Lewis's voice was low when he told me about the twins, and every word landed like a stone in still water. The old woman had never seen them as children. She had seen them as tools, weapons carefully sharpened to cut the Hale pack where it would hurt the most.
They were eight years old when everything fell apart. The girl had stepped in front of her brother without hesitation, the way pack loyalty runs deepest in the young, before life teaches you to calculate the cost. She didn't survive. Her brother did, barely. Both his legs were broken, his body a wreck, but it was the emptiness behind his eyes that told the real story. He was still breathing, still moving, but something essential in him had gone quiet, like an animal that had given up fighting the trap. He ate when food was placed before him. He answered when spoken to. But no one who looked closely could pretend that the boy behind those eyes was still whole.
