"God, I feel like we have been walking forever," Andrea says from behind me.

"We practically have been," Nik grumbles in response. "That alpha we ran into only let us stay on his land for a couple of days, and before that, I can't even remember when we last stayed in one place longer than a night."

Ethan looks over at me, and we share confused looks. To think that these two betas and their other pack members have been wandering for such a long time is inconceivable. Werewolves like to have a set territory where they can defend. To be wandering from place to place for over a year is something that is unheard of in werewolf populations.

Ethan looks back at the betas trailing behind us. "Where are you two from again?"

"Modesto, California," Nik says, reaching up a hand to wipe away some of the sweat from his forehead. It is hot out today. The temperature had to be somewhere in the high nineties, but that is not too surprising, seeing as it is the tail end of summer, the hottest part of the year.

"Why did your pack decide to wander up into Oregon instead of staying in California?" I ask, genuinely curious.

The betas exchange looks before returning their gazes to the ground. Nik clears his throat before he starts to talk this time.

"For the past five years or so, our pack has been struggling to stay together. We had too many alphas within our pack, more than what is healthy."

Andrea interrupts him. "Last time I remember, there were fifteen."

"Fifteen?" Ethan says incredulously. That many alphas in one territory is unheard of. At the most, some packs are able to keep order with five, but that is still a struggle. "How big was your pack?"

"A hundred and fifty, give or take a few," Nik supplies.

"Holy shit," slips out from between my lips before I can stop it. It is hard to even imagine a pack getting that big. My old pack was only thirty strong.

"How the hell did your pack even stay together. I have no idea how your alpha was able to keep that many pack members in line." Ethan slows down his steps, allowing the two betas to keep pace with us.

Andrea cocks her head to the side, shrugging her shoulders. "Well, she really didn't."

Nik nods his head, readjusting his pack on his back. "She just wanted the prestige that came with having a big pack but was unable to keep anyone in line. Even her closest betas didn't hold any respect for her."

"As soon as this whole apocalypse shenanigans happened, our whole pack went to shit." Andrea looks up at us, her brown eyes hard. "All the alphas were out of control, all fighting to have control of the pack. Full moons were brutal. Most of our omegas had to hide away so that the alphas wouldn't go around assaulting them, and if an alpha couldn't find an omega...."

Nik starts talking once Andrea trails off, a distant look in her eyes. "If an alpha couldn't find an omega before they went into full blown rut, they would start raping whoever they could get their hands on."

Ethan and I are struck silent. My mouth moves as I try to think of the right thing to say, but there never is a proper thing to say in a situation like this. Finally, my mouth seems to form one of the many thoughts going through my head right now.

"I'm sorry about what happened to you."

Nik looks up at me to give a shaky smile, but Andrea looks forward, not bothering to look in my direction.

"Well, after the first heat after the infected came around, our entire pack broke up. That night was one of the worst that we had ever been through." Nik's hands tighten where they are clenched around the straps of his backpack. "We decided to go with one of our classmates, Gonzalo. He was supposed to be in line to be alpha once his mother stepped down, so we thought he would be the best choice."

"How wrong we were..." Andrea mumbles.

"What do you mean? What did he do to you?" I question, eyes flickering between Nik and Andrea as they seem to fidget at my question.

Andrea is the one to finally meet my gaze. "You saw how Bethany was with us. If you thought she was bad, then you cannot even begin to imagine how bad our alpha was."

"He had horrible anger issues if things did not go his way," Nik cuts in. "If anyone disrespected him..."

"They wouldn't be with us the next morning," Andrea finishes.

"We used to have more pack members with us. We were a pack of twelve. Everyone started to slowly disappear, though." Nik's gray eyes start to glisten, but he blinks back the wetness, not allowing it to spill over. "Our alpha decided to take us North, saying that we should always be on the move, and since Oregon is less populated than California, then we should head up here."

"Much good that did us," Andrea mumbles. Nik sends her a hard glare, and the beta just shrugs her shoulder in return. "What? You know it's true."

"What happened once you got here in Oregon?" Ethan asks. His eyes never stay in one place too long, always moving to make sure that there is nothing hiding in wait for us to get close enough to attack.

"We met another alpha," Andrea and Nik say at the same time.

Nik is the one who continues to talk while Andrea looks up ahead of us. "He was nice enough, but looked like he had been through a lot, but haven't we all?" Ethan and I both nod our heads. "Gonzalo didn't act like his true self around him, pretended to care about us. The alpha allowed us to rest a couple days on his territory but sent us on our way after that. He gave us some supplies and told us to stay on the back roads."

"Gonzalo got even worse after that, but then the full moon happened, and he didn't come back in the morning. Bethany went crazy, especially since she thought she was his mate."

"Thought?" Ethan finally looks over at the male beta.

Nik nods his head. "Yeah, thought. They weren't really mates, just together really because they wanted a release outlet."

"Bethany had been making us look for him ever since," Andrea says.

"Why didn't you just leave?" I find myself asking.

Andrea's brow scrunches together in agitation. "You don't think we wanted to? We wouldn't have been able to survive out here on our own. Bethany was a better fighter than us, had gotten more training. She convinced us that we would die if we left her."

Neither me nor Ethan says anything else. Reaching into my backpack, I pull out one of my bottles of water, taking a long pull from it before returning it back to the pocket I had pulled it from. After what feels like hours, the road we are walking on finally leads us into a town.

"Oh thank god," Ethan breaths. His exclamation causes me to look up and follow his gaze to a large green sign, telling us that we are now entering the city of Medford. "I don't think I could take another day of walking."

Nik looks up at the sign, too, before looking in between us with a confused look on his face. "This is the place you have been trying to get to for weeks?"

"Yeah, why?" Ethan says, his voice hesitant as he looks away from the sign and over to the beta.

"This is the city where that alpha we were telling you about is from."

"No," Ethan says, his own look of confusion spreading across his face. "My old pack lands are just outside the city. No way a new alpha would be here claiming it already."

Nik just shrugs his shoulder. "This is the town. I'm sure of it. And the alpha we encountered said that he had been here his whole life. Said he lost everything, so he was just waiting for something to take him out."

"He said that?" Ethan questions.

Andrea speaks up this time. "Well, it was heavily implied. He wasn't much of a talker. Always carried a picture around of his mate, though. She was really pretty. Also said he had some children, but all their pictures had been destroyed, I'm assuming, since he said he didn't have any."

Something passes over Ethan's face, like disbelief. I move over closer to him, dropping my voice down to a whisper so that the others won't be able to eavesdrop. "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Uh..." he shakes his head a little bit as if trying to clear his mind. He looks over at me with a fake smile on his face, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

"You know you can talk to me, right, Ethan?" I ask, looking him over with narrowed eyes.

Ethan just shakes his head again before turning his face forward, making it so that I can only see his profile. "I'm fine, Tate. A little shocked is all."

"Okay," I say, drawing out the word incredulously. It is easy to see that something is on his mind, but he does not want to share his thoughts.

The alpha picks up the pace, making us walk even faster than before. He looks back at us over his shoulder, a determined look on his face. "Come on, I want to get there before the sun starts to set. Which leaves us only about an hour or two."

"Are you sure you want to go all the way out there just to be told to leave?" Nik calls out, his voice carrying forward on the slight breeze blowing past us.

Ethan doesn't bother to turn around this time to answer him. "I'm not going anywhere, no matter what that alpha says."

The sun is just starting to set by the time we make it remotely close to the property. There had not been too many infected in town, only a couple here and there that were easy enough to pick off. Ethan had seemed to take great enjoyment in knocking their heads off with his bat, so much so that the rest of us did not even need to lift a finger to help in taking them out.

A fence line comes into view. Ethan mumbles something under his breath and looking over at the alpha, it is easy to see the disbelief and confusion on his face.

"What is it? What's wrong?" I ask him, watching as he slowly reaches out a hand and runs a finger down the treated wood fencing.

"T-this shouldn't be like this," he says, voice so low that it is hard to catch what he is saying.

Scrunching my eyes together, my gaze follows the path his fingers are tracing along the different patterns the grains in the wood create. "What do you mean? It's just a fence."

"No, I don't think you understand." Finally, he starts moving again, walking along the fence line to get to the latch that will allow us to step onto the property. His fingers trail behind him, never leaving the fence as he walks.

"This was destroyed when we left. The Warriors broke down large sections of our fence line so that the infected could have access to us." He looks over at me once he stops in front of the metal latch. "This section was taken out. I remember because this is how Erik and I escaped once our territory was raided."

"But it makes sense that the new alpha here would fix the fence, right? If he didn't then he would be vulnerable to anything that may stumble through." Andrea looks over at us, an eyebrow raised in our direction. "Besides, this was here when we passed through about a month ago."

Ethan shakes his head again. "No, this is built exactly the same as it used to be."

"Okay...." I draw out the word.

Ethan lets out a frustrated sigh before turning the full weight of his gaze on me. "Tate, everyone has a different way of building something, almost like a signature. This right here," he gestures towards something scratched into the wood, so small that it is hard to make out. "I know this marking, that's why this doesn't make any sense."

"Well, whose is it?" Nik asks, a note of exasperation in his tone.

Instead of answering, Ethan flips open the latch, letting the fence swing open just enough so that we are able to slip through with our packs. Once everyone has stepped passed him, the alpha lets the fence swing closed, jiggling it slightly to make sure that it is latched completely.

We trail behind him as we walk along the gravel road, the forest around us oddly comforting. Something about this place gives off a feeling of calm like there is nothing that can harm us as long as we are behind these fences.

It takes us another twenty minutes before the gravel road gives way to dirt. A large house comes into view, the sun setting behind it making it look like it could be on the cover of a magazine. A few houses are built behind it, but it is impossible to see anything else in the dwindling light.

Ethan cocks his head to the side, shooting out a hand to stop me from walking any further. A grunt is forced out of me when Nik runs into my back, almost causing both of us to go stumbling to the ground.

"Ow, Jesus that hurt," Nik says under his breath. Reaching out a hand, I pull him back up to his feet. A frown mars his face as he rubs at his chest with his hand, shooting Ethan a hard look.

"What is it?" I ask Ethan.

The alpha doesn't answer me, instead looking up at the house standing directly in front of us. We are only about ten feet away from the stairs leading up to the porch, making it easy to see the person who swings open the front door to the house.

A large alpha male steps out of the house, a machete hanging by his side. His hair is a dirty blonde, no hint of gray near his temples, despite the fact that he looks to be close to fifty. He has a slight beard, no longer than a couple of inches, but it adds to the rugged lumber jack look he has going for him.

Ethan shudders next to me, his breath pouring out of him shakily. Hesitantly, he takes a step forward, not seeming to be afraid of the looming alpha in front of us.

"D-Dad?"