26. Genevieve

Waking in my old room was a bizarre experience. Like time had reversed, I expected to hear Cillian banging the packhouse door as he left for a run. Or the sound of my parents laughing as they headed into the study after breakfast.

Instead I got silence. I had arrived in the dead of night. Cillain, Alpha Cillian now, was absent. So my arrival back home started with being surrounded and almost attacked as a pack of Beta Guards surrounded my motorbike.

After flashing a torch in my face a grizzled, tired-looking Beta Kharkov smiled and called out to the snarling forms surrounding my bike, “it’s just Gen!” a sense of home washed over me. I was always Gen here. It wasn’t the same thrill as being Vee, but Genevieve is way too formal.

Heading down the stairs there were new faces in the kitchen. No sign of Matilda, so I grabbed a coffee and went to find some information. What I found was a porch rocking chair and the spectacle of seeing Beta’s Kharkov and Jackson schooling Franz and Zeke i