I realize Secret’s still watching me with concern in her eyes, and I make the effort to drag myself out of my thoughts. I have a bad habit of getting tangled up in them whenever I’m around her.
I manage to pull out a smile. “A fresh start will be good for me. I was getting bored at work.”
“Well, you have had the same job since high school,” Secret reminds me.
“Yeah,” I admit, smile turning rueful. The mind-numbing clerical work let me get away with a lot. Being sober was never a requirement. In fact, it was a special kind of torture to sit behind that desk once I quit drinking. “It’s definitely time for a change.”
“Are you ready to go?” Secret asks.
I nod, because there are no words I can think of to start the conversation we still need to have.
I let Mom raise her. I let her think I was her sister.
Now that she knows, it feels like there’s so much I need to explain.
So much that I don’t even know how to get started.
Today was supposed to give us a chance to talk alone.
Yet, we’ve barely spoken all day.
Every time I tried, I ended up starting a more mundane conversation instead.
Secret spoke about Mom a little while we packed up her things.
She still calls me Leanne, which I doubt will ever change.
