Chapter 221
+25 BONUS
Chapter 221
ELENA
The low fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, washing everything in a sterile, humming glow.
Maggie sat across from me, wrists cuffed, the chains on the table between us rattling softly every time she moved. Her eyes were red, her mouth pressed into a thin, trembling line. She looked like ghost of the girl I’d once known–the fierce, defiant Maggie who’d survived things we didn’t speak about..
I waited.
I let the silence stretch until it pressed against my ribs, until she had no choice but to speak.
Finally, her voice cracked through the stillness.
“I couldn’t miss it,” she whispered. “I had to see Erin’s wedding.”
I blinked, momentarily stunned.
“You snuck onto Moonstone land,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended, “risked being caught, thrown into prison–this- just to… watch?”
Maggie flinched as if the words physically hit her.
“You were looking for me,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I knew you wouldn’t welcome me back.”
I swallowed down the ugly lump forming in my throat. She was right.
I hadn’t been searching to rescue her. I’d been hunting her like a threat.
“Where have you been, Maggie?” I asked quietly, trying to temper the heat behind my words.
Her head dipped lower, a curtain of tangled hair falling across her face. She didn’t answer.
“I see,” I said after a moment. And I did.
She’d been hiding. Running. Leading.
“Maggie,” I pressed, heart pounding, “I’m going to ask you something, and I want the truth.”
She looked up slowly, resignation written in every line of her face.
“Was Pierce your father?”
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the fluorescent buzz overhead like a roar.
“Yes,” she said finally.
The ground seemed to tilt under me, even though some part of me had known the answer before I asked.
“And did you take over the rogues?” I forced myself to say. “The ones attacking peaceful packs?”
She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were shining with unshed tears.
“Yes.”
There it was. The confession that changed everything–and yet, changed nothing.
I leaned back in my chair, trying to process the enormity of it. My mind reeled.
“And everything you said to me,” I whispered, “everything we buil–was it all a lie?”
“No!” she burst out, her voice ragged. “No, Elena, not with you. Never with you.”
Chapter 221
+25 BONUS
Her desperation rang true, but doubt still gnawed at the edges of my heart. I had to know–had to be sure.
leaned forward, my hands curling into fists against the table.
“Then tell me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Was it you? Were you the one who tried to sever my bond with Derek?”
Maggie’s face crumpled, genuine pain flashing across her features
་་
“No,” she said immediately, fiercely. “Goddess, Elena, no. I would never- Her voice broke. “Not after everything. Not after what you meant to me.”
I studied her closely, every instinct in me sharpened to the truth.
And what I saw–raw grief, sincerity, regret–left no room for doubt.
She wasn’t lying.
Maggie hadn’t attacked the bond.
And somehow, knowing that—truly believing it–left me even more shaken.
If it wasn’t her… then who?
I had to shake myself.
“Then make me understand,” I finally said, my voice breaking. “Because right now, I can’t.”
Maggie’s hands twisted in the chains.
“My father hated the packs that exiled him,” she said. “He raised me to hate them too. To see the world in black and white- packs versus rogues. Survival at any cost.”
She shook her head bitterly.
“But when I met you–Erin, Carly–you made me see something else. You made me believe maybe there was a place for us after all. Maybe rogues didn’t have to be the villains.”
She laughed, a sound without any real humor.
her gaze. “The world didn’t change. You were kind, but the system wasn’t. Packs still treated rogues like scum. We were still hunted. Hated.”
“I wanted to believe. Goddess, I tried. But the world…” She looked at me, and there was something hollo
Her words scraped raw across old wounds I didn’t even realize I still carried.
“So you decided to attack us?” I said, voice shaking. “To hurt the people who showed you there could be more?”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped.
“I thought I could build something better. A rogue pack–something strong enough to force them to see us. To make a place for us. But to do that…” She trailed off, her mouth twisting. “I had to fight. Take what wasn’t given.”
I looked at her–truly looked–and for the first time, I saw how much of this wasn’t about ambition. It was about survival.
About desperation.
It didn’t excuse what she’d done. But it made it heartbreakingly human.
After a long moment, Maggie’s voice dropped.
“How did you figure it out? About Pierce?”
“I remembered,” I said simply.
She stiffened.
Chapter 221
+25 BONUS
“Your memories are coming back?”
I nodded slowly, uncertainty gnawing at my gut.
Maggie hesitated, then leaned forward, her chains scraping against the table.
“Elena,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, “there’s something you need to know. About your memories.”
A chill slid down my spine.
“What do you mean?”
Her throat worked as she struggled for words.
“Dr. Emmerich,” she said. “He wasn’t trying to help you recover your memories. He was trying to keep them buried.”
The room seemed to tilt around me.
“What?” I breathed.
“I swear it,” Maggie said, urgency in her voice now. “He was paid to suppress your past. To make sure you never remembered.
11
The betrayal hit me like a physical blow.
“By who?” I demanded. “Who would do that?”
Maggie shook her head, her eyes full of regret.
“Elena…” she said, her words trailing off desperately.
My mind raced, trying to fit the pieces together–the gaps in my memory, the strange pressure I’d always felt to ‘heal‘ on someone else’s timeline, the way certain memories seemed almost off–limits.
“You’re telling me someone stole my memories,” I said hoarsely. “To protect themselves.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I sat back, hands trembling, my heart a thundering mess.
All the nights I’d blamed myself, wondered why I couldn’t just remember-
All the time I thought I was broken-
It had been done to me.
On purpose.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked, my voice raw.
“Because you deserve to know the truth,” Maggie said. “Because even after everything, you’re still… you. And because you’re stronger than they think.”
I stared at her, my throat tight.
“And now?”
“Now,” she said softly, “you have a choice.”
A choice.
To keep living under someone else’s version of my life.
Or to tear it apart and start over, no matter how painful the truth turned out to be.
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Chapter 221
“I want the truth,” I said, the words fierce in my mouth. “All of it.”
Maggie gave a small, broken smile.
“Then be ready,” she said. “Because it won’t be easy.”
I nodded, my fists clenching in my lap.
Let them try.
I was done living in the dark.
For the first time in a long time, I felt a strange kind of clarity–sharp, dangerous, necessary.
I would find the truth.
I would reclaim the life they stole from me.
Memory by memory.
Lie by lie.
Starting now.
“Who?” I said, my voice deadly serious.
Maggie opened her mouth to speak.
