I have to go, you understand don't you? We need a pack, an alpha, to survive.
I won't be long, a month at the most. You'll hardly have time to miss me, I promise. And of there's so much as a scratch on the car when I get back I'll whoop your scrawny ass so hard, you hear?
I love you baby brother, I promise I'll be back for you. We're a team, you and me, remember?
She'd laughed and mussed his hair, then pulled him tight into a hug before walking out the door. And out of his life forever.
He'd known something was wrong long before the month was up but he'd wanted to believe she would be back, that one morning she would walk through the door of their motel room, laughter making wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and she would kiss him and hold him and everything would be fine in the world.
But of course she wouldn't, not now, not after almost three months. But he couldn't make himself leave though, not yet. Somehow...somehow it felt like not the right time to go yet. So he kept himself busy like she'd taught him, he even got a job at a construction site, spending his days hauling sacks of cement and stacking cinder blocks. At night he would lie on the big, empty bed with its scratchy polyester sheets and replay the memories in his head, unable to sleep without her.
One night, a different memory comes unbidden to his mind. Maybe it's the smell of smoke from across the hall that triggers it, he's not sure but suddenly he's transported to years ago, to the only other time in his life he remembers being scared for the future.
He remembers the cold, unforgiving light, the windowless interview rooms, the endless questions and most of all, the smell of smoke on his clothes, his hair, his skin. Laura is somewhere else being asked the same questions, he's not allowed to see her. He remembers the rising panic that threatened to swallow him whole and the simple act of a child's compassion that saved him. He remembers the feel of the small hand in his, how there was no blame, no pity or accusation on his eyes.
He gets up from the bed, stands in the middle of the room for a moment, taking stock of his small belongings: enough clothes to half-fill a duffel bag, a few books, a shoebox of photos Laura had hidden under the floorboards in her room and which had somehow miraculously survived the fire.
There's no point in staying. He's the only one left now, the only one who remembers. He's going to find out what happened to Laura and...and something.
That means going back to where it started. Going back to Beacon Hills.
He would go home.