Someone I Don't know
1646 Words
Have you ever walked into a room and known, without anyone saying a word, that everyone in it hates you?
That was me, at Caleb's funeral.
Fresh snow blanketed the cemetery, untouched except for the narrow path leading to the grave. Nobody had offered me a coat, not even my father.
He stood at the front like a man inspecting soldiers instead of burying someone. His jaw was set, the silver rings on his fingers catching what little light slipped through the clouds. He had once been Alpha. Drenin held the title now, yet people still lowered their voices when my father walked past. He ruled mostly through silence and the threat of what came after it.
He never looked at me.
Not once.
Even now, it seemed easier for him to stare at Caleb's grave than acknowledge the daughter standing only a few feet away.
We were never close. We had never even lived under the same roof. After my mother disappeared, he handed me off the way someone hands over a responsibility they never wanted.
I learned early that belonging to everyone often meant belonging to no one.
Caleb was my first love.
The boy who promised I'd never have to face the world alone.
Then he died trying to keep that promise.
Two men lowered his coffin into the frozen ground, silver chains wrapped tightly around it.
"Pack tradition," someone whispered behind me.
Silver kept a wolf bound even after death.
They called it respect.
Watching those chains disappear beneath the earth, it felt more like the last cruelty anyone would ever be allowed to inflict on him.
"The council's questioning her after this."
The whisper came from somewhere behind my shoulder.
"They should've done it two years ago."
"She was the last person with him."
"They're saying she knows more than she's admitted."
I didn't turn around.
I kept my face perfectly still.
If they wanted to watch me fall apart, they were going to leave disappointed.
That was when I felt someone watching me.
I turned toward the tree line.
A man stood at the tree line.
Tall.
Completely motionless.
He wasn't grieving.
He was simply... watching.
A dark mask covered the lower half of his face, while dark hair shadowed his eyes just enough to keep them from giving anything away.
His gaze locked onto mine with unsettling certainty, as though he'd expected me to look.
As though he'd been waiting for it.
My heart stumbled.
Something deep inside my chest pulled toward him, strange and instinctive, like a part of me remembered him even when the rest of me couldn't. My wolf had been gone for two years. Whatever answered him now wasn't something I understood.
I blinked.
He was gone.
Only untouched snow remained beneath the trees.
No footprints.
Nothing.
Outsiders didn't wander into pack funerals.
Especially not masked strangers.
Not unless they had a reason.
A chill settled beneath my skin that had nothing to do with winter.
I left before the murmuring peaked, the kind that lingered a half second too long on a person's face. I walked past the packhouse, my boots cutting fresh lines into the snow until the trees swallowed the sound of the gathering behind me.
The council would eventually send for me. They always did whenever something happened that they couldn't immediately explain.
Right then, I needed air that hadn't passed through a room full of grief first.
I sat beneath the oldest tree in the clearing.
My wolf had been gone for two years.
I'd stopped expecting her to come back.
I used to think all I wanted in the world was to become whoever I was supposed to be.
Now I wanted quiet.
I took the letter out of my coat.
The one Caleb had written before he disappeared.
The one I'd kept from every person who'd ever asked to see it.
'I know what you did, Nyah. And I did it too.'
I'd read that line so many times the paper had started to soften along the fold.
The meaning still escaped me completely.
For two years, I'd convinced myself the answer had died with Caleb.
Then the stranger appeared at his funeral.
For the first time, I wasn't sure anymore.
That night I went back to my mother's cabin.
I'd stayed there ever since she'd left. Maybe because it was the only place that had ever felt remotely like home.
The wood still carried traces of her scent if I sat quietly enough to notice. I made tea out of habit and let it grow cold between my hands while the fire burned low.
Three knocks.
Light.
It doesn't come from claws.
The blade was in my hand before I consciously reached beneath the couch cushion.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
I opened the door a few inches, keeping the blade low against my leg.
It was him.
The man from the tree line.
Closer now, and somehow even more out of place. His hood was down. Dark hair fell across his forehead the same way it had at the funeral. The mask still covered the lower half of his face, silver studs catching the firelight behind me. His shoulder armor was old, worn smooth by use rather than neglect.
"Hi," he said, as though we'd met before.
I didn't return the greeting.
"Who sent you?"
"No one."
Too quick.
He heard it too. I saw it in the brief pause that followed.
"Then what do you want?"
His gaze drifted past me, into the cabin, as if he could see through the walls to everything I'd tried to leave buried inside them.
"You."
One word.
I searched it for a trick and found nothing.
I stayed where I was. He matched me, giving me just enough space to decide what came next.
"I don't know you."
"Right," he agreed. "We haven't met."
I shifted the blade slightly against my thigh, enough for him to notice if he was paying attention.
He was.
"Your name."
"Rovan."
No pack mark.
No scent I recognized.
That alone should've been impossible.
"That door creaks," he said, nodding toward it. "Has for years, I'd guess. You'd think someone would've fixed it."
"How would you know that?"
"It creaks the same way every time. People stop noticing the things that stay constant."
I kept my grip steady.
"How are you holding up?"
The question landed less like something he wanted answered and more like something he already understood.
I said nothing.
"Losing someone like that..." He spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. "It's not the kind of thing that simply hurts and stops. It follows you backward. Every conversation starts sounding different once they're gone. Every ordinary moment becomes something you search for meaning in."
I felt my shoulders stiffen.
"What do you mean?"
His eyes changed for the briefest moment.
"People leave warnings without realizing it," he said quietly. "A sentence that doesn't matter until they're gone. Then suddenly it's the only thing you can think about."
"Caleb didn't warn me about anything."
A gust of wind slipped between us, making the cabin door groan against its hinges.
Rovan glanced toward the trees before looking back at me.
"Didn't he?"
The question settled between us.
My fingers brushed the folded letter inside my coat.
For one impossible second, it felt as though he knew it was there.
"You don't know what he said to me."
"No," he said. "I don't."
The words sounded honest.
Everything else about him made them difficult to believe.
I wanted to ask what he thought he knew about a man he'd never met. About a funeral he hadn't belonged at. About grief that wasn't his to speak of.
Instead, I tightened my grip on the blade.
"It wasn't yours to carry," he said, his voice quieter now. "Whatever you think you missed. Whatever you think you should've seen before it was too late."
"You don't know what I think."
"Maybe not."
He took a slow step backward, boots sinking into fresh snow.
"But I know guilt when it's wearing the wrong person."
My breath caught.
"You're carrying his," he continued. "Not only your own. Those aren't the same weight."
The fire popped behind me, scattering a shower of sparks inside the hearth.
Somewhere beyond the trees, an owl called once, then fell silent.
The smart thing would've been to close the door.
Everything about him should've made that decision easy.
Instead, I stayed exactly where I was.
"I think you should leave."
He nodded once, accepting it without argument.
"I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
After everything.
He stepped back into the snow.
He looked at me one last time before disappearing into the tree line the same way he had after the funeral.
No sound.
No footprints.
Nothing.
I remained in the doorway long after he was gone.
The blade hung loose in my hand.
The fire behind me had burned lower, leaving the cabin quieter than before he'd arrived.
My fingers found the folded letter inside my coat.
I know what you did, Nyah. And I did it too.
For two years, those words had been another wound I couldn't close.
Caleb was gone.
Whatever answer he'd tried to leave behind should've been buried with him.
Then Rovan appeared.
He spoke about Caleb as though he knew pieces of a story no one else had ever been allowed to read.
One coincidence could be ignored.
Two couldn't.
I still didn't know who he was.
I didn't know why he'd come.
I didn't know what Caleb had been trying to tell me.
But I was done pretending those questions no longer mattered.
If Rovan knew anything about Caleb, then the next time he came looking for me, I would make him tell me why he knew so much about a dead man.
- Writer
