Chapter 11;- Coming Back Home
874 Words
(Leyla’s POV)
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The journey back felt unreal.
Like walking through someone else’s memory.
The wind touched my face and I almost flinched.
Freedom still felt like a trick.
We rode surrounded by warriors steady, silent, watchful. No chains. No guards gripping our arms. No barked orders.
And still my body waited.
For shouting.
For iron doors.
For the sound of something locking behind me.
The sky remained open.
Too open.
After a year of ceilings made of stone, the horizon felt dangerous.
Warda sat beside me, her fingers curled into mine.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered.
I nodded.
But my heart did not speed up.
It moved carefully now.
It had learned not to expect miracles.
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When we crossed into Silver Claw territory, a low howl rose in the distance.
Not war.
Not alarm.
Recognition.
Home.
Some of the girls began crying quietly. Others stared ahead like ghosts walking into a place they did not belong to anymore.
Because we didn’t.
Blood Moon had burned.
Silver Claw had taken in the survivors.
But this was not our forest.
It was borrowed ground.
I stepped down from the transport last.
My legs trembled when they touched earth.
Not from weakness.
From disbelief.
I was standing somewhere no one was trying to hurt me.
And I did not know how to exist in that.
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They were waiting near the healer’s wing survivors from Blood Moon who had been brought here months ago.
Older wolves.
Children.
The injured.
Those who had escaped the m******e before the kidnappers took the girls.
I didn’t look for anyone.
I told myself not to.
My parents had fallen in the fire. I had seen enough to know that.
There was no one left to search for.
And then
“Leyla?”
The voice was small.
Breathless.
Uncertain.
I froze.
My heart did something it hadn’t done in a year.
It leapt.
I turned slowly.
And there he was.
Sami.
Thinner.
Taller.
His hair uneven like someone had cut it badly with dull blades. His face sharper. His eyes older.
But alive.
Alive.
For a moment neither of us moved.
We just stared.
As if we were both afraid the other would vanish.
Then he ran.
I didn’t remember moving.
I only knew that suddenly he was in my arms and I was on my knees and his fingers were digging into my back like he was trying to anchor himself.
“You’re alive,” he kept saying. “You’re alive. I thought—I thought—”
His voice broke.
I held him tighter.
“I’m here,” I whispered into his hair. “I’m here.”
He smelled like forest and soap and smoke that had long since faded.
Not cages.
Not blood.
Forest.
He had survived outside.
He had survived without me.
Guilt pierced through the relief.
“I looked for you,” he said hoarsely. “After the fire. I waited. They told me you were taken. I thought”
“I know,” I said softly.
I pulled back just enough to see his face.
“You grew.”
“You didn’t,” he said, trying to smile. “You look the same.”
I didn’t.
Neither did he.
His hands tightened around mine.
Mama.
Baba.
The words were not needed “They didn’t make it out.”
He nodded once.
Just once.
His jaw tightened in a way no child’s should.
“I know,” he whispered.
And in that moment, I realized something terrifying.
We were not children anymore.
The fire had taken that too.
as healers approached to guide us inside, I felt it again.
That presence.
Steady.
Observing.
I looked up without meaning to.
He stood a short distance away the silver warrior who had led the rescue.
His posture straight. His expression unreadable.
He was watching the reunions. Watching the wounded. Watching everything.
When his eyes met mine, something shifted in the air.
Not heat.
Not recognition.
Something quieter.
As if he had expected to see me stand.
As if he had been measuring something.
He gave a small nod.not pride,not sympathy.
Acknowledgment.
I looked away first.
My world had narrowed to one thing:
Sami’s hand wrapped in mine.
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That night, Sami refused to sleep in a separate bed.
He dragged his blanket to mine and curled beside me like he used to when storms frightened him.
Only now, Storms were not what frightened him.
The room was silent.No iron doors.
No distant screams.
Just wind beyond the window.
Sami’s breathing slowly evened out.
I stared at the ceiling.
I had imagined this moment so many times in captivity.
Returning.
Finding something left.
But I had not imagined how heavy survival would feel.
We were the last of our house.
once a family of four,now two.
My fingers brushed through Sami’s hair gently.
He stirred but did not wake.
“I won’t leave you again,” I whispered into the dark.
Outside, Silver Claw stood strong and guarded.
Inside, something in me was shifting.
Not rising.
Not yet.But hardening.
Quietly.
Like steel cooling after fire.
I was only a girl who had come back from cages to find her brother alive.
And tonight
That was enough.
- Writer
