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“I feel like this is the start for me. This is where everything I am, everything I know began. I don’t know where I was born, where I spent my first few years, but here is where it changed.”
“So why come here now?”
“Because maybe if I stare at it, if I understand something here, I’ll figure out what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to be. I feel like I’ve played a game I don’t know the rules to, and coming here is me going back to the start to make sense of it.”
Her sigh was unhappy, as if I’d disappointed her, as though I still didn’t understand some lesson she’d been teaching me for years. “Starts don’t matter, Ava. They never have. They don’t change who you are, what you are or what you’ll do. You can stare at that station all you want, but it won’t ever make sense. Even if you understood your past, you’d still be in the same place.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’d have solid footing to stand on.”
“Who you were born and who youarearen’t the same things. You asked me if you’d win, but I can’t answer it. Can you win? Yeah. Will you?” She shrugged. “That’s up to you.”
“No great pieces of wisdom, then? No pep talk that will bring it all together for me?” Even though my words came out like a joke, that was exactly what I wanted. I craved it, for her to tell me something that reignited a belief that I could come out of this ahead, that I could be what everyone needed me to be.
“I watched your mother drop you off here,” she said.
An ugly laugh left me as I was so not surprised by that. “So you’ve known all along who I was? You’ve known my parents and never told me?”
“I didn’t know your mother—I never met her. Still, power like yours is something I can feel, and I watched when she left you here. She closed your orange jacket, pulling it tightly around you, tears on her face. She kissed your head and whispered to you, then said she’d be right back. She watched from a car down the road until the firefighters brought you inside.”
“Who is she?”
“What would knowing change? Would you be a different person?”
No.I’d be the same disaster who lacked answers as I was right now. Was that her point? That understanding my past didn’t change where I was now?
Maybe being angry just gave me an easy out, something to focus on. My shitty life wasn’t my fault—it was all because I had shitty parents who had thrown me out.
“When this is all over, will you tell me about her?”
“If we all survive it? Sure.”
“If? You are horrible at confidence-building.”
She shrugged. “I’m realistic. If you want advice, Ava, I’ve got only one piece for you. Stop trying to be what youthinkyou should be and start being who you are, because fighting this with one hand tied behind your back will kill us all.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but my phone vibrated instead. I took it from my pocket to find a text message from Troy.
The werewolf had arrived at the pack house.
It seemed I’d run out of time to find answers.
* * * *
“The pack owns all this?” We drove on the winding road that was so overgrown, only the twin spots where the wheels touched ground was clear. Short weeds grew up the center on our way to the house where Paul would be brought.
Hunter, Kase and Grant would arrive after the sun set, once Paul was closer, but Troy had wanted to check first.
“They like having space to spread out. Hunting is important for werewolves. It bonds a pack.”
“Why don’t you consider yourself part of the pack?”
“Because I’m not.”
“Why not?”
He huffed, and his knuckles had turned white on the steering wheel. “It’s a long story, Ava.”
I thought back. “You told Fredrick he remembered what happened to the last person who threatened your mate.”
