I told him how Evelyn had brought me inside and cleaned me up. I did not mention that one of the reasons why she took pity on me was the bruises she found on my body. “She asked me a lot of questions about my adoption and my parents, but at that age I didn’t really know anything.”
Caleb nodded. “She realized pretty quickly that I was a wolf adopted by humans. I asked her if she was a wolf, too, and she told me no but she had family that was. I didn’t understand genetics or anything like that at that age, so it seemed like a reasonable explanation.”
I paused for a moment to critically eye the counters. I was pretty sure I had gotten everything in the fridge that needed to go in.
“What did she tell you about her family?” Caleb prodded gently.
I told him every detail I could think of while I worked on the pantry. I decided it would be easiest to empty everything out and start over so that I could organize things a little better.
Almost everything I told Caleb about Evelyn’s family was vague, but I knew Evelyn had lived with her father’s pack. I explained their system to Caleb, how the pack kept females for breeding and the way that females were treated by the pack. I told him about Evelyn’s daughter and the yearbook photos that Evelyn had shown me.
He looked really interested when I described the photos that I had seen her with and the possible names of the high school Evelyn’s daughter had gone to.
“From what you have told me so far, I’m surprised that the pack let the females go to school,” Caleb said.
I nodded. “I told Evelyn the same thing. She said it was because the pack would send the females out to get jobs but keep the money ‘for the good of the pack.’ I asked her why they didn’t just run away but she told me about the punishments they would get if they were caught…” I swallowed, getting nauseated at the memories.
“You’re doing great,” Caleb encouraged me. “Did she ever mention names for any of the other females?”
“No, she always referred to them as ‘the other girls.’ She didn’t even tell me her daughter’s name. She wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be put in danger by telling me pack secrets.” I started to tear up. “Evelyn was always thinking about everyone other than herself. I loved her so much, she was like the grandmother that I never had.” I had to stop to fight back my tears.
I shoved my emotions down as deep as I could but suddenly had an epiphany. Was I repressing these emotions just like I repressed my wolf? Is that why the emotions would come to the surface and seem almost uncontrollable? It seemed similar to when my wolf would come to the surface and how the emotions that I felt with her would seem almost uncontrollable.
Caleb watched me carefully; I think he could tell that I had come to a realization. “What are you thinking?” he asked me.
I wasn’t ready to talk about my inner feelings with him, so I tried to offer up another piece of interesting information. “I was just wondering if the school that Evelyn’s daughter went to would have done mandatory fingerprinting. They do that at some schools up in NY.”
Caleb considered it. “Is there anything in Evelyn’s house that might have her daughter’s fingerprints on it?”
“Evelyn had this little wood box with a rose etched into the lid. She never said anything, but I just got the feeling it might have belonged to her daughter.”
Caleb didn’t look too hopeful. “We can check it out, but I don’t know if any fingerprints would be left on it after all this time, especially if it was something that Evelyn had handled on a regular basis.”
I just nodded. Caleb drummed his fingers on the counter as he looked through the notes he had gathered on his iPad. “Is there anything else you can think of that she mentioned in passing that might help us?”
I told him about stories she told me about taking day trips to the mountains, snowstorms in the winter, and a waterfall that was in biking distance of her house. “She also mentioned penguins at a zoo she took her daughter to once.”
“Let’s change gears a little bit,” Caleb suggested. “Did she ever talk about her captors? Any characteristics they might have had?”
“She never talked about anyone in particular except her father. She would just talk about wolves in general, but from meeting you guys, I have kind of seen that maybe she was wrong about some things.”
“What were some of the things she told you about wolves?” he asked curiously.
I hesitated, unsure of what I should say.
“It might give us an idea of what to look for in a pack. If all of the wolves in the pack did certain activities or held certain beliefs, it could help us narrow things down.”
I squirmed a little uncomfortably. I didn’t want to repeat a lot of what she had said. “She said they were mean, abusive, barbarians who thrived on senseless violence.” That was actually one of the nicer things she had said.
“Hmmm,” Caleb responded. “Were there any activities or hobbies they engaged in?”
“They liked to fight and would hold matches like gladiators.”
Caleb looked down at his iPad. “Did they have a specific venue?”
“Just outside. Evelyn said the loser would end up with their face in the dirt.”
I couldn’t tell what Caleb was thinking; his face was impassive. “What about the higher-ranking pack members? Was there anything they indulged in? Cars, motorcycles, maybe an expensive house?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, she never mentioned anything like that.”
“What about jobs?”
“She told me that they would send the humans and lower ranking wolves out to get jobs, but it seemed like all blue collar stuff.”
Caleb took notes on that. “Anything else?”
I shook my head no. “Okay, this is a good start,” he told me.
I looked at him doubtfully, but he smiled at me. “I promise we are going to figure this out. We already know she can’t be from Florida with the snowstorms,” he joked.
“Oh!” I said suddenly. “You can also rule out any states on the coast. She told me that she never saw the ocean until she left the pack because the closest beach was two states over.”
“That’s great! If anything else like that comes to mind, let me know.” He smiled. “Let me look into some of this, and I’ll come up with ideas of which packs this could be. Maybe if we examine the packs one by one, you might remember some other details to help narrow it down.”
I looked at him hopefully. Maybe we could figure this out. Caleb gathered his iPad and a second sandwich to head back upstairs. He seemed deep in thought with the information I had given him, so maybe I had given him something useful to work with.
“Hey, Caleb?”
He turned around, still lost in thought. “Yeah?”
“Will you be free around six tonight? I thought it might be fun for us to have a family style dinner. You know, like they do on TV?” I asked shyly.
His eyes widened with surprise as they met mine.
Had I said something wrong? I backpedaled quickly. “I mean, it’s OK if you’re busy or have other plans -”
“No,” he said quickly. “That sounds nice. The guys and I are used to just grabbing our food when we can, but I think that would be a good idea to sit down together. It will be a nice break from work.” He smiled at me. “I will be here at six.”
I smiled back. “Is Italian OK? I was thinking lasagna.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds great.”
“OK, cool.” I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to say next. He gave me a small wave with the hand that was holding his iPad and headed back upstairs, saving me from any further embarrassment.
When I lived with my uncle’s family, dinner was a terrifying time. When he was working day shift, Uncle would be home at 5:30 and dinner would have to be served exactly at six. He had an armchair in the living room that I used to think of as his throne.
No one else was allowed to sit there or touch the chair except his wife, and she was only allowe
d to touch it to clean. He would sit in his armchair and be served dinner on top of a little rolling table that would slide right in front of his chair.
He would take his time eating while he watched the evening news and spewed angry political commentary. The rest of us were expected to be absolutely silent during this time and wait for him to finish; we were allowed to eat after he was done. After he rolled the table to the side as a cue for his wife to come clean up after him, the rest of us would file back into the kitchen.
The kids lined up in the kitchen according to age, the oldest first and myself last. Each of us was allowed to make a plate from the leftovers for our own dinner. The other kids took a perverse joy in making sure nothing was left by the time it was my turn. They would smirk mockingly at me as I gazed into the empty pot or pan with sadness.
Then to add insult to injury, it was my task to clean up after everyone else was done eating. As soon as they had shoveled what food they could into their mouths, the rest of the kids would run and hide in their rooms, staying as quiet as possible to avoid drawing attention.
Unfortunately, that left me alone in the kitchen, and while I tried to be as quiet as possible while I did the dishes, inevitably some small noise would always attract the ire of my uncle. I had nowhere to hide in the kitchen, so I was completely exposed to his rage. Part of me thought this was why I was left with kitchen duties; everyone else in the family used me as a sacrificial lamb to take on the brunt of rage from my uncle.
I loved the weeks he would be working the 3-11 shift. That meant there was no dinner time. My uncle’s wife wouldn’t even bother to cook; most days, she took her kids to her mother’s house for dinner. I was never invited, but I loved the solitude that being alone in the house gave me.
Evelyn always made sure I had enough to eat and would have something waiting for me at her house after I was free from the agony of dinner time and the work of cleaning up after everyone.
I always wished I had a family like I saw in the movies and on TV. They would all sit at the table and pass dishes around to each other, smiling and laughing. After spending time with the twins, I was hoping I could create something like that here. I knew I could get the twins to cooperate; they would be more than happy as long as food was involved. Caleb had seemed OK with it as well.
After I had everything put away, I stood in the kitchen. The silence around me seemed almost too loud, and I missed the twins. It would still be a couple of hours until they were back, and I could rope them into helping me prepare dinner.
I skipped up the stairs, remembering the large bath that was mine for this week. When I had examined the tub earlier, it looked like there were jets that could be turned on as well. I figured it would be a good idea to make myself look more presentable if I wanted to convince the guys to make family dinners be ‘a thing’ here. I took my time soaking in the tub.
It had been a long time after I left my uncle’s house before I was comfortable taking a bath, even in my own tub. He would fly into a rage anytime he heard the water running for more than 5 minutes, screaming about how we were using his hot water and costing him money. I got into the habit of taking showers only when I knew he was at work but still showered as quickly as possible, just in case he stopped home.
I had made the mistake of taking a bath in the house once, he had stopped by the house on his lunch break unbeknownst to me. I was relaxing in the tub with music on, so I did not hear his heavy footsteps approach. He had disabled all the locks on the doors inside the house, so there was no way to keep him or anyone else out.
The bathroom door had burst open, and my body jerked in shock. I had tried to hide under what little coverage the water offered as he stood there and looked at my naked and exposed body. I shuddered in terror as I could see when his thoughts shifted from rage to something else.
I knew the only thing that had saved me that day was the sound of the car in the driveway; his wife had come home just in time. She took the brunt of his rage that day, as she had not been home, waiting to make him lunch in case he stopped by.
There were some times when I pitied his wife. She was treated almost like a slave and was expected to stay home and devote every waking moment to taking care of his needs. She didn’t work so she could spend her days cleaning the house, doing the shopping, preparing his meals, etc.
As I got older, I pitied her less. She was an adult and had the ability to walk out whenever she wanted. I was a minor; if I left, I would just be dragged back here by the police. I was not stupid enough to try. I knew that my life would only get worse if I ‘embarrassed’ my uncle by doing something like that. As I got older, his wife became even more cruel to me, so there was no pity left in me for her.
I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and tried to relax in the tub. I had gotten out, put myself through school, had a great job, and lived a life that most people would label as ‘successful’. To anyone on the outside looking in, I had my own house, a car, and even a little bit of money in a savings account. I may have seemed independent and confident, but I had the deep ache of loneliness inside of me. I had thought if I could make it to this point I would have been happy, but instead I just felt empty.
I had worked for years to break myself of the constant, crippling fear and anxiety that had ruled my life for so long. I worked hard to appear ‘normal’ in my interactions with other people, and I no longer had crippling panic attacks when I would hear a man’s deep voice or the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer to me.
I tried to appear confident and poised on the outside, but I mainly only succeeded at that when I was at work. I was hopeless at social interactions and just felt awkward and uncomfortable when trying to interact with people outside of work. I had developed a self-imposed exile because I tended to try and avoid social interactions whenever possible.
Kelsey was really the only person who made consistent and determined efforts to drag me out in public on a regular basis. I think most people just gave up and assumed I didn’t want to be friends with them because of how standoffish I could be. Kelsey was the only person who realized that I wasn’t a snob; I was just scared and didn’t know how to interact.
I relaxed in the tub and felt hopeful for the first time in a while. I was here with other wolves, so I could relax and open up to them in ways I would never be able to with a human. I just needed to overcome my innate fear and trust them. I was the only person holding me back, and I didn’t have to be afraid. The twins had already done everything they could to make it clear they wanted me here. I just needed to relax and accept it.
I felt better after my bath and the pep talk I gave myself. I dried my hair with the hair dryer and brush so it fell straight and shiny down my back. I even dressed in cute skinny jeans and a light pink sweater to feel girly. I swiped some mascara over my eyelashes and put on some pink lip gloss. I felt ready to make my new start and headed downstairs to see if I could start getting some things ready for dinner while I waited for the twins to come back.
I bounced down the stairs and jumped down the last three. I quickly turned around the corner and collided into someone with an oomph.
Of course, it had to be James. I sighed as he took a step back from me. He gave me a glare, but it lacked his usual intensity.
“Oh, hey James,” I said hesitantly, trying to be friendly. “I didn’t realize you would were here.”
“I live here,” he said. I could hear the unspoken ‘unlike you’ that completed that sentence. I started to feel hurt but remembered this was James. He was mean to everyone on purpose, so I couldn’t let myself take it personally.
I decided that being peppy and friendly towards him was my best option. It would show him that he couldn’t intimidate me and as a side benefit would probably annoy him.
I gave him a big smile. “I just didn’t realize you were back from your trip. The twins and I are making lasagna tonight. Dinner is at six,” I told him confidently.
He looked a little surprised and suspiciou
s. “You cook?”
I fought as hard as I could not to roll my eyes or growl at him. “I guess you will find out tonight,” I told him brightly and started to walk around him.
He touched my arm gently but let go when I glanced down in surprise. “I’ll be there at six,” he said quietly.
I nodded and continued to walk back to the kitchen. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away but did my best to ignore him and not glance back. I was a little proud of myself with how I handled him, so when I reached the kitchen, I decided to reward myself with a snack.
I chopped up some fruit for a fruit salad in a big bowl and then scooped some out for myself. I put the rest in the fridge for snacking the next couple days and wandered to the living room area to eat my snack. I curled up on one of the couches with my iPad to entertain me. It was very strange to have this much free time with nothing to do, but I found it really relaxing.
It wasn’t long before I heard the front door burst open. “Anna!” I heard the twins yell. I briefly considered hiding and making them look for me in an impromptu game of hide and seek but thought better of it when I thought back to their earlier confessions of being afraid that I would disappear on them.
“In here!” I yelled back. Jason came running in and flung his bag to the ground before jumping on the couch and wrapping me in a tight hug.
“I need to breathe, big guy,” I teased him as I patted him on the back. He released me as Mason walked in and tossed his bag next to Jason’s.
“How was class?” I asked them.
“Boring,” Jason replied.
“What have you been doing without us?” Mason asked.
“Well, I invited Caleb and James to a family style dinner that we are going to make.”
“James is back already?” Mason frowned.
“What makes a dinner family style?” Jason asked curiously.
I nodded at Mason and turned to Jason. “You know, like how happy families eat dinner on TV.”
They both looked at me with their mouths open in surprise.
“Like on TV?” Mason murmured as he shared an unreadable look with his brother.
Finding Somewhere to Belong: Seaside Wolf Pack Book 1 Page 14