CHAPTER 82

CHAPTER 82
The drive back to the house was quiet except for the low hum of the engine and Sigurd’s soft breathing against my chest. Just the four of us in Victoria’s car and Dan’s truck ahead.

We had found Tyson’s lifeless body still strapped in the driver’s seat, neck bent at an unnatural angle. 

Luca had fallen to his knees beside the wreckage and cried in a way I had never heard a man cry before. 

Dan had pulled him away gently, Victoria quickly called the police from the scene and given them a simple story: the boys had gone out for a drive.

Now, hours later, we were home.

The living room felt smaller and for some reason I felt this deep hole in me. Lila had made tea none of us had, she stress drinks a tea. Victoria sat in the armchair looking exhausted but composed. 

Luca had scrubbed his hands raw in the sink but still stared at them like the blood was still there.

Sigurd slept soundly in the bassinet beside me, unaware of how close we had come to losing everything.

I looked at Dan. His eyes were tired, shadowed. The shift had taken a toll. He moved carefully, as if his bones still remembered breaking and reforming. 

He probably does I heard read some ancient books and shifting is a process so painfully if you don’t fully shift you could lose your mind.

“We need to talk about what happened tonight,” I said quietly.

No one said anything for a second, I also didn’t want to say anything but we needed to plan the way forward.

Victoria spoke first, her voice soft. “The police believe it was just an accident. For now. We’ll have to give statements tomorrow, but they don’t seem to be connecting it to the grave yet. We were lucky.”

“Lucky,” Luca repeated bitterly. He rubbed his clean hands together. “Tyson’s dead and I can’t even remember the last hour we spent together. How is that lucky?”

Dan reached over and gripped his shoulder. “We’ll figure out what happened during that blackout. But not tonight.”

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just empty and sad.

After a while, I turned to Lila. She had been sitting quietly in the corner, watching all of us like she was afraid to take up too much space.

I took a slow breath. “Can we talk? Outside?”

She looked surprised but nodded. I’m surprised she is still even here, she should have respected my family and left.

We stepped onto the back porch. The night air was cold with crickets and the distant rustle of leaves.

I wrapped my arms around myself. “I still don’t trust you,” I said honestly. “But I need to understand. How could you leave me? How could you walk away from your own child knowing what I was?” 

This is not how I planned this conversation in my mind, why would that be first question I ask her? I have asked her this already.

Lila stared out into the dark forest for a long moment before answering.

“I was terrified,” she said. “Not just of Elias. I was terrified of myself. The night I burned our house down you were inside. I could hear you screaming. I got you out, but the fire wouldn’t listen to me. It wanted to consume everything.” Her voice trembled. 

“Your father said it would be safer if I disappeared. That he could hide you better without me. I believed him because I hated myself. Every time I looked at you after that, I saw the flames I couldn’t control.”

I didn’t speak. I let her words settle.

“I watched from a distance,” she continued. “I saw you grow up. I saw the first time your fire appeared. I wanted to run to you so many times but I was convinced I would only make things worse.”

Tears burned my eyes, but I can’t cry without someone insinuating I am crying for Tyson’s death and I don’t want that.

“I needed you,” I whispered. “Even if you were dangerous. I still needed my mother.”

Lila’s shoulders shook. She didn’t try to hug me. She just stood there, letting me see her pain.

“I know,” she said. “And I’m so sorry, Emerald. I was wrong. I thought running would protect you. Instead it left you completely alone with something you didn’t understand.”

We stood in silence for a while. It wasn’t forgiveness or peace. But it was the first real conversation we’d had.

“When do you plan to leave?” She looked at me with red crying eyes that looked at me in disbelief. “I can leave, whenever you want.”

“I don’t want you here by tomorrow. I haven’t seen you my whole life and I was doing pretty well for myself. You decide to come back and seems like you have brought nothing but bad luck.” I said and quickly walked away without waiting for her to say anything.

When we walked back inside, Dan was rocking Sigurd gently in his arms. Our son had woken up again, but he wasn’t crying. 

He was staring up at his father with wide, trusting eyes. A tiny spark danced across his finger before fading away harmlessly.

Dan looked at me, exhausted but full of love.

“I’m sorry I tried to leave you behind earlier,” he said. “I was scared. After the shift..”He swallowed. 

“I can’t lose either of you. I don’t know how to do any of this the wolf,m, Elias — but I know I can’t do it without you.”

I walked over and rested my head against his chest, Sigurd safely between us.

“We’ll figure it out together,” I whispered. “Slowly, one day at a time.”

Victoria made fresh tea. This time we drank it. Luca eventually spoke about Tyson the good memories, not just the end. We listened. We let him talk until his voice grew hoarse.

For the first time in what felt like forever, we simply sat together as a broken, complicated family and tried to hold ourselves together.

Later, when the sky began to lighten with dawn, Dan and I lay in bed with Sigurd sleeping between us. My husband’s hand rested protectively over our son’s small body.

“Tomorrow will be hard,” he murmured. “The police will be here and we still need to plan the funeral arrangements for Tyson.”

“I know.”

“But we’ll face it,” he said. “Together.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of my son’s breathing and my husband’s heartbeat.

For one night, the storm had passed.