I should've had the ability to just wipe Ryder from my mind and put up another blockade for thoughts, but at this point, I didn't want to. I entered the house and Cassandra was making noise in the kitchen while Andrew was standing and leaning on the back of the couch. He looked down at the floor like something bad had happened between him and Cassandra before I got here.

Minutes later, we were actually using the dining room table and eating together.

"So...you came back," Cassandra said without a hint of her usual perkiness.

"Yeah," Andrew said as half a piece of pizza was hanging out of his mouth.

"Why'd it take you so long?" she asked. "Everyone thought you were dead. And it—"

"Don't act like it would've been easy for me to be down in Florida basically by myself having to deal with—"

"Hey," I named, offended that he'd think he'd be alone.

"You know what I mean," he said with a mouth full of food. I rolled my eyes and finished my slice. I wanted another so I got up, but I heard all that Andrew and Cassandra discussed in that process.

"You wouldn't have been alone."

"Yeah, I'd have a freaked out sister and the Florida police department on my back—as if I need that," he hissed.

"And now you're here, where you're going to live like nothing is wrong and that same Florida police department is going to think it's awfully suspicious that you disappeared in the first place," Cassandra reasoned. There was a brief silence.

"There were witnesses with statements clearly stating that they saw the guy do it; not me," Andrew informed.

"And you? Did you see him?" she asked that as I was reentering the room and taking a seat. Andrew dropped his pizza after pulling a string of cheese, but did it with a sigh. He knew something.

"No...if that was the case, he probably would've seen me and killed me too," Andrew said. "But I did catch his scent. That's all that I need at this point."

"Need for what?"

Andrew's eyes finally met mine.

"To kill him," he finished. The room stopped.

"Andrew, you can't—"

"Yes, I can—and I will," he interrupted me. "I'll hunt him down and make him pay for what he did to Dad."

"An eye for an eye isn't how—"

"You don't understand, Ash; you weren't there!" he shouted. "Every day I see the same thing over and over of Dad getting shot and me being in pain for who knows why, only to miss the sight of the murderer not because he's fleeing, but because I was running away with my eyes burning—andit wasn't from crying. That I could handle.It my goddamn wolf preventing me and I don't know why. And that scent, it stays on my mind all the time. Even now, I think I'm smelling it even though the guy is probably half a world away...if I don't kill this guy, I will go crazy."

I didn't know what I could do in order for him not to do it. I doubted that one scent would lead him to killing someone, but who knows what Andrew had been through without me? I didn't want him to be a murderer, though.

"Then do it," Cassandra surprisingly said.

"What?" Andrew and I asked together.

"Do it. Kill him," she shrugged. "You're an alpha now. You can do whatever—"

"You can't seriously be encouraging this!"

"What do you mean I'm an alpha now?" Andrew said with a lower voice.

"Part of the family history of Evertons is that not only are we werewolves, but for centuries the eldest males have been Alphas for not only the Obsidian pack, but for the whole town regardless if the title was passed to someone else in the meantime," Cassandra informed. "Since Albert was killed, it was passed down to the only other Everton wolf. You. And that's why you your eyes were burning. Alpha perspective."

Cass looked at me as if I was supposed to have an opinion about this, but then Andrew shook his head.

"I don't want it," he said. "Mm-mm, I don't—"

"Well too bad," Cassandra said, getting up from the table. She walked away with her plate and Andrew and I shared a look. Andrew walked around the table to follow her.

"How do I get rid of it?" Andrew asked.

"You can't," she said, making their eyes meet when she put the plate in the dishwasher. She closed it and the door shutting was harsh against the short silence. "You're a bloodline werewolf. There's no Escape-the-Bite-Clause, and since you're the only Everton werewolf there's definitely no way to give it away or pass it down."

I sighed, feeling that maybe Andrew would be forever disappointed in our entire heritage.

"So then what do I do now?" Andrew asked Cassandra while she exited the kitchen and sat down in the living room. "I just...pop up out of nowhere and finish out high school while controlling the urges to eat people."

Eat people? I doubted werewolves ate humans. Especially when one was a half human.

"I don't know why you're asking me," Cassandra said. "You're the one who made up your mind about killing some guy—which, like I said, is completely possible."

"Is she normally like this?" Andrew asked me, pointing over at Cassandra with his thumb. I had to admit, I had never seen Cassandra act with such passiveness.

"I'm just trying to get you to realize that you have more stuff to deal with other than revenge," she said. "Actually, it's probably you that's the target for someone's vengeance."

"What the hell? Why?" Andrew asked.

"There's been a different Alpha lineage here for twenty years," she reminded. "What Alpha wants to hand over their land and title?"

"It isn't their land," Andrew suddenly muttered, possessively. The outburst shocked even him because his eyes narrowed and he shook his head. It was as if the comment exploded out of him.

"Try telling them that," Cassandra said, making this whole thing make sense. She was juxtaposing herself. She had been the only Everton here to defend our name and territory—only to be taken over by whoever was the new Alpha. Now, Andrew was taking her place as the only Everton (but as a wolf) and defending the same things. All this time, there was someone else in charge of this town's population and we didn't even know who it was! Something wanted me to believe Cassandra knew, but I didn't dare ask with Andrew's boiling rage over the littlest of things lately.

When I went to bed that night, Cassandra and Andrew were still downstairs talking, even after I tried to wait up until I heard his steps come up the stairs for him to crash on the loft's couch. I went to sleep thinking about Dad and Andrew and the whole Obsidian pack secret that's plagued the town. Even though Cassandra mentioned a new Alpha and a new pack, I technically couldn't see any bad in the situation of why the two couldn't just cohabit as Alphas together. It wasn't as if any one group was ruling the town or distributing evil deeds. But no matter how I thought of the situation, while Andrew argued, some of the intense points he came across while discussing with Cassandra were yelled into my brain, making it impossible to sleep.

I tried to block it out, or maybe tried to summon Ryder's calming thoughts he had so much control over, but neither of them worked and it drove me crazy. I even started to wonder what if Ryder was somehow involved in all of this and that was why I could read his mind. It was ridiculous though, because that would make him part of Andrew's pack, and I highly doubted the two could last in a room together alone. The idiocy of that possibility posed enough imagination incentive for me to fall asleep, though.

Of course though he was possibly ignoring me in any plausible way, the concluding thought was from Ryder, himself: 'Goodnight.'