"She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails."
~Elizabeth Edwards

Elsa

Spencer and I worked diligently to get Lydia patched up and healed. She went in and out of consciousness, exhausted from the ordeal, but still wired on adrenaline.

Meanwhile, Dylan paced nervously up and down in front of the bed, recounting their journey. The two of them, along with their friend and packmate Percy, committed treason by conspiring with a guy named Carson Bells from the Star Pack, an ally of the Laroches, to find out the truth about why the packs couldn't mix. When they were caught, they were imprisoned by two young adults named Nina and Dwight Lawman. In fear of being executed, they broke out, tearing up their hands and nails in the process. Dylan glanced down at his hands as he described this, inspecting them. Even now, a week later, I could see he was still healing from it. Probably the stress and sleep deprivation had slowed his healing process.

"You want to know the weirdest thing about the Lawmans?" Dylan mused. "Besides the fact that they were going to kill us and had magic powers? They had no scent. And I couldn't smell anything after they left for a good hour."

At that, my interest piqued. The night Anna and I rescued Spencer, we'd encountered the same scent! But was it the Lawmans? Or was it the Controllers of my family? Did all Controllers have the ability to hide their smell completely? It certainly was an advantage over us in a fight as us wolves relied heavily on scent when searching for our prey. The information unsettled me.

And terrified me.

Dylan finally stopped pacing and came to stand beside Lydia. "Is she going to be okay?"

"She's going to be fine," I consoled. "Her injuries were worse than they looked. With some sleep and rest, she'll be as good as new."

"Oh, thank god," he breathed. "If you two hadn't come when you did, I don't know what would've happened to us. There are more wolves out there. We saw them once, but we didn't know if they were friendly or not, so we kept away from them. Percy is out there too. We got separated when we were being chased."

"How many were there?" Spencer asked.

"Three, I think. They were east of here, close to the lake if you know what I'm talking about."

"I do. I'll go check it out," I promised. "You stay here with Lydia and get some rest."

"Thank you again, both of you. I'll see you in the morning."

Dylan sank into the armchair next to the bed, lacing his fingers with his girlfriend's, before closing his eyes. Leaving them be, Spencer and I headed downstairs. We still were in a weird funk with each other, where whenever we spoke, it was only out of necessity. It was as if we'd lost all ability to hold a normal conversation. I hated it.

Grabbing my jacket off the coat rack, I announced, "I'm going to go see if I can find Percy. I'll be back later."

"You're not going out there alone. Not with three possibly hostile wolves," Spencer protested.

"Which is why this is going to be a stealth mission until I can determine whether or not they're friendly and whether or not they're like us. I'll be fine. Besides, it's easier to do a stealth mission with just one person and by the stealthiest person in the pack."

"You're not going by yourself."

"I know you're an alpha, but you're not my alpha. Right now, I'll make my own decisions because I don't know what's going on between us, but we're not on the same page at the moment."

"You're not an alpha, though, Elsa."

"You forget that I was a beta before I was demoted to omega," I growled.

"Well, maybe you've been in the omega position too long."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're not as strong as you think you are!" he snapped.

"What has gotten into you these past few weeks?" I finally demanded in exasperation, exhausted from continually stressing out over our relationship. "I know our situation isn't exactly great, but we made the decision to run off together, and we have to deal with the consequences of our actions. Whatever is on your mind, then speak it, but stop taking your frustration out on me when all I'm trying to do is make this a little easier on all of us."

"My problem is you being reckless. Just because you don't have your pack to tell you what to do doesn't mean you can go about doing whatever you want. I have a pack to take care of, and that includes you."

I took a deep breath to try and calm myself down. "Has it maybe occurred to you that I need some space from you and Rey and Finn? You because of your new attitude towards me, Rey because she hates me for what I've gotten you into, and Finn has been all up in my business trying to figure out what's wrong, and I won't tell him because he can't fix what's wrong. But unlike you, I'm not taking out my stress on him like you are on me."

"My pack-"

"Your pack?" I interrupted. "You wouldn't have Finn or Killian, two of the strongest members in this pack, if it wasn't for me. Don't think they're following your orders because they think you're their alpha. They're following you because I am. If I were to leave, they would too. This is our pack, right? Or am I mistaken?"

"You're not an alpha, though!"

"You're not seriously relegating me to the omega position, are you?"

"No, I'm-" He made a noise of frustration before trying to calmly say, "I'm saying you're neither alpha nor omega. But you are part of this pack."

"I'm dating you, Spencer. Becoming the future alpha is part of the job description."

"How do we even know we're going to be together in a few years?" Spencer groaned. Suddenly his eyes jerked up to meet mine as if realizing what he said. "Elsa, I didn't mean-"

"Then why did we run away together?" My voice turned deadly quiet. "What was the point of running away with me if you thought we weren't going to be together in the future? I may not have a lot of experience dating-wise, but I'm good at judging people, and I saw a future with you. A really, really good one. I thought you believed in that kiss we shared as much as I did. But maybe I'm not as good as I think I am in that department."

"What are you saying?" he replied, his voice slightly trembling.

"I'm saying that I wonder if we made the right choice, that if everything this past month has been real. I'm wondering if we acted on lust rather than love and if we've made a terrible, terrible mistake. I'm going to find those wolves because I do know I'm good at stealth missions. I'll see you later."

"Elsa-" Spencer began but was cut off by the door slamming in his face. I shifted, running as fast as I could from our hideaway. I wanted to howl, howl as long and as loud as I possibly could, to somehow verbalize the pain coursing through me, this heartache I was enduring, but I refused to do it. Doing so would send our pack into a frenzy they didn't deserve. They didn't need another thing added onto their already fully-loaded plate.

Instead, I ran until my legs almost physically gave out on me. I ended up next to a frozen pond. Turning back into a human, I collapsed against the side of a giant Ponderosa. I hadn't told Spencer everything that was bothering me because like Finn, he couldn't do anything to help me figure out what was wrong, and I didn't want to burden them with my problems when I knew they had so much on their plates already, a lot of which I had caused. Ever since my departure, Anna had been uncharacteristically silent. She wouldn't even return my thoughts via our twin telepathy, let alone my text messages. I could handle my family being mad at me, but not her. She was literally my other half. I couldn't even sense her, and I couldn't figure out why. However, I knew that if, god forbid, she died, I would know. I was positive of that. I could sense our connection still. But regardless, her silence distressed me.

Was she purposefully ignoring me because she was angry with me for leaving? If that was the case, then why had she helped me escape? Why did she offer to come with me before I drove off? That's not what angry people do for the person the emotion is directed at. I could write off the no response with the texting as my parents taking away her phone for the sheer reason she'd be the first person I'd contact once I was safe. But my mind could make up no reasonable excuse for her not replying to my telepathic messages to her. Distance had never mattered before, so why would it now?

All I could think of was that she was avoiding me. Just the idea made a massive knot form in my throat I couldn't push down. The first tear spilled down right as the dam broke in my eyes. The stress, the frustration, the worry, the weight of the things I'd done recently, finally came crashing down in one, fell swoop. For the first time since I left, I regretted my actions. I wished I was back home, curled up in my bed with a good book, a steaming cup of hot chocolate overloaded with marshmallows on my nightstand. I missed Caleb and Hunter picking on each other, and then ganging up me, Anna, and Ember. I missed my mom's homecooked meals. I missed the security my dad provided me. I missed Josilyn, my other sister. I missed my family.

But when I thought about leaving Spencer, the idea killed me even more. Despite what I'd said, I believed in the kiss we shared. I believe we found our mate in each other. But did he? With the way he'd been acting toward me lately, it was a difficult concept for me to grasp.

I probably sat there for at least thirty minutes in a state of repeatedly trying to stop crying and failing. It was only the soft, nearly nonexistent footfall to my right that snapped me out of it. And from the smell of it, the visitor wasn't anyone I knew.