Chapter 2

Before I left, I wanted to give back what was theirs.

The first thing was a wolf fang on a leather cord.

Knox pulled it from his first solo hunt when he was twelve. He ran straight to my porch with blood still on his hands and pressed it into my palm.

"Keep it for me," he said. "I'll lose it."

I found him at the Greywater dorms the next morning.

He was on his knees in a small room, building a bed frame. The floor was covered in boxes, lamps, and a pink rug still in plastic.

"Lower," Elodie said, holding her hand against the wall. "I can't reach that shelf."

Knox took the shelf down without a word and started over.

He saw me in the doorway. "What are you doing here?"

I held out the fang. "Giving this back."

He frowned. "You've had it six years. Why now?"

"In case I don't get another chance."

He didn't hear what I meant. He took it and dropped it into a box of screws and cables.

"Good timing. We still need hooks on that wall. You're stronger than me. Come help."

I didn't move.

Elodie said quickly, "Knox, don't. Wren has to pack."

Knox snorted. "She can pack in ten minutes. She always could."

I turned and left.

He didn't come after me to ask when I was leaving.

Everett was at the pack library.

I handed him the stack of notebooks he'd kept at my house. Five years of his chemistry work. I had dated every page for him.

He took them. Then his eyes went to the camera around my neck.

Before it, everything important in our lives went into memory crystals. A crystal never cracks and never fades. But it only holds the big moments.

At fifteen, I spent a year of saved allowance on this camera. After that, we stopped waiting for big moments. Every ordinary day of the last three years was on it.

"Leave the camera," Everett said. "Elodie wants to put together a film for the Greywater welcome night."

"It's mine."

"I'm borrowing it. I'll give it back."

He waved Elodie over from the next table. She came and looked at the camera like it was something sweet.

"I just want a few pictures of you all when you were young."

"There aren't any of you in them."

She went pale.

Everett gave me a cold look. "Was that necessary? She only wishes she'd known us sooner."

"So she gets to take my past to fill in hers?"

He lost patience. He lifted the strap over my head before I could step back.

"A few days, Wren. Don't make it a thing."

I reached for it. He turned away.

"Ronan will bring it back when we're done."

I looked at him for a long moment. Then I let go.

"Fine."

There was nothing on that camera I couldn't lose. I had copies of everything that mattered.

Felix caught me at the pack house gate.

"Perfect. You're here."

He pushed a memory crystal into my hands. It was the size of a walnut and warm from his pocket. Felix had sealed every big moment of ours since he was ten. This one held our whole childhood, up to the year I bought the camera.

"You're the best at editing these. Make Elodie a coming-of-age film."

"She doesn't have eighteen years of memories."

"That's why we're using ours."

He said it like it was obvious.

"Cut yourself out where it's awkward. Add some pictures of her. Done."

I looked down at the crystal.

My first shift was in there. The night Ronan carried me home because my legs gave out. The four of them singing badly on every one of my birthdays.

Now they wanted me cut out, so Elodie could have a whole childhood.

"Okay."

I took it.

Felix blinked. "That's it? No fight?"

"Didn't you say I'd come around in a day or two?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "As long as you get it."

Not one of them asked when I was leaving.

That night, Ronan took me to dinner.

It was the diner by the river where we used to split a basket of fries after every patrol. He sat across from me and kept looking at his phone.

Elodie's mattress at Greywater was too hard. He found a store that delivered at night.

Elodie was scared her roommate wouldn't like her. He sent three long voice messages.

My milkshake melted. My fries went cold. He didn't notice.

He used to steal half my fries and tell me I ate too slow. Tonight he didn't touch them. He didn't touch his own food either. He was too busy making sure Elodie slept well.

"Ronan."

"Hm?"

"Do you remember what I'm doing tomorrow?"

He finally looked up. "Packing?"

"Something like that."

He looked relieved. He pushed his own milkshake over to me.

"Don't sulk. Be good, settle in over there. I said I'd come visit, and I will."

Outside, he bent and kissed my forehead.

"Wait for me. After a while, the five of us will come see you."

I didn't call him a liar.

At home, I set the crystal on my desk.

No one can smash a memory crystal or burn it. But anyone sealed inside it can take their own memories back out.

I pressed my thumb to it. The memories rose in my head, one after another.

I didn't edit them.

Every memory I was in, I took back.

Eighteen years of my life. They had no right to hand it to Elodie like a used dress.

When the crystal went dark and cool, I wrapped it in a cloth and put it in a box for the courier.

It was my last gift to them.

A past with no trace of me in it.

Just the way they wanted.