Chapter 11

Sara

Sara stared at the doorway, watching as Barron left with Bryn wrapped around his arm. Another small growl left her lips before she could hold it back.

"Don't you think, young lady, that you gave up the right to be jealous over him a long time ago?"

Sara glanced towards the only person still in the room with a small frown on her face, not recognizing who the older woman was or why she was there. "You have a point," Sara grumbled under her breath, not liking the knowledge in the blue eyes that stared back at her. Eyes that were familiar, eyes that belonged to the same person who hadn't left her thoughts from the first moment she met him, no matter how hard she tried to push him to the back of her mind. "You're his mom."

"Astute of you," the woman whispered as she slowly walked towards Sara. There was slight aggression in her graceful walk, and when she stood in front of Sara with her hand held out, she wasn't sure that making any contact with this woman would be a good idea. "Harper."

"Sara," she replied, finally giving in and shaking the older woman's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

The grip on her hand tightened momentarily before Harper released it. "Do you want to explain what had my normally peaceful daughter ready to claw your eyes out and feast on the leftover bits?"

"Daughter?"

This time, Harpers mouth turned up into a small smile. "They're twins, sweetie. No need to be jealous."

A sheepish grin fell onto her face as she shook her head. "I think I'll let Barron explain all the details. I'm beginning to think I don't know all of them myself," she whispered under her breath.

By the slight upward twitch to Harper's eyebrow, the woman had heard every word. "Well, I think I may join Ally and the rest on that run to the diner." When Sara didn't reply, Harper tilted her head to the side and let a small smile flow onto her face. Sara blinked seeing exactly where Barron had gotten some of his creepier expressions from. "And Hun, when my daughter warned you not to hurt my boy again, she didn't go into any details. I take that as her being raised with manners." She took a step closer to Sara. "If for some reason, y'all decide to forgive one another, I'll gladly welcome you into the family, but I promise you, if you hurt Barron again, not even your family would find your body."

With those words, Harper glided out of the room, leaving Sara standing there by herself, wondering what in the hell she had gotten herself into this time.

***Bryn***

"Are you going to tell me exactly what I saw?" Bryn asked, waiting for her brother to open his mouth, not that he would.

"Bryn—"

"Don't 'Bryn' me, Barron. I saw what happened, I saw why you did what you did that day, and I'm telling you right now, that if you don't start talking, I'll find answers on my own."

He sent her a half smile as he bumped her shoulder, and Bryn felt her heart clench at the sight. Her mom was right, Barron had changed. A year ago, she couldn't have gotten a fake smile out of him, but now, the small smile on his face reflected in his eyes, and for that alone, Bryn would be forever grateful for this place, for these people he surrounded himself with.

"Fine," she said with a sigh, "if you're not going to tell me, I'll just have to try to get answers out of that hunky Tony."

Barron's growl was low, but very much real. "If you want him to stay alive, I suggest you stay away from Tony."

Her laughter drowned out his frown, and it was her turn to bump shoulders with him. "You know I'm joking with you. Plus, there is a certain shifter that's tailing me, and all jokes aside, I don't think I could shake him if I wanted to."

Her brother froze. Pulling his arm out of hers, he turned her to face him. "What are you talking about?"

"We're not five anymore, I'm not going to fall for that."

"Bryn," he snapped, grabbing her arms and bending down slightly like he always did when he needed her to be serious. "I'm not joking."

Her stomach dropped. "You didn't send someone to watch us while you were away?"

"No," he said slowly, his eyes flaring red before settling down to blue. "I didn't tell anyone where you were, and I didn't risk sending one of Zeke's men to watch over you, just in case they could be bought. How long has this been going on?"

"About a month after you left," she mumbled, watching his eyes narrow. "Hey, don't pull that crap on me. How in the hell was I supposed to know he wasn't one of yours?" He opened his mouth, before snapping it shut, and she could feel ire bubble up her throat. "That's right, Barron. I couldn't know, because you didn't contact us." She jerked out of his hold, before stabbing a finger into his chest. "You didn't say a word."

He sighed, running his hand through his hair in a move that she knew meant he didn't know how to explain what he was feeling. She'd seen the motion so often during her life, that she couldn't help but let her anger melt away. Damn him anyway, he knew that she couldn't stay mad at him for long, and by the small smile that was beginning to form on his face, he already knew that all was forgiven.

Reaching towards her, he pulled her into a tight hug. "Good to see that my mood swing sister is still the same as she ever was."

She pinched his side, smiling when he winced. "Don't you forget it either."

Pulling away from her, he let his smile drop. "Seriously, Bryn, have you talked to whoever it was?"

"No," she mumbled as she shook her head. "He always guarded from afar."

"And what honestly made you believe he was one of our guys?"

Her gut fluttered as she thought of how much she should tell Barron. "I felt safe."

The words were whispered, but he heard them clearly. "What does he look like?"

"How about, when you start sharing your relationships with me, I'll start sharing mine with you."

"What you saw, it was with Beth."

Bryn felt sadness flow off her brother, heightening hers enough that she almost doubled over in pain. It wasn't a topic they brought up. It wasn't something that they liked thinking about. Only a few knew the real reason why Barron had delved into dark magic, and only a few knew why he had stopped. "I don't know if I want to hear this, Barron."

He stopped walking, easing his arm away from her as he motioned towards a bench she didn't remember reaching. Easing down, she felt her eyes water and wasn't surprised to see the same emotion in her brother. "If you want me to tell you about that day, if you want me to tell you what you saw when you touched Sara, you're finally going to have to let me tell you about Beth."

"If she's the reason, Barron, I won't forgive her." He opened his mouth, but Bryn held up her hand to keep him from talking. "You always told us that her death was your fault, and we believed you. Hell, I wouldn't even talk to you for months when you came back. But now, if you tell me Sara was the real reason things happened that way, I can never accept her."

He reached for her hand, and she fought the urge to pull away. She loved her brother. She loved him more than any male in her life, but she had loved Beth. As close as Barron and Bryn were, Beth was their glue. Beth was the one who kept them together, who balanced them, and without her in their life, the emptiness they both felt would always be there.

"You know, I told Ally."

She glanced sharply at her brother, who shrugged his shoulders with tears in his eyes. Bryn felt her own tears slide down her cheeks at the display of emotion. When she had found out about Beth, Barron had delivered the news dry eyed. When he had left, still no emotions had shown on his face, but here, with these people, he learned to let it out. He had learned to allow himself to feel something. "Why?"

He squeezed her hand before letting go. "You've been around her. Damn, but she reminds me of Beth." He closed his eyes and smiled. "No matter what, they help, Bryn. They throw their own lives on the line because they couldn't' live with themselves if they knew they didn't at least try."

Her mouth stayed shut, but she knew where he was going with this. After all these years, she was finally going to learn what had happened to their sister. She was going to accept what Barron had to say. She was going to let the pain break through and listen to why their triplet had died that day. She was going to listen to why everyone now called them the twins.

"There was this camp," he started, the words getting caught in his throat before he cleared the emotion. "God, Bryn, I don't want to tell you what was going on in there. They were experimenting on hybrid shifters who weren't even old enough to go through their first transition, trying to see how they could change into both animals instead of some warped version of two. In reality, a leopard and a wolf shouldn't be able to produce, and if they did, shouldn't their children be sterile? They were trying to answer all these questions, but they weren't doing it nicely."

"I get it," she interrupted, not wanting to know more. As selfish as it was, Bryn didn't want the darkest parts of his life to come to light. She didn't want to know the truly evil people out there, even if her brother and sister had. "Just tell me what happened with Beth."

His head dropped down in his palms as he propped his elbows onto his knees. "The team was cocky back then. You have to know, Zeke just found us all. We were nothing until Zeke banded us together for something, but even then, before he showed us Ally, we weren't together. We were sloppy. We all thought we were the best thing on the team and it screwed us over. We didn't work together, we didn't listen to each other, and we definitely didn't follow any commands." Taking a deep breath, he sat straight on the bench. "They had machine guns. Something we didn't plan for. Zeke, Ned, and Tony would pop in, grab a kid, and then pop them into a clearing a little way away. They'd keep doing that over and over until they got them all out. There weren't a lot, maybe fifteen, but even fifteen is too many. When Zeke was grabbing the last one, the people with the guns finally realized what was happening. They started firing on that clearing."

Teeth elongated and anger rolled off his body; Barron's power flared before Bryn watched him take a deep breath and reel it in. It was a control she knew he had recently learned. "Sara," he snapped, "thought she could hold up a shield long enough to help them or something. Hell, I don't even know what she was doing, but she was going to get herself and those kids killed."

"So you burned them," she whispered. His eyes cut towards her before he nodded.

"I did what Dad had taught me. I let it go and I aimed it at the guys with the guns before they could get any closer to the clearing to do any real damage. But I messed up too. I thought I had more control of it. I forgot Dad's first lesson."

"Concentrate, don't let the darkness in."

"I let it in. I let it consume me. I let that power fly through me and it felt so good, Bryn. Once I realized how far it was going, I couldn't reel it back. I thought I had such a good control over it, but I couldn't pull it back."

"And Beth was there," Bryn whispered. "You know, I used to hate myself for not going with you two. I wish that I would have chosen to go on the same path as the both of you instead of staying home with Mom."

"No," Barron snapped. "None of this is on you. Mom needed all of us, and you were the only one who was brave enough to stay behind. This was on me. Beth took the fire. She took it all in to save the people there, and she died because of it."

Bryn reached for her brother, and this time it was him who tried to pull away from her. "Beth knew you were stronger than us. She knew taking that in would kill her."

"Yeah," he agreed with a nod, "but that still doesn't mean that what happened isn't on my shoulders. What happened that day was my fault. Her death is on my hands, and how I reacted afterwards is on me too."

This time, he succeeded in tearing his hand from hers as he jumped off the bench. "Barron, I don't blame you."

A harsh chuckle left his mouth. "Yeah you do, Bryn. Everyone does. The fact of the matter is that Beth would still be alive if I had died with Dad."

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head and turned his back on her. As he walked away, Bryn let her tears fall faster. There was more to that story than he was letting on. She knew by what she had seen that Sara played a bigger role in why Barron had lost control, but she wouldn't push her brother. No, he pushed himself enough. Her heart clenched in pain, and this time, she let it hurt. She allowed it to flow through her.

Barron held onto so much pain, so much blame, that he couldn't see that it wasn't his fault. There were other ways. Zeke, Tony, and Ned could have gotten those kids out before the fire reached them. There had to have been another way. There had to have been something, but Beth was there. Beth was their glue, their balancing act, and she would do anything to keep Barron and Bryn from feeling pain. Beth took the sacrifice thinking that it would cause Barron less pain, but their sister was wrong. Her actions that day broke Barron and it had come close to breaking Bryn and their Mom.

Taking a deep breath, Bryn cut those thoughts off before they had time to form. She would never forget her sister, and that hole that Beth left would never be filled, but she wouldn't allow her last sibling to die alongside Beth. No, Bryn would make sure that Barron learned to smile as often as possible. She would make sure that her brother had that happiness that Bryn knew he could obtain if he just forgave himself.

A small growl vibrated up her chest before she could pull it back. Bryn would have to do a little growing up herself in these next couple of weeks, because as much as she didn't like the woman at the moment, Bryn knew that Sara held the key to Barron's happiness. If Bryn had to make nice with the woman to see her brother smile again, that is what she would do. Pushing herself off the bench, she nodded, set in her plans for the future.

Whether it was forgiveness or something more Barron wanted from Sara, Bryn would help make it happen. A slightly evil smile curled the corner of her lips at the thought of forcing her brother out of his comfort zone. A chuckle followed the smile when she realized that here, in this cabin full of people, Bryn had an entire family of people who could help push these two people together. Jogging towards the house, she felt her sadness give way to excitement. Let the fun begin.