LILY POV
Two days after the shadow fight ended, Mrs. Peterson sat alone in her cabin, staring at her hands with confusion in her eyes.
"I remember being replaced," she told me when I visited with Hope. "But everything feels fuzzy, like trying to remember a dream after waking up."
My heart ached for her. All the pack members who'd been briefly taken over by shadow copies were struggling with similar problems. They had gaps in their memories, moments where they couldn't tell what had been real and what had been the shadow's impact.
"It's like part of me is still missing," whispered Beta Johnson when we stopped by his house. "I know the shadow creature is gone, but I feel... incomplete."
Hope listened carefully to each person's struggles, her baby face serious with focus. She was too young to fully understand psychological trauma, but she could feel the pain in their hearts.
"Mama," she said softly as we walked between houses, "their souls are hurt where the shadows touched them."
