AN: This book won first place in the Q & K Awards! Special thanks to @zelaughingqueen for hosting it.!

P.S. This is what I imagine their childhood home to look like when they were younger.

Micheal and Jenni soon follow me out of the car, both lost in their own dilemmas. I don't bother them and they don't bother me as we look at the old house. Or should I say our old house?

After all these years I figured they would've either given the house to another family, burned it down, or let nature reclaim the space.

None of those happened.

Yeah the weeds are overgrown and the windows could use a good cleaning, but other than those, the house looks fine on the outside. Even the roof looks sturdy and I know that by now it should at least be curved in ready to collapse. Nothing can survive a decades worth of various storms without some type of upkeep.

Someone's been maintaining the house, which is odd because packs don't really preserve cherished things deceased wolves leave behind. A necklace, sure, but a house?

I was expecting to climb through a jungle just to reach the front door. I was expecting to coat my lungs in the layers of dust that should be covering everything inside. I was expecting a haunted home full of cobwebs and creeping shadows.

At least then the passage of time would've been noticeable. The house I'm standing in front of looks like our parents can come through the front door like nothing happened.

Any minute now, I'll see Dad walk out the door with a cold beverage and sit in his favorite chair that's still there rocking with the breeze. No book, no electronic device, just a drink and his wandering thoughts. He would sometimes drag Micheal and I out with him just to keep us still for one minute.

At the time I hated it but now I understand. I'd give anything for those precious minutes just to sit with him again. This time I'd stay completely quiet like he'd wanted.

I can see our mom barging through the front door demanding that someone help her with dinner. If there's one thing she couldn't stand, it was cooking alone. I never thought to ask her why that was. All I know is that if Dad was busy, one of the three of us needed to be in the kitchen with her or mom would blow a gasket. It wasn't like she needed help, I guess it was just for companies sake.

Memories flood my senses- soon all I can see, hear, and practically touch are the past actions of our family.

I feel like I'm drowning but do I really want to save myself? Before my eyes- I see birthday parties in the front yard, in the big window I see family game nights, in the trees I see us as kids falling and getting back up just to reach a new height.

What's the point of fighting the nostalgia?

But it doesn't feel like I'm taking a trip down memory lane. My senses are pulled like I'm being sucked into the black hole of my family's history. Soon all I can get are glimpses, nothing concrete to enjoy and reminisce about. It's like my memories are in fast forward and I can't pause them. Or at least slow them down so that I can get the full affect of the memory.

I feel my heart start to speed up as I try to get out of this mental picture show. How did it even end up like this? What if I can't get out? I want this is stop. How do I fight something that my brain has conjured? My body won't even move like I order it to, fear creeps up my spine for the first time after my parents death.

'Stop.' I tell myself, it doesn't work. I catch a glimpse of when Micheal kicked a soccer ball too hard and it went through the front window. He was grounded for a month and I felt so bad that each night I'd give him ice cream in the middle of the night. Micheal only kicked the ball out of anger because I didn't want to play with him.

'Stop.' Mom and Dad dancing in the yard on their anniversary. That year he tried to make Mom's favorite dish but then he ran out to go deal with some pack issues, the food burned and the stove was destroyed. Mom laughed and they set up a speaker on the porch because the house had to air out. We ate pizza and after that, Dad was only ever allowed to bake-not cook. 

'STOP.' I see a younger me, my hair sways in the imaged breeze, caught in this time loop looking around confused. Where is my place now? My home?

"Bex!" I feel a sharp sting across my cheek as well as some force pulling at my conscious. Pulling it away from the abyss.

I look up at his face and I feel a punch in my gut. The flashes stop but the continuation of memories don't. A lot of my childhood was spent getting into trouble with this boy.

I look around us and notice that the sky is darker. Micheal and Jenni are no where in sight.

"Where?" I ask. My vocal cords are strained like I've been screaming. Have I been screaming? 

"They're inside the house. Jenni called me and said that you'd gone into a trance. You okay?" Eric answers, he's in sync with me and right now I can't find it within myself to be bothered by it.

But I do brush his hands off of my shoulders. He's standing too close and right now I just need cool air in my lungs.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I snap, automatically defensive.

I walk past him but stop before I can get up the stairs. I take another deep breath just because, happy that my body is once again obeying my commands.

"Thanks for bringing me back." I mutter knowing that he can hear me.

We will never speak on what just happened, but I'm not too proud to admit to myself that I would've been stuck if Jenni hadn't called him.

I walk up the stairs and enter the house without looking back, Eric knows not to follow me inside. I look around the once familiar living room and see a disaster area. Rugs are pulled up, couches are pushed aside, and some glass vases are even broken.

"Did you guys find anything?" I ask.

Immediately Jenni shoots up from her perch at the breakfast bar to come hug me.

"Bex! Don't scare me like that again!" Jenni nearly sobs on my shoulder.

I hold her tight and look to our brother in question. Micheal doesn't move from his spot on the loveseat parallel to us but his look says all that I need to know.

They were scared that they were going to lose me too.

"We haven't found any legal papers from around when Jenni got here so we started searching for journals." Micheal chimes in after a couple of minutes of my rocking Jenni side to side.

I lift an eyebrow at him. Our parents with secret diaries? That's a bit far fetched.

A spark goes off in my head and I let go of Jenni to rush up the stairs to the office. I don't even look back to see if she fell.

Once when I was very little, I made Dad a flower tiara which he wore all day long, that night he led me to his office and opened a "secret hidey-hole" to place my gift in. In my young mind I just thought that he was throwing it away, so of course I was pissed. Dad then mentioned that all of our precious momentous were stored there to keep them safe forever. He even told me how to find it just in case I wanted to put anything else in there.

Maybe the flashes of memories weren't so bad after all because there is no way I should've remembered something like this. It was so insignificant to my small brain that it hardly registered for the next couple of days, let alone into my adult years. 

I stand in the doorway to the office and sigh. The only recent people in this room have been Micheal and Jenni, it looks exactly the same. I'm again surprised because surely Dominic should've come in here to redecorate when he became Alpha. He's even kept the electricity on in the house, which I know because the light comes on when I flip the switch.

Everything looks untouched except for some missing paperwork but that's not a surprise.

I jump side to side, making sure that each board creaks under my feet before stepping on the last board five feet away from the window. I feel silly doing so but Dad was specific when he taught me this, I don't want to take any chances on the box not opening. I even twirl around like I was directed too so long ago.

Feeling foolish, I pull the rug away from the wood and stare at the box I wasn't one hundred percent sure was even still here. I examine the area first out of simple curiosity.

I'm glad I listened to my gut because there's a slab of wood that was rigged to slide over the box. If I had just walked to the area, I would've just seen boards of wood with no clear distinction in between them.

The box doesn't look like its gone through any changes that time brings to most things. I don't see any rust or mildew. It's camouflage is its brown color to match the wood surrounding it.

Again I follow instinct and tap on three specific places on the lid and it pops open, whomever made this was a genius. Now I want one just like it in my office, even though I don't have one.

I reach into the box and extract everything that's within it.

"Jenni! Micheal!" I yell.

Inside are three envelopes labeled for each of us along with random junk. Attached to Jenni's is a picture of two people and a baby. All have blonde hair, but only one of the adults has blue eyes. I'm going straight for the kill and assuming that these people are Jenni's biological parents.

Without turning around I hold out the letters for my siblings to take. Micheal takes his then slumps into the office couch, tearing his letter open. Jenni trails over to Dad's office chair and uses the letter opener.

I stay in my spot and turn the letter, addressed to me, around in my hands. It's pretty thick which is intimidating. After a quick debate I opt to use the letter opener Jenni hands me.

I unfold the papers and the first page only has one sentence in the middle, written by Dad.

Read when you are ready.

I nearly throw all the pages in anger.

'When in the hell am I supposed to know I'm ready?' I ask myself. Of course I get no reply.

Without a second thought I fold the pages up and stuff them back into the envelope. I don't have time for an internal debate.

I look up at Jenni and she's nodding along, as she reads, with tears in her eyes. I glance at Micheal and he's starring at me.

He quirks an eyebrow at me but doesn't say anything. I guess he knows that I haven't read my stack of papers. 

Titling my head towards the door, I non-verbally ask Micheal to leave the room with me. It's obvious that our sister needs some time alone.

We shuffle down the steps and stand awkwardly once we reach the bottom. Neither of us are sure about where to go now.

"What did your letter say?" Micheal inquires.

I shrug my shoulders and tell him the truth. I didn't read them.

Instead of asking why, Micheal just nods his head. He doesn't tell me about his letter and I don't ask. When he's ready, he'll tell me.

"You can't shut her out when she was only thinking about what's in our best interests." I state knowing that Micheal will connect the dots.

"I know." His shoulders slump slightly. "But if she's already willing to hide things from me, what does that say about our future? She's my mate Bex- but I can't ignore this, not with a pack looking for me to lead them."

"Work slowly. I'm not saying that you mark her now and throw her into the Luna position. I'm telling you give a little to get a little. If you shut down like a hermit crab, she will leave you." I know I told myself that I was done but he's stubborn so drilling into his head is necessary.

Jenni bounces down the steps with a smile on her face.

"I know their names and soon I'll track them down. But for right now I have a mate to deal with." Her smile drops and a look of determination takes over.

"You will not reject him Jenni. Ask the man to dinner before you make any definite decisions. You at least owe your mate that much." Micheal commands surprising us both.

Jenni slightly deflates, her mask of strength crumbling.

"What if he demands I stay here with him?" She whispers.

Micheal looks close to laughing so I answer for the both of us.

"Then you rip him to shreds."

AN: I'm sorry if you found this chapter a bit boring!  I promise more excitement ahead.