55 Chapter 55
55 Chapter 55
Seraphina’s POV 1
The walk to Caleb’s house took less than ten minutes,. The small residential street was lined with modest homes, their front yards dotted
with autumn flowers and children’s toys.
“That one’s ours,” Caleb said softly, pointing to a two-story house with white siding and a wraparound porch. A wooden swing swayed
gently in the evening breeze.
Before Caleb could reach for his keys, the front door swung open, revealing a woman in her fifties with graying brown hair and kind eyes
that went wide with shock the moment theynded on me.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her hand flying to her chest. “Oh my God, it’s really you.”
“Mom,” Caleb said gently, steadying her with a hand on her elbow. “I told you she was alive.”
Mrs. Morrison stared at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Seraphina,” she breathed, my nameing out like a prayer. “We
thought… we all thought you were dead. After what happened to your parents, when no one could find you…”
“Mrs. Morrison,” I said softly, my own voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anything from before.”
“Margaret? What’s all themotion-” A man appeared in the doorway behind her, tall and broad-shouldered with silver threading
through his dark hair. The moment his eyes found me, he wentpletely still. “Holy hell.”
“Robert, watch yournguage,” Margaret scolded automatically, though she never took her eyes off me.
“Sorry, hon, but…” He shook his head in amazement. “Sera? Is it really you, little wolf?”
Margaret stepped back and gestured us inside. “Come in,e in. We can’t have this conversation on the front porch.” She wiped her
eyes with the back of her hand, though fresh tears continued to fall. “I need to call Eleanor and Tom. They’re not going to believe-”
“Mom, Caleb interrupted gently. “Maybe we should let Sera settle in first. It’s been a long day.”
The inside of the house was warm and inviting, with overstuffed furniture and family photos covering every avable surface. The scent
of something delicious-pot roast, maybe, or stew-drifted from the kitchen, and I could hear the faint sound of a television ying in
another room.
“Sit, sit, Margaret insisted, ushering me toward the living room couch. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can make coffee, or tea, or-
“Mom Caleb said again, his tone fond but firm. “She’s not going anywhere. Breathe.”
Robert settled into his recliner with a heavy sigh, his eyes never leaving my face. “We looked for you, you know. After the attack, when the authorities couldn’t find your body with your parents, we held onto hope that maybe you’d survived. We searched every hospital within five hundred miles, called every agency we could think of”
“Where did you end up?” Margaret asked, perching on the edge of the coffee table so she could be closer to me. “How did you survive?”
I took a shaky breath, preparing to tell the abbreviated version of my story. “A woman named Elena saved me. She was badly wounded,
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55 Chapter 55
but she managed to get me to another pack territory before she died. The Nightshadow Pack took me in.”
“Actually,” Robert said, standing up with purpose, “we might be able to help with some of those memories. Margaret, where did you put
those photo albums?”
“Which ones?” she asked, though her eyes lit up with understanding.
“The ones from the summer gatherings. The ones with all the kids.”
Margaret practically bounced with excitement. “Oh, yes! Sera, you have to see these. We have pictures of you and Caleb from when you
were tiny.”
She disappeared down a hallway and returned with an armload of photo albums, setting them on the coffee table with reverent care.
“These are from the annual pack gatherings we used to have at Moonrise Lake. Every year, all the northern packs woulde together
for a weekend of celebrating and bonding”
She opened the first album, and I gasped. The photo on the opening page showed a group of adults standing around a pic table, their
faces bright withughter. In the center were a man and woman I didn’t recognize but somehow felt like I should-a tall, proud-looking
man with dark hair and kind eyes, and a beautiful woman with auburn hair and the exact shade of green eyes I saw in my mirror every
morning.
“Your parents,” Margaret said softly.
I traced their faces with my finger, searching for some spark of recognition, some echo of love or memory. But there was nothing except
a hollow ache in my chest for people I should have known.
“And this,” she said, turning the page, “is you.”
The photograph showed two small children, maybe three or four years old, sitting on a nket by ake. A little girl with wild curls and
grass stains on her dress was grinning at the camera, her arms wrapped around a slightly older boy with serious dark eyes and a
protective posture.
“That’s us,” Caleb said, settling on the other side of me on the couch. “You’d just fallen into theke trying to catch a frog, and I was
trying to keep you from doing it again.”
Margaret flipped through more pages, revealing a treasury of moments I’d lost. There were photos of me and Caleb building sandcastles,
chasing butterflies, sharing ice cream cones that were bigger than our heads. In every picture, we were inseparable.
“Oh, this one’s my favorite,” Margaret said, stopping at a photo that made my breath catch.
It showed the two of us asleep under arge oak tree, my head pillowed on Caleb’s shoulder while he leaned against the trunk. We
couldn’t have been more than five years old, but there was something so peaceful, so trusting about the image that it made my heart
clench.
“You two had been ying all day, Robert said with a chuckle, “Running around like wild animals, getting into everything. By evening, you just copsed wherever you were and fell asleep. Your parents thought it was the sweetest thing they’d ever seen.”
“I look so happy,” I whispered, touching the photo with gentle fingers.
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55 Chapter 55
“You were happy,” Margaret assured me. “Both of you were. Those summers were magical. Your parents and ours would spend hours talking andughing while you kids ran wild. It was like having one big, extended family.”
The weight of all that lost time, all those stolen memories, pressed down on my chest like a physical thing. I’d had a family once, a real family who loved me and watched me grow. I’d had a best friend who protected me and shared his toys and fell asleep next to me under
oak trees.
And it was all gone, erased by violence and trauma and the cruel passage of time.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice breaking. “I’m so sorry I don’t remember any of it. I wish I could remember you, remember this, remember
being that happy little girl.”
“Hey,” Caleb said softly, his hand finding mine. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You survived something that should have killed you.”
Robert cleared his throat roughly. “Speaking of your parents,” he said, his expression growing serious. “Caleb said you came here looking
for answers about what happened to them.”
I nodded, steeling myself for whatever details they might share. “I need to know the truth. I need to understand who was responsible.”
The Morrisons exchanged another weighted look before Robert leaned forward in his chair. “What do you know about that night?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “Nothing, actually.”
Robert said grimly. “The details are… difficult to hear.”
“I can handle it,” I said, though my hands were trembling slightly. “I need to hear it.”