34. The Truth

Alex's POV

I slipped away despite my best efforts to cling on. My life played before my eyes. A happy mother and loving father torn away followed by how I lived at that time. I watched myself split from the way I had been raised to be, gained my own opinion. I saw how I struggled with abandonment; I was so broken at that time.

Fast forward to meeting the love of my life, telling him the truth, and him defending me with his life. I saw the day I met my brother for the second time, the day we had found Ash's power, and the kiss right before the battle. Lastly, I saw the spark of my brother's eyes fade when he lost hope. It was something I had hoped to never see.

Then everything turned black, and it felt like there was nothing. My skin was cold, and it felt empty around me. My sense of smell was going wild before simply going out. The breath was driven out of me as if I had made impact with something, but I still couldn't see. Suddenly a loud flash occurred, and my eyes were assaulted by the fresh, bright light.

The suddenly blinding white light yielded the figure of a young man. His face was happy, and I realized that it was me. The younger version of myself was happily playing with a father that still loved him. He didn't know what his life held, he couldn't tell the future. "Papa, what happens when we die."

"Well, sweetheart, everyone believes different things. I personally think we all get a second chance to live our lives better, and if we fail then we go to either heaven or hell. You believe whatever you want, Alex, and don't let any other idiot tell you that what you are is wrong. I love you and your mother loves you. Live your life the best you can and love everyone in it, that is my advice to you."

I had forgotten about this conversation. He had had a heart once, he was a good person in the past. All of this made me wonder, what happened? What changed him into the cold power hungry person he is today? The vision faded as I locked eyes with younger me before he turned and sprinted away to play with his friends.

My mother then appeared exactly as I remembered her. "There's still time, you can still help to fulfill your purpose."

Another scene opened up, my father was as young as I was. His bedroom was silent until a man entered. It was Ash's father. "Antony, are you sure about this, what if we get caught by your father."

"I'll take the blame I guess."

Then they started... kissing?

My grandfather stormed in with a mighty rage before screeching, "How dare you do this action with him? This is unforgivable, Antony, and with a coven member! You are a shame to your pack, so you will no longer be in it. Get out!"

The scene flashed, and I saw my father turn with young, teary eyes. He was seventeen years old and was not in a pack any longer. "This is your fault. It's your fault that I don't have a home to go back to. I don't want you in my life anymore, Jackson, so just leave me alone," he sobbed out before sprinting away. Jackson's face hardened, and he tried his best to forget the boy he had loved in his youth for the family life. My father, however, built up a pack from scratch out of rogue wolves and made a living for himself.

He eventually found a lady, while not his real soulmate, and they joined their packs together. Eventually they fell into love even though they were both awaiting a soulmate, and they had two little children together. My mother, however, found her soulmate and tried to run away with him, yet my father caught up to her and slaughtered her out of desperation. He had wanted to love her, but she had thrown it all away without even telling him goodbye.

He fell into a kind of depressive state in which he turned cold and gray again just like he had at seventeen. A coven moved near to them, and my father went to say hello and have formalities to live in peace. There he met a man, the same man that had, in his eyes, thrown his life out of the window. Then, in a turn for the better or worse, they connected a bond that only one of them craved.

"Listen, Antony, I already have a family. As much as I want to explore this bond with you, I can't leave my life behind. Please understand... I, Jackson Quinn, reject you, Antony Canfield, as my soulmate."

My father was torn apart. Betrayed by the woman he loved, rejected by his soulmate, kicked out of his birth pack; he was slowly going insane. He slaughtered the coven out of hope. He believed that if he gave Jackson nothing left in his old life that he would take him back, but he ended up thinking he killed his own soulmate.

From then on, he taught all of the children in his pack foul, untrue things about vampires because he didn't want them to be hurt by them like he had. He looked at me differently than anyone else, different than he had before. He saw in me a woman who didn't choose him in the end. He saw a broken part of his past. He saw himself in my future.

He did everything because he panicked, and he wanted me back because he knew that my soulmate was Jackson's beloved son. My father didn't hate me, it was quite the opposite. He loved me enough to try to protect my future at all costs, even if it meant I hated him.

My mother was in front of me talking again but it was all falling upon deaf ears. I had heard enough, and the only thing that I wanted was to go back and make everything as it should have been. He didn't deserve death, he hadn't done anything wrong. Our side of the story was so shifted that our judgement was impaired, so I really needed to go back and stop Ash from killing him. I remembered feeling my father's tears mixed with the rain. He had been possessed with the hunger and thirst to win. He didn't want me dead. I remembered his desperate apologies before my death, and now I knew why. He was hurt.

"Please, I need to set things right... Please let me go back."

"As you wish."

It felt surreal, like I was being shoved into a space too small then directly after that being torn apart bit by bit. There was a metallic taste in my mouth that I recognized as blood. Then I remembered that it was because I had died.

"Uh... Alex?" a tiny voice murmured. I knew it was Ally. Ash had probably left to fulfill what I told him.

"...hi?"