"The past is a very determined ghost, haunting every chance it gets."
~Laura Miller

______________________________

Caleb

Like gossip in high school, word of Dmitri's supposed sighting of Elsa and Spencer's ghosts spread like wildfire. I even made the point to call Brian Stark's direct line to ask if he'd seen anything, knowing it'd immediately get back to Callie, who would spread it to everyone in the Stark pack.

By five o'clock, upon arriving home, I found my parents with drawn faces in the kitchen, both deep in thought while they got out cooking utensils for dinner. I pretended not to notice, but Hunter did and pointedly asked, "What's wrong with you two?"

Mom answered. "Dmitri, along with Noah, Loren, Dean, and Oliver, saw a couple in town that strikingly resembled Elsa and Spencer. I've never seen any of them look so disturbed, especially Noah and Loren. Apparently, the Elsa lookalike winked at them before she disappeared into thin air. No scent, no footprints, nothing. She and her pack died in the plane crash, but it looks like their ghosts have returned. I've never heard of such a thing happening, but with five packmates having seen them, there has to be something to the story."

Hunter's gaze shot toward me, and I feigned ignorance, saying, "I knew Dmitri thought he saw them and told him to ask around, but honestly, I thought it was just sleep deprivation on his part. We all saw that plane crash. There's no-"

"What if they faked their deaths?" Ember remarked, entering the room with an ashen Noah behind her. "The twins were cunning, and they obviously didn't care if they hurt us, or else they wouldn't have fucked off to who knows where with the Stark brothers."

I swallowed down my anger at her words. If she only knew what the twins and their pack had done for us. "If they did, I'm sure it wasn't because they didn't care about our feelings."

"They still cared for us. If they had stopped, they wouldn't have invited us to their wedding," Hunter added, jumping to their defense. "If they faked their death, it was probably to get the Controllers off their back. Still, the amount of effort and planning it would take for them to be able to pull that off, let alone get their DNA entered into Interpol or whatever database was searched for them, I don't see how it's feasible."

"It's not just us," Dad said, putting a pot on the stove with more force than necessary. "I reached out to the Starks. Some of their pack members have seen the ghosts as well."

"What are we going to do about it?" Josie asked hesitantly. "If we tell the Controllers and it turns out to be nothing-"

"They'll think we're materializing them with our grief and question our allegiances," Mom finished, leaning tiredly against the counter. "If we don't tell them and the ghosts turn out to be real human beings, the Controllers will be upset we didn't inform them about the sightings in the first place. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation for us."

"Can we play stupid and pretend we never heard about it?" I suggested.

Mom raised an eyebrow at me. "Tell me you don't actually think that'd work?"

"No, but I'm trying to be optimistic here so we have at least one 'win' situation for us."

She smiled gratefully at me. "I appreciate it, honey. Your dad and I will think it over and come up with a game plan. In the meantime-"

Mom stopped abruptly when four howls erupted far in the distance. The color drained from everyone's face as it dawned on my family who the howls belonged to. We only recognized two of them, but they were vocalizations we could identify anywhere, no matter how much time had passed. With it being the twins, it wasn't difficult to determine who the two accompanying howls were: Spencer and Dom. Their message was loud and clear: Meet in the neutral territory. Both packs. Everyone.

"It can't be..." Ember croaked, her earlier anger toward the twins gone. "They-"

"Died," Mom finished, shaking. "But we have to check it out. Let's go."

Hunter, Josie, and I took up the rear of our group as we headed outside, the three of us sharing an apprehensive look. What were the twins and their mates planning? Why was it just the four of them? Where was the rest of their pack? Surely they weren't planning on facing us by themselves?

The rest of our pack swiftly joined us, their complexions equally as white as my parent's. We shifted into wolves and sprinted to the neutral territory as fast as our legs would carry us. My heart felt like it may explode, not from the long-distance sprinting but from the anxiety over what my sisters were planning.

When we arrived at the neutral territory at the same time as the Starks. Neither the twins, Spencer, nor Dom was visible, easing my nerves slightly. I casually strode to the end of my pack's line to stand next to Lily, her presence comforting to me.

She nodded stiffly at me. "Laroche."

I returned it curtly. "Stark."

Hunter and Josie stood on the other side of me. Being the only four who knew the truth, we needed to stick together in case things went south for our siblings.

"Look! Up there!" Akira exclaimed, pointing up to the cliff in front of us. Twenty feet up, one by one, sixteen brown wolves stepped to the edge, staring us down with hard eyes. The four in the middle began jumping down the ledges to the ground, their pack following them. The sound of thundering hearts surrounded me on both sides in anticipation of the reveal of the strangers. Twelve of the wolves guarded the backs of the four alphas stepping forward. In unison, they shifted into humans, and a collective gasp went around the Laroche and Stark packs.

The ghosts of our past had finally come back to haunt us, but instead of see-through specters, they were flesh and blood with a thirst for vengeance and more than a few grievances to lay out against us. Although the Morningstar pack appeared confident, their pale pallor gave away their fear. Anna seemed to find her voice first under the intense stares resting on them. Addressing our parents, she said firmly yet gratefully, "Thank you for meeting us here."

"You-you're alive," Mom breathed, clutching onto Dad's shoulder for support even though he appeared ready to collapse himself. Chris and Hayley Stark looked equally as faint.

"We are," Dom confirmed, clasping his hands behind his back. "In case you haven't figured it out by now, we faked our deaths."

Hayley shook her head in disbelief. "How? The crash-you couldn't have-"

"You're not the only one with powerful allies," Spencer interrupted emotionlessly, eyeing his parents coldly. "We're not here to talk about our deaths, though. We come with an offer, not to fight."

"Bold words coming from you, considering you started all this," Noah snapped, glowering at the former Stark alpha.

"You may have a pack now, but you're no match for us," Callie growled, but the softness in her eyes directed at Spencer took out some of the venom.

"We know," Elsa said calmly, "which is why we didn't come alone. If any of you take a single, threatening advance toward us, you will be shot by our allies."

Callie scoffed. "Oh, please. You're bluffing."

Elsa's gaze dropped slightly from the redhead's eyes. "That red dot on your chest says otherwise."

I glanced hurriedly down at my own chest, mortified to see a red dot on my person. I snapped my head to look at Elsa and while we locked gazes, my sister gave nothing away, not the slightest hint of 'don't worry' or 'this is payback.'

She lied to me. Betrayed my trust. My heart shattered at the thought, shoulders sagging under the weight of the epiphany. Is this how she felt when we wouldn't help her and Spencer?

"You're going to kill us?" Dad queried sadly.

It was Spencer who responded, sneering, "Taking into consideration you nearly killed me and then showed up on the steps of that Italian church to murder my wife and pack, the idea of us killing you isn't that far-fetched, is it?"

"Luckily for all of you, we have a conscience," Dom added, shooting his brother a brief sideways look almost warily as if taken aback by the viciousness in Spencer's voice. "We're not shooting to kill you. They're tranquilizers."

"They'll knock you out before you can take two steps toward us," Elsa continued, eyeing each of us with a challenge in her eyes. "For those of you who miraculously don't get hit by our allies' incredible aim, you'll have to face us. I can promise you, at that point, there will be more of us than there will be of you, and we're no longer the inexperienced teenagers you knew. We are seasoned warriors with recent battle experience. We are not to be messed with."

"Our proposition is this-" Anna said, stepping forward. "Join our side and help us defeat the Controllers with the weapon we've created. Together, we would have enough to finally stand against their tyranny, destroy them, and live our lives the way we want to, to love those we want to without repercussion."

"We're not asking you to forgive us," Elsa said. "We understand we're likely beyond that point with most of you. All we ask is that you help us help you."

"We can help ourselves, thank you very much," Ember snapped.

"Once they find out you're alive, they'll kill anyone who even considered helping you," Mom said morosely. "I've already lost half my pack before. I can't lose anymore."

"We won't risk any more lives on our side either," Hayley decided, her brown eyes full of sadness.

Elsa nodded. "Very well. Next time you see us, it will be as enemies, and while we will not attack unless attacked first, we will not hold back, and our allies will be more than happy to kill those who mean us harm."

"And recognize that once the Controllers find out we're here, they'll use one of you to bait us into showing our faces," Spencer said. "You've signed the death warrants for a Stark and a Laroche, and as you've declared yourself enemies, we will not be there to help you stop it."

"We will take our leave now. I recommend you don't follow us, or else we'll be forced to shoot," Anna warned. Turning on her heel, she and Dom shifted and started moving toward the side of the cliff, but Spencer and Elsa stayed facing us as they slowly backed up, keeping an eye on their enemies. Then, out of my peripheral, I saw Callie step forward. In the blink of an eye, a gun fired, and the redhead went down. Howls of outrage sounded, and Starks and Laroches surged forward after my sisters and the Stark brothers, but none of them took more than three steps. More guns fired, and the packs dropped like flies. I shut my eyes and waited to be shot myself.