"Vi, wake up," I heard Benjamin whisper from the other room.
He had sat me down on the yellow couch, and I kept staring ahead, feeling my world spinning harder with every moment.
"I need you to get the kids. It's time."
"What?" I heard her mumble, her soft voice still hazed with sleep.
"Sari is here. It's time to go," he repeated, and I heard the covers abruptly slip away as Vi bolted upward in bed.
"Okay," she answered, and moments later I heard her shuffling, too.
She passed the living room for a moment to head to Sam and Laura's rooms.
"Thank you," she whispered as she passed me, but I couldn't find any words to answer.
Because what could I say that would suffice, that would make this moment complete again, after I discovered I had been living in a lie?
The children protested when their mother woke them up, but soon realized the gravity in their mother's tone and nervously made their way out of the bedroom.
"Mommy, what's wrong?" the little girl asked, her eyes big and filled with fear.
"Everything's fine, hunny," Vi lied. "We're just going away for a little while, but we're safe."
Benjamin was rummaging through his closets, gathering whatever he could carry for them to be able to survive out in the open.
I heard all his coins dangling in his bag.
It's time. Is this what he had been saving for all those years? How long had he known?
"Sari, come," he ordered me, gently pulling me by my arm and leading his children out of the apartment.
We silently ran down the stairs, careful not to wake up any neighbors, all the way down to the basement of the building.
It felt cold here, and humid, and everything but safe. "Benjamin, no," I began, "you need to leave this town."
"I know," he reassured me, looking at me with expecting eyes. "We are."
"I need your help here, Benjamin," Vi called from against the wall.
Benjamin nodded his head and made his way over to her, where they were both shoving aside an old wooden closet, that - by the sound of it - was completely filled.
A rat skittered from behind it, scurrying away to the other far corner of the room where it disappeared into the wall. I saw Laura jump at the rodent in the corner of my eye, but she was too frozen to cry, or even talk.
She was only seven.
Once the closet was out of the way, Benjamin looked for a metal creak he found laying around and started tearing up some wooden planks on the floor.
I would probably get it done faster, but just like Laura, I was too frozen to be of any help.
Benjamin's forehead was covered in sweat, when a set of wooden planks came loose together, revealing a hole in the ground.
"Get in," he ordered gently. Seeing Sam and Laura's hesitation, Vi disappeared in the hole first, and after another reassurance from their father, both of them dared go after their mother, legs trembling and arms shaking.
Laura had even let go of some silent tears, and her subtle snuffling gave away her crying.
"Sari, you as well," Benjamin ordered.
I looked at him, his eyes still filled with that expectant look - as if he hadn't just wrecked my entire world - and mindlessly followed them into the ground.
The hole soon turned into a tunnel, and I heard Benjamin slide the wooden panel back into its place before he caught up with me.
The tunnels were small, but still comfortable to walk in. Not at all like the tunnel in Apicya - a comparison that made my heart ache, longing to go back there, to live my life in better days.
I silently followed the group into the tunnels, taking whatever path they followed at an intersection.
Were they headed somewhere? Where did these tunnels lead to? They seemed endless.
"Vi, I'll catch up with you," Benjamin finally said, after the eighth intersection. Perhaps it had been more, I couldn't recall if I had lost count or not.
"Don't wait too long," she said, but she took both the children with her and disappeared in the underground hallways.
"I think I owe you an explanation," Benjamin said, hesitantly, once his family was out of earshot.
"You think?" My tone was bitter, but at this point, I didn't have it in me to care about it.
My eyes found his - expecting to see coldness lurking somewhere, but I found nothing but guilt and desperation.
"I'm so sorry, Sari. I wanted to tell you years ago. But they didn't let me."
"Who's they?"
Benjamin breathed in before he found the courage to answer. "The Resistance. There are some of us here that know about your secret - and we know how that only amplifies the horrors Beckett has committed."
"How long have you known?" I couldn't even find the tremble in my voice.
He sighed before he looked down. He felt ashamed for whatever it was he was about to say. "Since long before you were born. I've known most of my life," he said silently.
I copied his sigh - detecting that tremble that had found its way to my lungs. "Okay," I decided. "Tell me everything."
"We don't have a lot of time," he warned. "But I'll tell you as much as I can."
I subtly nodded my head, a clear signal that I was listening to whatever he would uncover now.
"As I said, we're a small group of humans. We have a few wolves on our side, but not enough to make a difference against Beckett. He's been on our case for years, desperately trying to uncover us and take us down. That's why he was so harsh on you and your parents-"
"My parents were involved in this?" I asked, baffled.
"Not at first, no," he admitted. "It all changed when you were born-"
"How did that change anything?" I interrupted him.
He sighed again, clasping his hands. "Your parents wanted to be the ones to tell you this story. They were planning to wait until you were old enough, but-"
"I'm old enough now." I had been old enough for a while.
Benjamin nodded again, though it seemed to be more to himself than to me. "Your parents worked for Beckett. With Beckett, even. Quite closely."
"No," I protested.
"I wish it were different, Sari. But they regretted it. All of it. But that doesn't change the fact that they belonged to his inner pack at first. They were feared by a lot of wolves, even if they weren't necessarily powerful, they were in Beckett's graces, and that made all the difference. And then your mother got pregnant, around the night of the Life Moon. They didn't expect you to come until the Seeing Moon arrived, and everyone - even Beckett - gladly awaited your birth.
"But then, on the night of the Death Moon, twenty-two years ago, something was wrong. The Moon always has a strong pull on our lands during this night, but this time... it was unimaginable. All the animals were unsettled - with mothers killing their own babes, or even some of them running into campfires. No one was at ease, even we could feel this strange pull. Even the trees and the river seemed unhinged, everything around us was just completely out of control.
"The Moon was strong, that night. Very strong. Some took it as a sign. Some thought of it as an impending doom, the ending of time. Some saw a prophecy in it. Beckett was one of those people.
"And then your mother went into labor - two Moons early. I found her in one of the back alleys in the slums, all bloodied and screaming, in the middle of her contractions. She begged me for help. She had managed to escape the wolves Beckett had sent after her, but she had nowhere to go.
"And I knew I shouldn't have - but I couldn't live with myself by just letting her die. Letting you die before you could even experience the world. You were still an innocent baby, you hadn't even been born yet.
"So I took her into these very tunnels. It was tricky because we had to get rid of her blood first and her sweat. It helped that everything was so crazed that night - I don't think we could've masked her scent otherwise.
"She gave birth to you here, in these tunnels. She hid here for a few months - having everyone believe that she went rogue. Perhaps she should've done that, but your father refused. He wanted vengeance on Beckett for it, he didn't want to live like a rogue. I don't think he ever truly expected Beckett would turn on them so easily, and so ruthlessly.
"They switched sides, then. It took a while for them to gain our trust, and our respect and they had a lot of wrongs to answer for, but they did redeem themselves. And they loved you, Sari. So, so much. Once you were born, everything changed for them."
A shy tear started pooling in his eye socket, eagerly awaiting its escape.
"I don't believe this," I whispered, feeling something wet dampening my cheeks.
"I know it's a lot to take in," he said, his hand reaching for mine. "I wish I could've told you under different circumstances."
I pulled my hand away, not being able to stand his treacherous touch right now. I knew he hadn't exactly betrayed me, but it felt that way. And my parents, too.
Dexter's words came floating back to my mind, and it made the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
No, I cried to myself, feeling the unraveling burning through me, leaving nothing but a scorching hole inside me.
"Under what circumstances would you have told me, Benjamin?" I cried out. "I left! And I wasn't supposed to come back."
"I didn't think you were," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't want to ruin your memory of your parents. I thought you would go to another pack - I thought you would stay out of this mess."
"But I didn't." I should have known. He should have told me. I should have known, at the very least so Dexter couldn't have held it over my head in his final moments.
I shivered at the thought that in the end - in his mind, he possibly had won. Because he knew. He knew that I would find out one day, and he knew what it would do to me. And I wasn't able to give him the displeasure of proving him wrong.
"You should have," he said.
"I couldn't," I bit back. "No one would take me in because of him. No one dared, only Aven."
"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.
"No," I answered, my head shaking now, too.
He didn't push further, but I saw the distance hurt him, as his bottom lip started quivering subtly, barely noticeable.
But I did notice because I had supernatural sight. And he knew that I noticed because he knew what I was. He had known all along.
"You said you could help," I remembered, steering the conversation away from this betrayal. Though my mind didn't ease, and I could already hear Jerr murmur about the loudness of my thoughts.
"Sari," he sighed, clearly not yet finished with this topic of conversation.
But I was done with it. I didn't want to talk about it anymore, and there was a war coming. "Can you?" I cut him off.
"I-, we can," he confirmed.
"How?" It took everything in me to keep my voice steady and to keep my breathing under control.
"These tunnels cover the entire town. One even leads into the Central Building's dungeons."
"How-"
"It's been there for centuries, long before Beckett was around. The Resistance has been around for centuries, too. They built this town and secured it with these tunnels. Beckett doesn't know about it, because no Alpha before him did. That tunnel has never been used before, only kept for emergencies, since it would risk blowing the entire cover. But it can get your Alpha inside-"
"Why would he need to sneak inside?" I asked. The armies were too large to fight in the Central Building.
"Beckett has been paranoid, lately. His new Beta does all the bossing around on the outside. Beckett is locking himself up in there ever since he began preparing for your pack's arrival. There's something in that building that's keeping him inside."
"Okay," I contemplated. "Do you know which tunnel that is?"
"Yes," he confirmed.
"And if I bring Aven to you, will you show him?"
"Yes," he said. "This could save thousands of lives, Sari. Of course, I would help him. That's what the Resistance is for - protecting humans against wolves."
"Except me," I whispered.
"I wanted to," he answered, and I heard his voice break. "I wanted to so badly, but Beckett kept such a close eye on you because of that prophecy that he believed in. It was a risk we couldn't take."
"I understand," I said, softly. Though in the faintest corner of my heart, I knew I didn't. "Let's go, then."
"Sari, there's one more thing you should know about. That your Alpha should know about."
"What?" I asked, turning around and facing him again.
"We found another Alpha. Eli, a twenty-five-year-old boy, living on the other side of the land. A bastard from a rogue, and he shows signs of powers. We've been preparing him to take over one day - but we will need an Alpha to perform his Ascension. We hid him away from Beckett, because if he knew..."
"He'd either kill him or recruit him," I finished for him.
"Yes. But he's a good one. He has a good heart, and he's open to guidance - he would make a good Alpha."
"I'm not sure Aven will want to partake in that," I said. I doubted if this would be enough to change his mind about wiping the entire pack from existence.
"He will."