“I remember books,” Magda finally said, but then her eyes tightened again, like that hurt her to say. “Or maybe I’m wrong. There’s never been a bookstore here, so I… don’t know.”

She wandered off then, looking mildly dazed as I continued to stare at the building. Books? That felt… right. The moment I had the thought, my temples were stabbed by invisible knives, and now I was the one walking off rubbing my temples.

Was the abandoned shopfront part of the mystery as well? Magda had acted odd, so it wasn’t just me. It was starting to occur to me that maybe the reason I couldn’t get anything other than the same “story” from the pack was that everyone else had had their memories messed with too. They might not even have realized because it was subtler than what had happened to me.

Truth be told, even if there were gaps in time for them, they didn’t care. They’d fallen into their daily routines, accepting the weird and questioning nothing.

Had that been the plan all along, by whomever had set this in motion?

Had they expected I would just be so happy not to be the shit under Torma’s boots that I’d fall into this new life and never question a damn thing?

If that was the case, the culprit had made a few fundamental errors. Firstly, they should have chosen someone less stubborn than me, and secondly, they should have removed my memories of the pack’s torment and Torin’s rejection. Huge obstacles standing in the way of me falling into pack life.

I supposed removing a few months of time was much easier than removing ten-plus years. I’d have been very surprised to wake up in a twenty-year-old body thinking myself a child.

Why had the culprit had to remove any time, though? If they’d allowed me just to wake with everyone else from the stasis, I’d have been none the wiser…

It just didn’t make sense. None of it, and my time in the main street had only helped to confuse me further.

With nothing else to do, I wandered back in the direction of the apartment, restless and bored. Plan A might not have panned out, but there were plenty of letters left in the alphabet, and it was time to move to “S” for Simone.

Simone’s parents lived in one of the more affluent areas of Torma. It might have only been a relatively small town, but it was still clear who held positions of prestige in the pack, solely through the land and house size they’d been rewarded with. When I walked through their neighborhood, with the acre-sized lots, huge double-level mansions, and perfectly manicured lawns, I tried not to think of all the times I’d been made to feel like I didn’t belong here.