Judy''s POV


    J''s house wasn''t far from the packhouse. It was about 15 minutes on foot. I walked. The walk gave me a bit of rity; the fresh air was nice. Though it was hard to see some of the damage from the rogues, and even the charred buildings and trees from the explosion.


    I shuddered when I passed the part of the forest that waspletely destroyed by the explosion. Tears pricked my eyes at the memory, and I had to quickly blink them away. Weakness was not something I was about to show my new packmates, especially when I''m supposed to be a strong Gamma warrior.


    I said hello to some of the packmates who were cleaning up their own yards from the damage and debris. They greeted me right back as I continued on.


    J''s house had the most damage from what I could see. She had trees that were tipped over, ripping through what used to be green and plush grass, but now looked burned to a crisp and torn out of the ground. The windows were boarded from being broken, and the door was practically hanging off its hinges. If I hadn''t known any better, I would say nobody had lived in this house for years.


    There was a car in the driveway that I knew didn''t belong to J. I walked up to the door and knocked. I waited for a few minutes before the door opened. I stood in front of a blotchy-faced, red-rimmed eye, Stacy, J''s sister, who lives a few packs away.


    "Oh, hey, Stacy. I came to check on J," I told her.


    Stacy wiped her eyes and gave me a small, yet sad, smile.


    "Hi, Judy," she said softly. "You cane in. It''s nice of you to stop by. Heard you were caught in the explosion. I''m surprised you''re walking around."


    "As soon as I was healed, I was up and walking," I told her, stepping into the dark home. "Can''t keep me down for long."


    "I''m d you chose to be the Elite Gamma for this pack," Stacy said with a small smile. "You are a good one, Judy Montague."


    She guided me through the small home; it looked ransacked, and I realized nobody had bothered to clean up since the rogues made their attack the other night. They destroyed the ce, and I could tell there was a struggle before the Delta was killed.


    J was seated in her living room; her hands were trembling as she stared at the ground, tears soaking her cheeks, and her lip was trembling. It looked as if she hadn''t showered in days; she wore the same clothing she wore when I saw her the day before the attack, and


    my heart broke.


    "J, you have a visitor."


    Stacy spoke to her like a child, and it hurt even more. Stacy sat beside her on the couch, picking up a broken picture frame that had fallen on the ground, her shoulders slumping.


    "Hey, J," said, sitting down in the chair near the couch. I wasn''t sure what to say. I had the letter


    gripped in my hands, and I wa


    sure if now was a good time to present it to her. She looked@tterly broken, and I couldn''t me her.


    She just found out her daughter was in the forest the day after her husband was killed, after rogues broke into her home, a home she worked so hard to maintain. A few days ago, this house was the best in the pack. J took pride in both her home and her store, and it showed. But now it was the worst, and I could only imagine what the store looked like without J there to maintain it.


    "She hasn''t spoken since Beta Aiden''s visit yesterday," Stacy muttered, rolling her eyes. "How he became a Beta is beyond me. That man is an asshole."


    I nodded in agreement.


    "He''s Alpha Sampson''s best friend," I told her. "That''s how he became a beta."


    She just rolled her eyes.


    "He came here to pretty much


    interrogate her over the Cindy


    situation. That was how J found


    out it was Cindy who brought the


    bomb to the forest and that it was Cindy who exploded along with some of the other gammas."


    “He interrogated her??" I asked, astonished by Aiden''s audacity. “Interrogated her about what exactly?"


    "He was using her of working with Cindy to destroy this pack," she said, shaking her head with her lips pressed in a thin line. "He waspletely out of


    line."


    "I''ll speak with him," I said, shaking my head. "What he did was wrong. I''ll make sure Sampson knows this, too."