The wind shifted before I even heard them coming, rustling through the leaves like a whispered warning. I was already on edge, though I couldn't explain why. Patrols had been uneventful this past week. Quiet enough to let my thoughts wander too much, apparently.

I forced myself to focus as Orion and Coy padded into view feom either side, their eyes sharp and glowing in the twilight. They'd been talking, their thoughts bleeding into the pack link, but I hadn't been listening. Not until I heard her name.

Juno.

I didn't know her, but I knew of her. Paul's daughter, who was mostly estranged but came for short visits occasionally. Though she wasn't a stranger to the land or its people, I gathered enough to know she was a sister to Coy only half in blood and not at all in upbringing.

Suddenly, I saw her. The perspective from Orion flooded me in an overwhelming sensation.

Juno standing at the door of a house that wasn't home. Her long baby blue nails digging onto her palms in a way even from the memory I could tell was painful. The front door was closed, had been for several minutes. Her mother was gone, no last-minute goodbye, no backward glance. Juno's breath choppy as she let out fast, harsh pants, but she swallowed whatever was rising in her throat. Coy stood near the truck, waiting as their dad walked over to Juno and gently reached for her shoulder. They walked to the truck together, Orion sliding in the backseat as she stood with the door open, staring at the house, just long enough for her to solidify no one was coming back out of it.

Then another flash came with laughter. Juno and Coy sitting on one side of a tanle in a fast-food joint, trays of half-eaten food in front of them. Orion tossing a crumpled napkin at Coy, smirking when Juno snorted into her drink. The weight in her eyes was still there, but she was trying. Letting herself breathe.

Another flicker. Juno asleep in the passenger seat, her head resting against the window, the highway stretching endlessly ahead. Coy driving, his fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel, the quiet hum of the radio filling the space between them as their dad murmured quietly to the boys about how this would be an adjustment for everyone, and he expected them to go easy on her. Juno grew up in a much more chaotic environment, but small towns can be just as vicious.

I couldn't help but agree with Paul on that last sentiment.

I exhaled sharply, the images shattering as fast as they had come. My heart slammed against my ribs, stomach twisting. It was too much, too sudden.

The trees around us trembled, their leaves whispering against each other as if unsettled by the same thing I was.

"Renzo?" Orion frowned, his head tilting slightly. I hadn't realized I'd gone stiff, stuck in place with paws feeling weighed down by sinking sand.

"Yeah," I said quickly, shaking it off. "Yeah, I'm good."

Coy eyed me but didn't press. Instead, he let out a sharp exhale and kicked at a loose rock. "Dad says she'll be at school Monday. Figured I'd give her space, let her settle."

Orion huffed. "She gonna be okay with that?"

Coy hesitated. "Dunno." He shrugged, but it wasn't careless. "She's stubborn, though. She'll figure it out."

Something in me shifted at that, like a taut string pulling tighter. I push against the strange feeling pressing at my ribs. All those flashes that had come from Orion settled in a way I didn't like. In a way I didn't understand.

Later that night, I'm at the dining room table absently flipping through my English textbook while dad moves around, cleaning up after dinner. Mom's at the counter, her chin resting on her hand as she watches him with quiet amusement.

"You don't have to do all that, you know. Her voice was warm as he quickly sprayed and wiped down the floor where he spilled salad while dumping in in the trash.

Dad scoffs, stacking plates in the sink and flipping the water on. "I live here too, Ness."

I look back down to my book as she smiles at him.

"Well, only one of us has super-speed."

"Two, actually." I mutter, rereading the start of the section. Again. Fourth time better be the charm. Usually, I found studying to be so easy it was second-nature. Today, I couldn't latch onto any of the information.

There was something about the way they fit together, so effortlessly that felt grating today. It usually didn't bother me, I grew up with and even loved the dynamic between my parents. It felt different today, maybe because I had never felt that certainty about anything, not this place, not this life. Especially not this place. La Push was proving to be a hard place to settle into for me.

Imprinting. That's what made it so easy for them.

I grew up hearing the legends, the stories about how an imprint wasn't a choice, it was a shift of life as you knew it. An absolute.

It was the foundation of my parents' love story, of Sam and Emily's, of Paul and Rachel's. I had heard it a thousand times, in all these imprint stories. It wasn't just falling for someone, or loving them, but belonging to them. A complete reorientation of the soul itself.

And despite it being the very reason I even existed, I never wanted that.

The idea of something deciding for me, of my life no longer being my own, made me uneasy. I had seen how deep it ran, how it eclipsed everything else. It looked like devotion, like certainty, like home… but it also looked like surrender.

Dad turned to me, eyes sharp in that way they always were when he was about to say something important. "You settling in okay?"

I shrug. "Yeah."

"Doesn't sound convincing," he notes, drying his hands.

"It's just… weird. The pack, school, all of it."

Mom reaches over, squeezing my arm. "I know."

Dad leans against the counter, arms crossed. "You'll get used to it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I mutter.

He frowned, but before he could press, Mom speaks up. "It's an adjustment for all of us." She tilts her head. "But it's also a chance."

"For what?"

"For roots." Her smile was dreamy as her eyes looked past me. "For something steady."

I wanted to tell her I wasn't sure I needed that, but the words didn't come. Instead, my mind drifted to Rosalie, who had always understood me in a way no one else did.

Mom must have noticed my shift because she nudged me gently. "You miss her."

I exhale slowly. "Yeah."

"Maybe you should call."

Dad smirks. "I'm sure she'd love to tell you what you're doing wrong."

I huffed a laugh, shaking my head, but didn't argue. Instead, I just sat there, watching the night grow darker outside, feeling both too close and too far away all at once.

Outside the window, the trees sway, wind carrying the distant sound of the ocean. Ink lifts his big head from where he was half-curled on the table, his green eyes, bright against his black fur, full of quiet judgment as he looks from me to the window and back.

"Yeah, yeah," I mutter, lips quirking slightly as his massive paw lands on my English textbook. His tail flicks lazily, gaze on me.

Once I turn back to my notebook, scrawling answers onto the page, he settles again, resting his head like he'd never moved at all.

The pull in my chest was still there, but for now, I ignored it.