The Human Among Wolves Chapter 49

Aurora

I slid into the backseat, the leather cold against my palms. Isobelle climbed into the passenger seat a moment later, flashing me a small smile before clicking her seatbelt into place. My father gave a brief glance into the rearview mirror, meeting my eyes for half a second, then started the car without a word.

The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the soft hum of the engine and the distant chatter of students still lingering near the gates. I leaned my forehead against the window, watching the academy slowly fall away behind us as the car rolled onto the main road.

Nobody spoke.

I could feel my mother wanting to—her body shifted toward me ever so slightly, her fingers twitching in her lap—but she kept quiet, probably waiting for my father to take the lead. And my father… he never filled silences unless it was on his own terms.

The car moved smoothly, the town passing by outside, and I tried to steady my breathing. But every bump in the road made my chest tighten. I wanted to scream questions, to demand answers, but the words stuck like thorns in my throat.

Finally, Isobelle turned halfway in her seat, her soft voice breaking the quiet. “Did you eat breakfast, sweetheart?”

It was such a normal question, so utterly wrong for this moment, that I almost laughed. Instead, I nodded mutely. “Yeah. In the canteen.”

She smiled gently, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

My father’s hands flexed on the wheel, his gaze fixed firmly on the road. He still hadn’t spoken a single word to me.

The rest of the drive was filled with shallow remarks from my mother—little things about the weather, about how quiet the roads were today, about how they’d thought of taking me to their favorite restaurant in town. My father stayed silent the whole time.

**** * ****

The car pulled up in front of a small, cozy restaurant tucked onto a quiet street.My stomach knotted as I followed them inside.

We were seated in a corner booth, out of sight from most of the other customers. Isobelle slid in across from me, her smile fixed in place, while my father settled beside her, his arms folded, his gaze unreadable.

A waitress came, took drink orders, and left. The silence that followed was almost unbearable. I stared down at the table, my hands clenched in my lap.

Finally, Isobelle reached across the table, her fingers brushing mine. “Aurora,” she said softly, her eyes glassy with something unspoken. “We promised you answers.”

My throat tightened. I nodded, biting down hard on my lip.

She glanced at my father, as if asking for permission. He gave the slightest of nods.

“We found you on the bridge,” Isobelle began softly, her hands folding over one another on the table. “You were only ten. That part was the truth.”

I stared at her, my heart already racing, waiting for the inevitable but.

She hesitated, her eyes flickering toward my father as though searching for strength. He gave her a single, stiff nod. She exhaled, her voice trembling ever so slightly as she continued.

“But… we didn’t tell you everything.”

My stomach knotted. I felt my fingers curl into fists in my lap, nails biting into my palms. “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice sharp with the edge of dread.

Her gaze lowered to the table for a moment, as though she couldn’t bear to look at me. “When we found you, you weren’t just lost. You were hurt. Bruised all over, as if you had been through something terrible. And you…” she faltered, glancing at my father again before forcing herself to meet my eyes, “…you told us your name.”

I froze, my chest tightening.

The name pressed against the back of my mind like a ghost I’d tried to forget, like a truth I had buried so deep I pretended it never existed.

Isobelle’s lips parted, and when she spoke again, the sound of it nearly cracked me in half.

“It wasn’t Aurora.”

I closed my eyes, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I already knew what she was about to say, and still, hearing it would shatter me.

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You said your name was Aurenya.”

I looked at her, lips parting, ready to say something—to protest, to ask, to scream; I didn’t know what. But no sound came. My throat was tight, my chest even tighter.

Isobelle’s eyes softened, her voice gentler now, like she was tiptoeing around a wound that might split wide open if she pressed too hard.

“We took you in… immediately,” she said, her fingers nervously twisting together on the tablecloth. “You were so small, so broken, but there was this fire in your eyes that I’ll never forget. Even then, even with all the pain you carried, you looked at me like you were daring me to leave you there.” She shook her head faintly. “I couldn’t. We couldn’t.”

Her voice wavered, but she pushed through, the words spilling out like she had carried them in silence for far too long.

“You became our daughter that night. We never questioned it again. We gave you a new name, a new home, and we loved you like you were ours. You *were* ours.” She paused, her gaze drifting down, as if ashamed. “And in time… you forgot. You stopped calling yourself Aurenya. You stopped even remembering it. We told ourselves it was trauma, that your mind was protecting you from something too dark to carry. PTSD, maybe. A coping mechanism.”

Her eyes lifted to mine again, filled with a pain that almost looked like guilt.

My whole body went cold, like the air had been sucked out of the room. For a moment, I couldn’t even hear the clinking of dishes around us, the hum of conversation from the other tables. It was just me… and those words echoing in my head.

*Aurenya.*

That fucking name.

I yanked my hands back from the table, pushing my chair a little farther away from them. “You what?” My voice came out sharper than I intended, trembling with something between rage and fear. “You knew my real name. You knew all this time, and you just—what? Decided it was easier if I forgot?”

“Aurora, please—” my mother began, but I cut her off.

“No. Don’t call me that. Not right now.” My throat burned, eyes stinging, but I refused to let the tears fall. I wasn’t going to cry in the middle of a restaurant like some broken little girl. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to not even know who the hell you are? To wake up every day and wonder why something inside you feels… missing? And all this time—you knew.”

Dad shifted uncomfortably in his seat, jaw tight, but he stayed quiet. He always stayed quiet when it came to me and Mom.

“You should have told me,” I whispered, though it came out more like a rasp. “God, you should have told me years ago. I had the right to know. You kept me in the dark and pretended it was out of love, but it wasn’t. It was a lie. My whole life has been a lie.”

I shoved my chair back suddenly, the legs scraping against the floor. People were staring now, but I didn’t care. My chest felt like it was caving in, my pulse a thunderstorm in my ears.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I spat, and the truth of it hurt more than the words. “And it’s because of you.”