"A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies."
~Aristotle
***

"So what actually happened?" I demanded once Caleb, Josilyn, and I reached the neutral territory, where Lily waited for us. The Stark alpha looked just as pissed off as my brother, but it didn't seem to be directed at my family for once. It'd been three days since she and Caleb returned from Gran Canaria, and even now, their wounds were still visible, albeit mostly healed.

Lily took charge in answering. "Caleb and I warned Spencer and Elsa that the Controllers' kids were on their trail, that they wanted to help take down their parents, and that they knew what the two were after. Spencer told us they were staying in Spain for a while and that if the Lawmans and Kellermans came after them, they'd handle them."

"Did you speak to Elsa?" Josie asked hopefully.

"No. Either she wasn't in the room, or she didn't want to speak with us."

"Oh." My fiancée shuffled on her feet. "So, what happened next?"

Caleb picked up where Lily had left off. "Well, they had insisted we tell the Controllers where they were, so we did. We took the private jets to the mainland, and we tracked Elsa and Spencer to a town callee Benasque, somewhere in the Pyrenees Mountains. They were on the outskirts of town. Before we ever saw them, the Kellermans and Lawmans told us that was as far as we were going and that we needed to return home. Obviously, we put up a fight and-"

"Your injuries were from them?" I asked furiously, blood boiling at the thought of the Controllers hurting anyone else I loved.

"Yeah, but it's not because they attacked us. Not technically. They wanted it to look like Elsa and Spencer had attacked us to throw off any suspicion. It doesn't hurt, and they're healing quickly thanks to all the medicine Mom hooked me up with."

"How do you know they weren't just worried about you two joining Elsa and Spencer if the two of them attacked the Controllers?" Josie inquired.

"We don't," Lily said with a grimace. "We didn't get a chance to argue before they gave us the injuries and sent us on our merry way through a fucking portal. I landed on Brian in my living room. To say he was stunned is an understatement."

"Do you think Elsa and Spencer really attacked the Controllers with acid?" Josie inquired, taking a seat next to Lily on the rock.

"No. I think they would've given the Controllers a chance, and I didn't smell anything acidic nearby. So if they did attack the Controllers with acid, it wasn't at the cottage they were staying at."

I sighed, clasping my hands behind my head. "What are the next steps, then?"

"Keep pretending we hate them while secretly assisting the Controller legacies in keeping them hidden?" Caleb suggested, sitting on the ground next to Lily. "I don't know. They didn't tell us."

"Have you talked to Anna?" Josie asked, seemingly disinterested in our conversation. "I know why Elsa won't talk to us, but what about Anna?"

"Briefly," I answered, flashing back to the day she called me after their battle with the Shadows. "She wasn't hostile like Spencer, but she made it clear that she's not coming back here until everyone here accepts Elsa."

"So we start working on that." Josilyn stated her words with so much conviction that I wanted to believe her.

"It's not that easy," Lily said, giving my fiancée a small, sad smile. "We've been born and raised to hate each other. Add in the perceived personal offenses, and it's a shitstorm waiting to happen. You saw how we all reacted when Spencer stopped the wedding and whisked Elsa away. We damn-near killed each other then. Imagine what it would be like now after all those emotions have festered for months. I have no doubt it'll be at least a year before we see them again, if not longer."

"You think they can hide out that long?"

"If they have the Controllers' kids helping them, then yes. Once the parents discover where they are, their hands will be forced," Caleb remarked, leaning back on his hands. "In the meantime, they'll prepare. The Elsa and Spencer we knew won't be the ones we meet in the future. Neither will Anna and Dom be the same."

"That's what I'm worried about," Lily confessed softly. Caleb reached up and rested his hand on her knee, squeezing it affectionately.

"What if we start small?" Josie suggested. She stood up and started pacing, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze. "Elsa and Spencer started out with those they trusted most with their secret. I'm not saying we convince everyone to start liking the two of them, but I say we start sowing the seeds of revolution against the Controllers in them. That way, when the time comes, they'll at least be willing to team up with Elsa and Spencer, which might open the doorway for them all to repair what was broken."

A slow smile spread across my face. "That is a brilliant idea."

"If we do this the way Spencer and Elsa did, then it means we start with those we're closest to," Lily said. "For me, that's Brian."

"That's Callie's twin, right?" Caleb asked.

"Yeah. He's the more level-headed of the two. He knows how to talk to Callie, so through him, I can persuade her. The rest of the pack respects her and me as their new alphas that between the two of us, we can slowly but surely get everyone on the same page. I can have them ready for whenever the inevitable day comes when we need to team up because it's not an 'if,' but a 'when.' I want to be ready."

"As do we. I'll start with Noah," I decided, hoping my influence over him would be greater than Ember's. While he would listen to me without hesitation in battle and on a hunt, when it came to Elsa's abandonment of the pack, Noah favored Ember's opinion on the situation heavily. Still, I prayed he'd see reason for the need to team up with Elsa and Spencer when the time came. They were the key to winning this battle.

"I should get going before my pack starts wondering where I am." Lily stood up and stretched. Caleb got up as well. "If you hear anything from them, let me know?"

"Of course," I told her. It felt weird getting along with a Stark, let alone an alpha, but I wasn't complaining. For once, I was glad to have one on my side.

"I'll walk you back to your territory," Caleb offered, shoving his hands in his pockets. Lily didn't object, and bidding Josie and me goodnight, they trudged off through the mostly melted snow.

Once out of earshot, Josilyn asked, "What's going on between them?"

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and started directing us back to our own compound while responding with, "Trouble."

She chuckled but sobered up quickly. "Hey, you think we'll be able to get the pack to team up with Elsa and Spencer when the time comes?"

"It'll be difficult, and we'll have to do it very carefully, but I think we can."

Josie reached up and laced her hand with mine, giving it a squeeze. "That's all I needed to hear."

The two of us continued on our way back to the compound, but what I didn't tell my fiancée was that I was terrified of what the future held. Helping my sisters go against the Controllers meant risking the safety and wellbeing of my pack. I doubted my pack would understand my desperation to get Elsa and Anna back. Our house wasn't the same without them. However, most of our pack saw Elsa as a murderer. They were more lenient with Anna, who they viewed as being under Elsa's spell to assist in her dirty work. They didn't know Elsa had been tortured within an inch of her life. They didn't know it was because of her that Riley and Akira were set free, and I doubted they'd believe me if I told them. They didn't realize that everything Elsa and Anna, and even Spencer and Dom, were doing was to set us all free from the grip of the Controllers. All my pack could see was the images of Barry and Frank's bodies burned into their minds forever. All my pack could do was view Elsa as the traitor who brought death and destruction upon us. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't, but I know it wasn't intentional on her part regardless.

So the question remained: was I willing to help my sisters go against the Controllers to free us all from their death grip when it meant risking the safety and wellbeing of my pack?

Undoubtedly and unequivocally, yes.