Rogue Squad

The Box

My answers - they were all in that wooden box.

Just as Rina had stated, everything she had brought up, was laid before me in a cluster of photos, letters, notes and knickknacks. I had found two photos, one I recognized from a collage of childhood photos my mom had an album of, and another I didn't recognize but gained a searing headache from after staring at it for so long. The one I didn't recognized looked like me so much, simply because, it was me. The girl in the other photo I had once seen, was not, in fact, me. I grew up believing I'd changed so much as a child but alas, that wasn't true.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

I came to find out that my Mom, or should I say Carolyn, had a daughter by the name of Lucia. Lucia was, in fact, my age. Just like in the photos, she had strawberry blonde hair with a personality to match her mothers, or so Carolyn wrote in her letters. She was a free and giggly spirit. When she was very young, she caught a virus which manifested in her body, broke her down and eventually she developed a disease. It was slow in killing her. It got to the point where she couldn't leave her room for years, the only people to see her were Carolyn and Emmanuel.

Then, after fighting for over a year and a half, Lucia died. My mom, Carolyn, wrote about how devastating that blow was to her. She broke down, almost as bad as I saw her in the past, but worse. After all, no parent can ever even fathom burying their child. So she didn't, well at least not publicly. She told no one of her daughter's death and made Emmanuel keep it a secret. Sometimes he would come home to her talking to photos of her. My mom wrote about how crazy she must have seemed, but how real it felt for her to be talking to her deceased daughter.

A month later, the Igor pack invaded the Hellion pack for the first time, where Emmanuel found me. Mom didn't know the details, but I sure as hell did. That dream I'd always had, about a wolf finding me cowering underneath a bed, that was Emmanuel finding me. He dragged my from the safety of my home, unbeknownst to his pack, and delivered me straight to Carolyn, but not before he made a quick stop.

Mom wrote about my memories being completely washed the night I was delivered to her. Emmanuel had dragged me to the dungeon, found Rina wandering, and forced her to brainwash my memories-all of them. Rina did as she was told.

My mom hadn't know at the time that everything was wiped from me, Emmanuel told her he had found me on the streets, and I needed a home. Since no one knew of Lucia's death, and I clearly was confused about who I even was, it wasn't difficult for my Mom to slowly start bringing me out of our room, slowly introducing me to everyone as Lucia. Although people were confused at first at the drastic change in hair color. You see, the only real difference between the two of us was in fact the hair color. Our facial features were actually quite similar. My Mom simply brushed off those comments regarding that difference. She said that it was the disease that ended up darkening my hair. Having not seen the girl in over a year and a half, the pack simply agreed to it.

It wasn't until years later, when I started having dreams and nightmares of my past life that my Mom realized what had actually happened. I wasn't an orphan on the streets, oh no. I was someone else's child. At that point though, she loved me as I loved her. She couldn't give me up to the family I had waiting for me back in the Hellion pack.

But here I am, back at the Hellion pack. My original home... which means that Faith potentially could not be crazy. She could actually be my real mother...

"Do you hate me?" Rina asks from across the room as she realizes I'm no longer examining the contents of the box.

"I don't hate you." I tell her. "How could I? Really this is all Emmanuel's fault. If anything I should be apologizing to you for his behavior and involving you in this."