Caleb POV
The stack of papers flew everywhere when I accidentally bumped into Lily in the pack office entry. We both reached down at the sa ti to gather them up, and our hands touched as we grabbed for the sa paper.
The mont our skin made touch, sothing weird happened. It wasn’t a mory exactly, but more like an echo of sothing familiar. Like hearing a song you’d forgotten but your body still rembered the beat.
"Sorry," I mumbled, pulling my hand back quickly. The feeling vanished as soon as we stopped touching.
Lily looked at strangely. "Did you feel that?"
"Feel what?" I lied, because I didn’t know how to describe sothing I didn’t understand myself.
She studied my face for a mont, then shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind."
We finished picking up the scattered papers in awkward silence. These were the pack duty reports that needed to be sorted before the monthly eting. Normally, Lily did this work alone, but Dr. Chen thought it might help if we spent ti together doing normal things.
So far, it had just been uncomfortable. Every few minutes, Lily would look at like she was waiting for sothing to happen. And every ti she did, I felt the pressure to be soone I wasn’t anymore.
"The border patrol reports go in the blue folder," Lily said quietly, giving a stack of papers.
I nodded and started sorting, trying to focus on the job instead of the awkward tension between us. But as we worked side by side, sothing strange began to happen. Without talking about it, we fell into a groove. She would hand papers, and I would know exactly which box they belonged in. When she needed the stapler, I passed it to her before she asked.
It was like we were dancing a dance we both knew the steps to, even though I couldn’t rember learning it.
"You’re good at this," Lily said after we’d been working for an hour.
"It’s just sorting papers," I answered.
"No, I an... you know where everything goes. You rember the filing system even though you don’t rember..." She trailed off, not finishing the sentence.
Even though I don’t rember you, is what she ant. The words hung in the air between us.
I looked down at my hands, shocked to realize she was right. Sohow, my fingers knew exactly how to order these reports. Like muscle mory, but for paperwork.
"Maybe so things are harder to erase than others," I said carefully.
We kept working, and the weird sense of rightness grew stronger. Not love - I still didn’t feel the butterflies or racing heart that everyone ntioned. But sothing else. Like puzzle parts clicking into place.
When Lily reached across to grab a pen, her shoulder brushed against mine. Again, that strange echo feeling hit . This ti, I didn’t pull away instantly.
"Caleb?" Lily’s voice was soft, upbeat.
"I don’t rember loving you," I said honestly, because I didn’t want to give her false hope. "But being here with you feels... right sohow. Like my body knows sothing my brain doesn’t."
Tears filled her eyes, but she was smiling. "That’s more than I’ve felt from you since the shadows took our mories away."
"What if it’s not enough?" I asked. "What if I never rember?"
"Then we’ll figure out how to build sothing new," she said firmly. "Maybe it won’t be the sa as before, but it could still be real."
For the first ti since losing my mories, I felt a tiny spark of hope. Maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe love wasn’t just about rembering the past. Maybe it could be about choosing to build a future together.
We finished the filing and moved on to updating the pack mber information. Again, without discussing it, we worked together easily. Lily would read nas and information, and I would type it into the computer. She spoke in a rhythm that felt familiar, stopping exactly when I needed ti to catch up.
"How did we used to do this?" I asked during a break.
"You would read while I typed," Lily said. "You said my handwriting was easier to read than the reports, and I said your typing was faster than mine."
I looked at our current setup - exactly the opposite of what she’d explained. "So we switched roles."
"Without planning it," she realized. "We just... adapted to what felt right now."
That echo feeling was getting stronger. Like sowhere deep inside, a door was trying to open. Not enough to let mories through, but enough to let feeling leak in around the edges.
"Lily," I started to say, but then the office door slamd open.
Alpha Marcus burst in, his face pale with fear. "Where is everyone? The pack children - they’re all missing!"
My blood turned cold. "What do you an missing?"
"They were playing in the field this morning. Now they’re gone. No trace, no sll trail, nothing." Marcus ran his hands through his hair. "It’s like they just vanished."
Lily was already grabbing her coat. "How many children?"
"Twelve. Ages five to ten." Marcus’s voice cracked. "Including little Emma, the one you helped deliver last year."
Sothing angry and protective rose up in my chest. I didn’t know why, but the thought of those children in danger made want to tear sothing apart.
"We’ll find them," I said, surprising myself with how certain I sounded.
Lily looked at with wide eyes. "Caleb?"
I didn’t know why I felt so strongly about those kids, but I did. Maybe it was another reminder of who I used to be, or maybe it was just who I was now. Either way, I was going to help bring them ho.
As we ran outside to join the search, Lily grabbed my hand. This ti, the repeat feeling was so strong it almost knocked over. Not a mory, but sothing deeper. A sense of teamwork, of being part of sothing bigger than myself.
"Together?" she asked.
"Together," I agreed.
But as we ran toward the field, I caught sight of sothing that made my heart stop. There, carved into the trunk of a big oak tree, was a ssage written in what looked like dried blood: "The shadow wolves have your children. Co to Dead Man’s Canyon at sunset, alone, or they die. Tell no one, or you’ll find their bodies spread across the mountainside."
Below the ssage, drawn in the sa dark substance, was the symbol I recognized from Lily’s dreams - the mark of the shadow pack.
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