Lost

Found

            “Stop! I’m not going to let this charade go on for another minute. Leave!”

            Before I can say anything else, another man walks up. Older than Asher, but very similar in appearance.

            “Wait. Come talk to me, child.” He says, motioning for me to come forward. As I walk toward him, Asher tries to stop me.

            “Father, don’t worry about this. It’ll just bring up painful memories.” He says as he grabs my elbow again, keeping me from moving.

            “Let her come to me.” He holds up his hand, silencing Asher.

            “What is your name, child?”

            “Bailey, Bailey Midnight.”

            “What’s your middle name?”

            “Morgana. Why?”

            “When is your birthday?” he continues his questions, ignoring mine.

            “My twentieth birthday is coming up in less than two months, the seventh of July.”

            The older man looks from me to Asher and back to me again, smiling kindly at me.

            “It’s so good to see you again, Bailey.” He says, giving me a big hug. Momentarily confused, I put the pieces together as best I can and come to the only conclusion that makes sense to me.

            “You were my father’s best friend, weren’t you?” Unable to keep the hope from my voice or my throat from constricting midsentence.

            “A long time ago, I was. Yes. You can call me Jack.” He says with a sad smile.

            “Father, you can’t possibly believe her. They died, you know they did. We saw the bodies…”

            “Yes, we did. But we never found Bailey’s body, did we? She knows things about Bailey that no one else could know.”

            Turning around, he puts his arm around my shoulders and walks me down the street to his house. When we get inside he sits me down and brings me a scotch, since I was never able to drink the one at the bar.

            While I sit there sipping my drink, he disappears in a room down the hallway and Asher comes inside and sits across from me.

            When Jack comes back out, he gives Asher a look that says ‘don’t open your mouth’ and sits down in the chair to my left, holding a box. When he removes the lid, the first thing I see is a photo of me and my parents when I was really small. So many emotions exploded inside me, happiness and sadness, excitement and sorrow, the feeling of loss all over again and the feeling of being with them in a way too. So overwhelmed by everything crashing together, I didn’t even notice the tears raining down my cheeks when he handed the photo to me.

            “You look so much like your mother, Bailey. A little of your father, too.” Jack smiled, continuing to go through the box while I stare at the picture in my hands. My mother and father stand side by side, leaning against each other with their arms around the other’s waist and me sitting on their joined shoulders, my father's right hand and my mother's left holding on to each of my legs to keep me balanced. I look so happy. With my hands in the air, a big, bright smile across my face, my eyes so wide I can almost see the gold arches and brown flecks in my right hazel eye. My parents always told me having one hazel eye and one blue eye meant I was special and I’d go on to do great things. I wish they were right, the only ‘great’ thing I’m going to do is kill Dorian.

            After several moments, I look up to Jack watching me with eyes full of fondness and sorrow. Passing the box over to me, he nods in invitation for me to look inside. When I scoot forward, I see my parent’s wedding rings, the necklace my mother wore every day and the watch my father wore. My old stuffed rabbit is there too, along with my parent’s journals. 

            Jack takes the photo of my parents and I, handing it to Asher who inspects it closely. Looking from the photo to me and back again, his eyes widen, and something changes in the way he looks at me. 

            Sadness, remorse, shame, and happiness all cross his face in the blink of an eye. If I had blinked, I would have missed it. Looking over to Jack, he saw it too and looks pleased. Then he turns back to face me.  

            “We kept them safe to honor your family, I couldn’t stand the thought of them being buried in the ground or throw away like trash. Now I’m thankful I did, they belong to you. Jumping from the couch into his arms, I squeeze him as tight as I possibly can.

            “Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me.” I mumble through my constricted throat into his chest. He just pats my back and holds me, letting me cry.

            “You’re more than welcome to stay here, if you’d like.” He offers after I pull away to wipe my tears.

            “Thank you, I’ve actually been searching for you. It was just a coincidence that I stumbled into this town, but I’m so grateful I did. Maybe everything that happened before was meant to lead me here.”

            “That very well could be dear,” he sits back down and I do the same. “speaking of everything that happened before, where have you been?”

            Taking a deep breath to compose myself, I scoot back against the couch and make myself comfortable.

            “Do you know Dorian, the Alpha of Beartooth Pack?”

            “Yes, we’ve met before. Your father and I had gotten into a few arguments with him at a council meeting, but why?”

            “He killed my parents. I had been hiding in the woods and when everyone was dead he found me. Instead of killing me he took me in, not out of the kindness of his own heart,” I spit out, voice filled with venom. “he basically just wanted a slave and a punching bag for his family and pack. I was going to leave on my nineteenth birthday when I was an adult, but I found out he killed my parents a week before and left that night. I hated him so much already, when I found out, I wanted to kill him. And I will, when I’m strong enough and able to shift.”

            Silence fills the room, both Asher and Jack stare at me a moment processing what I’ve told them, their faces filling with rage.

            “That motherfucker!” Asher yells, jumping up and punching the wall behind his chair.

            Jack gets up, too and starts pacing back and forth. It’s easy to see he’s trying to hold in his temper by the redness in his face and the veins popping out of his temples and neck.

-----

            After everyone calmed back down, Jack told Asher to show me to my room. I’ll be staying in their house until they’re able to find a cabin or apartment for me. Asher brings me to one of the two rooms upstairs, on the right side of the hallway. As I walk into the room, I take in the cream colored walls with blue trim around them and the windowsills, it’s own bathroom, and a large bed with grey sheets.

            “It’s lovely, thank you.” I tell Asher, smiling.

            “No problem,” he starts rubbing the back of his neck. “uh, I wanted to apologize for earlier. Ya know, how I treated you and all. I’m really sorry-“

            “Don’t be. Just don’t do it again,” I joke, waving him off. “But seriously, I get it. I’m actually kinda glad in a way that you did in retrospect, it just shows how much my family meant to yours. And that means a lot to me.”

            Nodding, he grabs my bag off the floor and puts it on my temporary bed and starts walking out.

            “Oh, uh, before you go,” I say, causing him to turn around. “I was wondering if you could show me around town sometime?”

            “Yeah, of course. After dinner okay?”

            “Perfect, thanks.” I answer with a smile.

            For the next hour I finish putting away my stuff, I plug my phone into the charger before taking a shower. It feels amazing standing under the hot water, rinsing off all of the dirt and sweat and cleaning out my arm wound. It’s still red and sore, but the skin should be fully closed in a day or two. This thing is definitely gonna leave a scar. My shifter healing won’t begin until I shift for the first time, so I’m gonna be stuck with this scar… and the part of my rib that didn’t heal right after Dorian first took me in… that asshole.

            After I finally get out of the shower, I wrap the soft, fuzzy towel from the bathroom around me and brush my teeth before I walk to the dresser for clean clothes. When I’m done sliding on my undies, I choose the pair of denim shorts and white tank top I got in Choteau. After slipping on my socks and ankle boots, I put deodorant on and brush my wet dark brown hair before putting it up into a messy bun.

            Now that I’m all clean and dressed, I slide my fully charged phone into my back pocket and go downstairs. When I get to the living room Jack looks up at me and smiles.

            “Perfect timing, dinner will be ready in about a fifteen minutes. Asher is finishing up in the kitchen now.”

            Hearing we’d be eating in the house and it’d only be the three of us confused me, I thought every pack ate all together like Dorian's. I just hoped that was the only thing other packs did like Dorian's.

            “If you don’t mind me asking, why don’t you all eat together as a pack?”

            “We only eat together as a pack during a special event. Like a birthday or wedding, someone’s first shift, or any celebration really. Making food for an entire pack would be a lot of cooking and it wouldn’t be fair for that to fall on to one person or even a handful of people every day. And I think each family should be able to make what they want and eat together as a family when they want, it wouldn’t be fair for everyone to have to work their schedule around a set time for meals. The ones that work would have to leave work early depending on their schedules, and that’s not fair for them or their families who need their income.”

            Having him explain it like that made me really think about it, and he’s right. It was a lot of work when I had to cook for Dorian’s pack and it isn’t as big as this one. Especially with some of them working too, that would be a lot.

            “Hm. That makes a lot of sense actually.” Smiling, I go to sit and watch tv with him. It looks like a criminal documentary or something, it’s actually pretty interesting.

            “Hey, dinners ready!” Asher calls from the kitchen a little while later.

            Sitting around the dining room table eating with people is so foreign to me, I’ve been eating alone in a closet-turned-room for eleven years. I like it, though. It feels really nice.

            "Wow, this is amazing. The mashed potatoes and chicken are perfectly seasoned and the veggies are so yummy. You're a really good cook, Asher."

            "Thanks, I'm glad you like it. What did you eat before?" he asks.

            "Oh. Well, usually I'd eat bread and broth, occasionally I was allowed to have some leftovers but there wasn't really much left, at least nothing good. I wasn't allowed to reheat anything, either. Sometimes I wasn't even allowed to eat if they were mad at me or I did something wrong..." I trail off, noticing how angry they're getting.

            "So, how many shifters do you have here? It looks like a lot, definitely more than I've seen in a pack before." I ask, trying to change the subject.

            "There's about 1,200 shifters living in this town, but there's also some who refer to live in cabins in the woods outside town. All together I'd say 1,500 shifters in our pack." Jack answered.

            “So after you left Beartooth Pack, what did you do?” Asher asks from across the table.

            “Well first I found this town called Choteau close to where the pack is, this lovely older couple helped me so much. I didn’t have any money or anything – no ID, no friends, no decent clothes. Henry found me sitting at a bench and came up to talk to me, he was so kind. He offered me a job at his flower shop and then him and his wife let me stay in an apartment above their garage. I’ll never forget them, they were the first kind people I interacted with since my parents died.”

            “That’s wonderful, did you come to Virginia from Choteau?” Jack asked with a smile.

            “No, actually from there I went to Medora in North Dakota. I only stayed there for around a month, though. I was in Choteau for I think eight months. Then I went to Indianapolis and…” I trail off, thinking about what happened since then, the betrayal and hurt coming back all over again.

            “And?” Asher eyes filled with curiosity.

            “In Indianapolis... a man approached me, a shifter. He seemed nice and showed me around the city, but then... he drugged me and was taking me to his pack to be a breeder…”

            “Oh s**t, how’d you get out of that?”

            “A guy saved me, actually. Deacon. He showed up and fought him, giving him a chance to surrender but he refused. He had an opening and instead of going after the guy, he came after me,” I shift my arm to the side, showing my bandaged arm. “that’s why that’s there.”

            “I must admit, I was curious about that.” Jack commented.

            “So where’s the guy who saved you?”

            “Well… Deacon wasn’t really as good of a guy as he acted. He was going to take me to be sacrificed by ‘the Elders’ apparently. So I ran. And I ended up here.”

            “He was going to take you to what?” Asher’s face was filled with a hatred so deep if Deacon was here now, I think he’d kill him.