Chapter 15

Dan finished speaking and sat back, wiping his reddened eyes on his sleeve. Emma and Maddy didn't bother to hide the fact that they were crying. But Maddy's tears were more than her father's. They were tears of both sorrow and fury. But she forced the bitterness down in favour of asking the rest of her questions. She'd said she wanted to know everything and she intended to make good on that before passing her judgement.

"So your original daughter was named Maddy." Maddy didn't bother to conceal her glare. "So who am I?"

"You're Maddy." Emma assured her. "Immediately after Dan's daughter went missing, we got Segolia in. The trouble was, it prompted such a big investigation that it almost compromised the secret. It ran on so long, everyone lost hope of her still being alive. The amount of humans that were getting interested... We had no choice but to bury it in the only way we could. We had them bury Maddy's records and change the name on them to Maya before making them as difficult to find as possible. We found out we were having a daughter some time later on the scan. It was just perfect. With Segolia's backing, it was deliriously easy to convince any record keepers that there'd been an error of a few years and rectify them as they came up. Schools, medical records... Everything, really. We'd had no option but to accept that she was dead and there was no other way we could have stopped the humans from taking too much notice."

"So it was to protect the secret." Maddy nodded. "What's that worth? What about my life? For the sake of keeping us a secret, you used me as a replacement! Dad himself said he saw me as a second chance!" Maddy threw back her chair and launched herself to her feet. "I can't believe what I'm hearing! And the worst part is, this shapeshifter probably continued to plague us for years! He knew about Sarah, after all." Maddy saw Emma flinch involuntarily. She was all out of sympathy at this point. "I'm going to need to think hard about this and what I'm going to do from here. It's going to be my decision and mine alone." With that, she turned on her heel to leave.

"Maddy?" Emma called after her, causing her to stop and take an annoyed breath to compose herself before turning to face her.

"What now?" she asked.

"You mentioned Sarah." Emma pointed out. "At the school. You were talking to her, weren't you? It was Sarah helping you out." Maddy suppressed a growl of anger that ripped through her chest, forcing her wolf down before she did something she might regret.

"That's no longer your concern."

"You're right, it's not." Dan held up his hands in a deflective gesture. "Although I'm curious as to how that could be possible since..." He trailed off, aware he'd said too much. Emma's glare proved it too. Maddy had also locked onto it and there was no taking it back now. Yet again, something else they'd kept from her!

"Spit. It. Out." Each word was carefully measured and she could feel herself on the brink of having a meltdown. It was like milk bubbling over in a microwave. It was an awful feeling and it was obvious that she was losing control. She couldn't afford to lose control. Meanwhile, her parents were looking dumbly at each other. They couldn't decide what to say. It only served to infuriate her more. She pulled out her phone, scrolling through her contacts until she found Sarah. "Tell me, or I'll ask her myself."

"Maddy, it's really not our place to say." Emma offered. "Look, even if we did, it's so outlandish you probably wouldn't believe it and besides, we're focusing on you right now. Why are we dragging her into all this again? She's played her part now, hasn't she?" Maddy stared at Emma with nothing short of disgust on her face. Here was the woman who'd given birth to her now speaking to her with a tone that was pleading. She was begging her not to ring that number. But Maddy was past the point of no return. She'd already decided her next action. With no hesitation, she hit the button. The phone rang twice before a voice from the other end answered.

"Maddy. Is something the matter?"

"Hey, Sarah." Maddy replied. "Listen, my parents just told me everything. They also let slip there might be something you're not telling me. Care to shed any light on it?" She could swear she heard a sigh from the other end of the phone.

"Am I on speaker?" she asked.

"You are." Maddy replied. "Not that it matters to a Wolfblood."

"Fair point." There was a brief pause and Maddy guessed she was considering her next choice of words. "Listen, do me a favour and put the TV on. Trust me, it'll all make sense in a second." Maddy looked to her parents whose expressions told her everything she needed to know. They knew exactly what was happening.

"Any particular channel?" she asked as she turned it on and made sure the volume was up.

"Nope. I'll do the rest." She said it so casually that it took Maddy a second to even process it. Before the thought had even fully registered in her mind, Sarah started speaking again. "You've been saying since my first text that we needed to meet up. I put it off deliberately for a reason. I never did video chat with you, I always stuck to regular phone calls and texts. I didn't want you to see me." Suddenly, Sarah's voice switched and began to come from the TV instead of Maddy's phone. "Now, you finally get to see me. I am here." Sarah's face suddenly appeared on the TV screen, staring out at Maddy. "Shocked? I would be."

"Wait, what?" Maddy's mind raced to keep up. "Are you doing a video call? We don't have a webcam set up or anything."

"No." Sarah shook her head. "This is me now. Do you remember eight months ago when you all woke up in that apartment with no clue where you were? That was my doing. I'd been driven insane by the Morwal and totally gone off the deep end. I was at death's door by the end of it. There was only one way out." Maddy looked up at the TV screen as she flopped onto the sofa, staring at one of her oldest friends like a total stranger.

"That explains precisely nothing!" she shrugged.

"Okay, let me break it down for you." Sarah sighed. "You know how Eolas thrives in nature and craps out near electricity? Well mine was the opposite. To this day, I don't know why. I've been pouring over every classified document Segolia has stashed behind their Atari 2600-level security for years and still can't find anything like it. I guess I'm the first. Anyway, I went totally evil and ended up being hunted by Segolia because of it. They even took your family into hiding thinking I wouldn't find you. They had no way to know I was listening every time they used a radio or watching through every security camera like it was an episode of Big Brother but actually entertaining." Maddy scratched her head and tried to make sense of it all. But the more she tried, the more her head hurt.

"So what exactly did you do?" she asked.

"I tried to lure you to an apartment to kill you so I could get back at Emma and Dan for kicking me and my mum off their territory." From the sound of Sarah's voice, Maddy could tell the words were genuinely hurting her. "The part of me that still cared for you also wanted to kidnap you and save you from them. I was at war with myself. I couldn't decide what to do. But it all went wrong. Segolia burst in and it was only in my final moments when I accessed Dan and Emma's phones to leave the message that I saw how much they truly love you. I uploaded my consciousness to the electrical network and I've been everywhere at once ever since. I'm basically a ghost. My body was a ruined husk but now I'm free of it. I've been keeping watch over you ever since." Maddy felt the world around her turn cold. Sarah wasn't dead! She was speaking to her now!

"Why are you saying all this?" Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

Look, I'm just going to come out and say it." Sarah continued. "Your parents know they messed up. Badly. Several times. Actually, they've made some terminally stupid mistakes at points. What I'm trying to say is, they know it. But it doesn't change the fact that, despite literally all evidence pointing directly to the contrary, they genuinely love you. They've pulled some seriously crappy stunts to keep you and the secret both safe, but they care. At the end of the day, that's what matters. Take it from me, Maddy. They're here and they want to make amends. That's more than I had when I still had a physical body." Maddy stared, disbelieving, as the girl on the screen spoke. When she finished, she just carried on staring dumbly as though she were waiting to wake up.

"So you're dead?" It was all she could manage.

"I knew you wouldn't register it past that point." Sarah sighed. "Yes, my body is dead in every medical sense. I'm a digital ghost and don't worry, you're totally awake."

"I think I'd remember something like you're describing." Maddy pointed out. Sara was apparently expecting that, though. She met the point head-on with yet another mind bending explanation.

"No you wouldn't. Remember when I talked about Segolia's security systems? Well there were some files I read about their experiments on using light and sound from digital devices to erase select memories. Files they really should have hidden behind better firewalls. It was something I'd used to evade detection many times. I must admit though, under the circumstances the one I did to you and your friends was a much more ham-handed job. I literally erased everything up to the moment you left school that day. As far as you're concerned, you were just in the Darkroom. The fact that days had passed was totally lost to you. You remembered none of it. I felt it was for the best. The mental scars of what was happening would have been too much for you. You're a good person and a strong alpha, Maddy. You're a girl who's built tough. That doesn't mean you're sturdy with it."

"So you're seriously telling me that you erased my memories using light and sound and then contacted me afterwards looking to make a fresh start?" Maddy glared at her. "You don't get to tamper with my brain and then kiss up to me like nothing happened!"

"Well why do you think I've been trying to make amends?" Sarah asked. "And if it's any help at all, I have a plan to defeat this shapeshifter. But it's for your eyes only. Let me finalise some things and I'll ring you in twenty minutes." With that, she vanished before Maddy had chance to reply. The screen turned blue and the TV speakers popped as whatever connection she'd been using to communicate with Maddy was terminated. There was no choice now. Whatever Sarah was planning, this was going to happen. Maddy let out an irritated growl as she got up and stormed towards the stairs, heading to her room. She burst in, heading toward the bed and completely ignoring Rhydian who was sitting on there, throwing herself onto it and bouncing him a good six inches above the mattress.

"It went that well, did it?" he remarked as she balled her sheets up, pressed them to her face and shrieked like a banshee. Moving on impulse and not knowing what was guiding her, she grabbed the album from under her pillow, turning to where the photo that had started all this trouble was kept. Without thinking what she was doing, she popped it out, grabbed a pen and began to write on the page. This album contained her memories and, apparently, some that weren't even hers. She had no options left but to trust Sarah's plan. If it failed, she wanted to leave something in the book that was hers. It felt like the most satisfying thing she'd ever done.