"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
***

Dom

With Elsa alive and mostly well, the pack allowed itself to breathe a sigh of relief. We shifted our focus to helping the Shadow kids clean up the massacre. Honestly, despite how many people we had on our side, I still wondered how we won the battle. The adults had more experience, better aim, better weapons, and more people than us. The only thing I could think of at first was we had the element of surprise.

Then I saw the carnage Elsa left behind. Mangled bodies lined the corridor leading to the room she'd been tortured in. How did I know this? Besides her scent being everywhere, along with her blood and bits of blonde human hair and white wolf hair, Victor confirmed it for me.

"I don't know what was in that patch that Kline gave her, but I'm pretty sure it saved her life and ours," Victor remarked while we dragged dead bodies down the hallway and stairs and into the rapidly filling morgue. Other Shadows were burning the bodies in the incinerator, but it wasn't going near fast enough to keep up with the piling corpses. I should've been more disturbed by teenagers burning bodies, but I wasn't. Maybe because this entire situation was bizarre.

"I think we can call it quits for now," Victor said, rubbing his injured shoulder. "We've been at this for hours, and you look ready to pass out."

"I'm fine," I said, waving off his concern.

"Dude, you got impaled in the chest by a seven-inch shard of metal. You shouldn't even be alive right now. Trust me, there will be more to do later. Go see your girlfriend and brother."

I chose not to argue, either about staying or the misinformation about Anna being my girlfriend. To be honest, even after the passionate sex and make-out sessions and sharing the same bedroom, I still wasn't sure if we were 'dating.' I probably needed to clarify that with her soon because I knew what I wanted.

I shuffled to the makeshift bedroom Spencer and Elsa had taken over. Our pack usually hung out with them, but to my surprise, it was just the two of them and Anna. The latter was sprawled out on the couch, fast asleep. Elsa was too, her head in Spencer's lap and a book resting next to her. My brother gingerly stroked his girlfriend's hair as he scrolled through something on a laptop.

"How's she doing?" I asked quietly, nodding towards Elsa.

"Exhausted and weakened, but alive," Spencer said, glancing down at her briefly with a soft, loving smile.

I took a seat on the couch next to Anna, careful not to wake her. "Did she tell you what they did to her?"

"Not all of it, but they enjoyed electrocution and waterboarding." A growl erupted from Spencer's throat. "They're lucky they're all dead because if they weren't, I would torture them until they begged for death, and I would show them the same mercy they showed her: none."

"I would've helped, but if it's any consolation, she got her revenge on most of them."

"How are you feeling?"

I rubbed my chest where the metal shard impaled only 48 hours ago. "Fine. The gash in my chest is healing, but it still hurts like a son of a bitch. You?"

"I'm allowed to move around more than the first day, so I can't complain. Leg's mostly fully healed now."

"Good. What are you working on?" I peered over at the screen to find him... googling Spain? "Something you want to tell me?"

"It's something based on what Elsa and the Shadow Kids found. Apparently, the kids threw this mutiny together ridiculously quickly, as in a few days after Elsa arrived. They were reading up on the Controllers for a while, though, and inadvertently discovered a potential weapon against them. Here." Spencer carefully lifted the book away from Elsa and handed it to me. I scanned the brittle, tarnished pages. The text was old and handwritten, and the layout was almost as if it'd been a personal journal rather than an actual book.

However, the more I looked at the page, I realized not only that it was, in fact, a personal journal but also-

"A spellbook?" I demanded in disbelief. "Seriously?"

"Dude, we turn into wolves. Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Yeah, but these things look so... normal? I know they're using the scientific name, but I'm pretty sure heather is abundant in Scotland, and chamomile is abundant in Germany. Really the only weird one is the Gran Canaria Dragon Tree." I flipped over to the next page, where more information about the potion resided, along with a sigil meant to be drawn on the vial.

"Yeah, you say that now. That's what I thought too before deciphering it all and doing the math."

I didn't like the sound of that. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, by getting this and making it, we're essentially preparing for a battle with the Controllers. If we get involved, chances are we're going to get our families involved, and I don't want them to be vulnerable, no matter how much they may hate us."

"I don't think they hate you like you think they do," I said, handing him the journal back.

Spencer snorted. "What makes you think that?"

"I can't speak for all of the Laroches, but I know Arya doesn't. She said Ren attacking you was all for show and that any anger he unleashed was directed at the Controllers, not on you. You just... took the brunt of it. She said if Ren wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

"I think he would've killed me if Arya hadn't stepped in. Anyway-" Spencer started scanning his screen again- "if we're making enough for us, the Starks, and the Laroches, we're going to need 72 vials and enough ingredients to fill 72 vials. Thankfully, you don't need a lot injected into you for it to work, but still. I don't know if it'll come to us needing it for them or when and if we'll ever need it, but I want to have it just in case."

I carefully did the math in my head. "No, we only need 70 vials."

"Actually, we need 72. We found two more Shifters earlier, and we've invited them to join our pack: Carson Bells and Kara Barnes. Carson is from a Stark-allied pack and Kara from a Laroche-allied one. Similar to the rest of the pack, the rest of theirs are missing."

"Do we have any clue as to why?"

"Judging from what the Shadow Kids have told us, the Shadow Adults killed them. The ones in our pack are just seriously lucky survivors," Spencer replied grimly. "Elsa and I have been trying to find confirmation of this before we tell our pack in case it's not true. Viktor's looking into it for us."

I leaned back in, mulling everything over. "These ingredients- can't we, I don't know, Amazon half this stuff?"

Spencer snorted. "I thought the same thing, but it all needs to be freshly picked from areas rarely traveled by humans. It'll be tricky because half of this stuff doesn't even bloom until late summer or early fall. The earliest one we can get is the peony from Spain, the sap from the Dragon Tree, and the water from France. The others will have to wait until August and September. Of course, all that is the easy part. Did you read what the last ingredient was?"

"Isn't it just plants?"

"No. Once we mix all the plants together, we have to add in the hair of the potion-taker. So do you know what that means?"

"Yeah, it means we have to-" The epiphany hit me as hard as the metal shard that impaled my chest- "Oh. Fuck."

"Yeah. We, at some point, have to go back to Estes and gather the hair of the Starks and Laroches so we can make the vials for them. The step after that will be injecting it into them somehow."

"You know, Lily is on our side in all this. I can see if she'd be willing to help us out with this."

"You really think she'd be willing to?"

"Yeah, let me call her. I know she's been dying to know if we got Elsa back alive."

"Don't ask her just yet for the hair. I want to make sure we can even pull this off, but feel free to call her with an update."

Nodding, I pulled out my phone and dialed Lily's number, putting it on speaker. She picked up on the second ring.

"Are you okay?" She asked immediately. "What the-"

"Dom!" A guy exclaimed. "Is Elsa okay? Is she- hey!"

"I'm her favorite. I get to ask the questions," another guy said. "Is Elsa alive? Did you get to her in time? Did you-"

Suddenly, both boys let out a yelp of pain, and Lily came back on the phone. "I would've put it on speaker if you two dumbasses didn't grab it from me."

"Are you with Caleb and Hunter?" I asked, surprised she would risk being with them by herself.

"Yeah, I ran into them in the neutral territory, believe it or not."

"Is Elsa alive?" Caleb demanded again, enunciating his words carefully.

"Yeah, she's alive," I confirmed.

"And well?"

"She will be."

"I don't appreciate the cryptic message. How bad is it?"

"She nearly died from being tortured," Spencer spoke up, his voice strangely devoid of emotion. "She'll heal physically just fine, but she's going to have lasting effects from the torture."

"Spencer?" Lily's voice cracked. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Oh my god, it's so good to hear your voice," Lily breathed. It'd been the closest I'd heard her to tears in a long time. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Recovering from battling the Shadows to get to Elsa, but we all are, and we'll all be fine."

"Is Elsa there?" Caleb interrupted.

"Yeah."

"Can we talk to her? We just need to hear her voice for ourselves."

Spencer looked down at his girlfriend, who was now wide awake. Elsa met his gaze, and a silent understanding passed between them. "No, she's asleep, and I don't want to wake her. She needs all the rest she can get."

Caleb sighed. "I- okay. When she wakes up, can you tell her to call us?"

"I'll tell her, but I can't promise she'll listen."

"It's her alpha's orders," Hunter stated. "Then she has to listen."

"No, she doesn't," Spencer growled. "Your alpha's orders don't work on her anymore because, in case you forgot, your parents kicked her out of the pack, and she's the alpha of our pack now. If Elsa wants to call you, she will. If she doesn't, she won't. You best remember that, and that's all I'll say on the matter."

"She's our sister," Hunter snarled.

"Yeah, but she's my mate, and when it came down to it, she chose me over you, just like I chose her over my family. We didn't want to make that choice, and we hated that we had to, but our hands were forced because none of you could accept it. So until you do, you won't be seeing either of us again. This is the end of discussion."

Elsa sat up and laced her fingers with Spencer's. She lifted his hand up to her mouth and kissed the back of it, mouthing, 'Thank you.'

Meanwhile, Hunter snarled, "I swear to God, if you speak to me like that again, I will rip your-"

"What about Anna?" Caleb interrupted sharply. "Is she all right?"

"Yeah, she's good," I replied, grateful one of the Laroche alphas could act rationally.

"Thank God for that. Will she talk to us?"

"She's asleep too, but I'll tell her to call you. I don't think she'll have any issue with it."

"I appreciate it, Dom."

"We should probably let you go," Lily said, sounding anything but ready to hang up, "but call us anytime. And Spencer?"

Spencer leaned forward. "Hmm?"

"I miss you. I know we had our differences in the end, but I understand why you did it, and I'm sorry I didn't do more to help. I love you."

Spencer smiled wistfully at the phone. "I love you too, Lils."

We hung up, and I sank into the couch cushions. "You two okay?"

"I am," Spencer said. He looked over at Elsa. "Love?"

She stared at my phone, which still resided in my hand. Elsa wore an expression I couldn't quite decipher. "It's weird to hear their voices. We've been gone for only two months, but it feels like ages ago..."

Spencer kissed the side of her head. "A lot's happened since we left."

"And we still have so much to do before we see them again." Elsa stood up. "I'm going to talk to Viktor, see if he can help us in any way with getting into Europe since we don't have passports. Will you take care of the booking?"

"I've already booked most of the trip," Spencer confirmed.

Elsa smiled softly at him. "You're a saint. I'll be back in a bit."

We watched her pad silently out of the room. Once she was out of earshot, Spencer said in a pained voice, "She's not okay, Dom. She's so far from it."

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel her terror. Whatever is going on inside her head from what the Shadows did to her, it's eating at her, and I don't know how to help her. It's not exactly like we can go to a therapist. They'd throw us in the looney bin the moment we started talking!" Spencer braced his head in his hand. "I just got her back, but it feels like she's still so far away."

"Elsa went through hell, Spencer. The only one who semi-understands is Anna because of their twin connection. She might be the only one who can get through to her sister."

"It shouldn't all fall on Anna, though. She's been through enough too."

"And you haven't?" Spencer didn't reply, giving me my answer. "What happened isn't your fault, you know that, right?"

"I pushed her away. I was stressed, and I took it out on her. Maybe if I hadn't acted like a damn child, this wouldn't have happened."

"Spencer, no offense, but you are a child. You're only 18."

"Yeah. That's an adult."

"Legally, yes, but your brain doesn't stop developing until your mid to late twenties. You're still young. We all are."

"I can't afford to make stupid mistakes like that, though, not when it comes to Elsa. I have a pack to look out for now with no help from any other adults, and after everything our pack has done for us, after everything they've risked, I'm not going to let them down. Not again."

"You never did, and you're not going to. As your older, wiser brother, I'm calling this the end of discussion. Now, what can I do to help plan this trip?"