Legacy of the Wolf

Homecoming

Sam had lost all sense of time as she sat against the wall, knees to her chest. Before her was Kathy's bed and on it her foster mother lying motionless. On the opposite wall, written in Kathy's blood was the name LEXI.

What engulfed Sam now was an all pervasive-numbness. An absence of thought or emotion.

You're in shock.

At some point, Sam's phone had begun to ring. She simply sat in that same position, oblivious to anything but that body and that name.

Cutting through the cold detachment was a sense that the name Lexi was, in fact, Sam's real name. Nothing more, at least not yet, but the certainty existed that the name Lexi belonged to her. Somehow, Sam knew this with the same conviction that she knew that the sky was blue and the earth was round. It was simply truth.

Memory flashes strobed within Sam's mind then: running, terrified, a beast closing in behind her—as these thoughts sped through her brain they were accompanied by a sharp pain, like a thick needle being shoved through Sam's skull. She grasped her head and shut her eyes and over several long seconds the pain, along with the memory, subsided.

Her phone continued to ring as Sam returned to staring at the body and the name on the wall.

How had Kronin known about the name? And why... why had he killed Kathy to deliver that message?

Kathy...

I love you. I love you, I love you, and I'm so sorry. This is my fault.

So where to go from here? This was reality. Kathy was dead. Elias was dead. There would be no turning back the clock; so what was to be done? Nothing to be done now but to uncover the truth. That, and to balance the scales. To pay it back, as she had promised Elias at his grave.

Sam looked at the caller ID on her cell phone. It read BARNES. She hit answer and held the phone to her ear without saying anything.

"Do you still want to know why?" Kronin asked.

"You're dead," Sam answered.

The voice went on: "Now that you have a name, do you remember? No? It is not so easy, not after what they did to you. That is nothing compared to what I will do. But first, you will remember. Everything. Every detail."

"You're dead," Sam said again.

"There is a farm," Kronin said. "in Baker's Field, Ohio. 1212 Calder Vale. The travel will take you three days. Three days, to arrive at the truth. Three days, to mourn your false mother."

"You're dead," Sam repeated.

"Wishing will not make it so," Kronin said and ended the call.

Once Sam had made up her mind, things moved very quickly. The toughest thing had been leaving her cat, Mister Perkins, not knowing if she would ever see the faithful feline again. Her neighbor, Miss Beatty, had shown a fondness for Perky on the few occasions she had visited Sam or come over to borrow one thing or another. Miss Beatty had been confused when Sam dropped off Mister Perkins and asked for the older lady to care for her, only saying that a family emergency was drawing her away—but the less Miss Beatty knew, the better.

Sam withdrew the last of her savings and left Blackrock an hour later, knowing full well that she was basically making herself a fugitive. She confronted this knowledge with the same cold blankness with which she responded to Kathy's death. It was, simply, the state of things. Her being an outlaw simply didn't matter. Not now, not anymore.