A few other shifters entered her shop then, and I wasn’t able to interrogate Brenda any further. In reality, I already knew she held no other answers. Just like everyone else, she hadn’t questioned what had happened to us, already back to living her same day-to-day reality. If the Torma shifters had niggling doubts or worries about their time held prisoner, they were far better at pushing them down than me.

When I left the bakery, I ate my pastry—which she hadn’t even charged me for because apparently I was the shit these days. Wandering into a few other stores, I dropped more questions, but all the answers were the same. I’d been with Torin over the past two months, getting our pack life back in order. Everything normal. No drama.

And yet for some reason I was missing every damn memory of that. Why did no one have a reasonable explanation for that?

As I continued down the street, having exhausted almost all the available store owners, an empty shop caught my attention. At first, it was because I couldn’t remember this street ever having an empty storefront, but soon after, it was the oddest feeling that I’d spent a lot of time inside those walls.

When I got no answers from peering through the partially boarded-up windows, I stopped in at the hardware store beside it, knowing Magda, my least favorite town gossip, would know what was up.

“Been empty for years,” she said without pause, chewing her gum loudly. “Some sort of water leak that no one could find or repair.”

“I could have sworn there was a shop here the last time I came to town,” I murmured, staring out the hardware store window toward it.

Magda scoffed, her wrinkles deepening so she looked every one of her hundred and fifty years. “You haven’t been into this part of our town for months, and before that, we were all in stasis, and even before that, there was a flood that washed the shop out. Nothing has been there in your lifetime.”

“And what shop was it before my lifetime?” I asked, wondering if I’d seen old photos or something.

She paused, her brow scrunching until her eyebrows nearly hit her yellow-blonde hair. “You know, I don’t remember.”

I pulled my gaze from the other shopfront to stare at her. “What? You’ve never forgotten a damn thing.”

She clicked her tongue at me. “Watch your mouth, missy. Alpha-mate or not, you will respect your elders.”

In what world was uttering the word “damn” not respecting my elders? But, for the sake of possible information, I shot a quick apology her way. The older shifters had the weirdest hang-ups, but at this point, I needed her more than she needed me.