Despite having entered the unguarded Nightshade Pack, Sebastian still had to drive around to locate the orphanage, and by the time he found it he had gotten to see the full damage of a pack that had refused to follow the world’s laws or contribute to making their world any better.

This was his first time in Nightshade and Sebastian was genuinely taken aback by the extent of the ruin and the hunger visible on the faces of the people they passed. He doubted whether they even had animals left to hunt in the forests surrounding them.

They drove through road after road lined with children and barely grown adults. The roads themselves were so damaged that by the time the car rolled to a stop in front of the run down orphanage, the sides of the car were scratched all over from the rocks and broken ground.

Viola tried not to gasp at the sight of the orphanage. It looked worse than she remembered, far worse, the gate barely hanging on its hinges and swaying slightly in the air. She stepped out of the car as Sebastian opened her door and held out his hand to her. She took it without consciously being aware, her eyes already glued to the two story crumbling building with its broken windows staring back at her like hollow eyes.

She recalled the biting cold of the orphanage winters, and back then the windows had at least been better than this. She wondered what winter was like here now, especially with the snow in this part of the world falling heavier than anywhere else. She was too shaken by what she was looking at to pay attention to where she was stepping, and she allowed Sebastian to lead her forward by the grip of her hand in his.

"Watch your step." He cautioned as she nearly walked straight into a gutter without looking down. He could feel her hand trembling in his and he stopped to look at her.

"Take a deep breath, love. You look like you are about to pass out." He murmured, his brows drawn together in concern at her visibly unsteady state.

Viola swallowed the huge lump forming in her throat. "I can’t relax. I am...afraid of what I will find in there." She told him, her fingers gripping his desperately as if searching for something solid to hold onto.

She had prepared herself for this moment, or so she had believed, but standing here in front of it she realized she hadn’t prepared nearly enough. Every nerve in her body was on edge and she was shaking like she was walking toward her own reckoning. What would Ivy think of her?

"What if she hates me now for what I did?" Viola whispered, her voice cracking under the weight of the words, her eyes filling at the edges before tears spilled in fat drops down her cheeks.

"Sebastian, I deserve every bit of her hate and her anger, but I don’t think I will ever be ready to stomach it. I have hurt her so much. I took something from her that can never be given back. I am scared she won’t want to look at me again...I am afraid." She admitted, a choking sob tearing out of her that pulled at something deep inside Sebastian’s chest, and he drew her gently into his embrace.

He wrapped his arms around her trembling body and stroked her back as her hands automatically gripped his waist.

"Shhh. Don’t worry about anything else right now. Let’s see her first. I will do everything in my power to help her understand that you have tried. And if you hadn’t taken her place, she might have been the one to go through everything you went through for four years in Moonwillow. Think of it that way. You saved her from a terrible fate." He said quietly against her hair, wanting for her to stop hurting or blaming herself this much.

Viola shook her head against his chest. "She would never have taken the path I took that led me to end up in the hollow. She was different. Pure and kind and lovely. She cared about everyone around her and she would never have gotten herself into a relationship with someone like Evan. I brought that fate on myself..." She sobbed, her tears soaking into his shirt.

Sebastian tightened his arms around her, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and then pulled back to cup her face in both his palms. Her face was flushed red and her cheeks soaked, more tears streaming down like a dam that had finally given way. He felt a stab in his chest at the sight of it and slowly used his thumbs to wipe at her cheeks.

He was about to say something when the door of the orphanage swung open behind them, and he looked back to see a young woman step out. She was dressed in a loose, long red shirt that hung off her skinny frame down to her knees, where a yellow skirt, smudged with dirt and stains, fell all the way to the ground. Her blonde hair was tied back with a scarf, braided into two sections that rested over her shoulders. Her sunken brown eyes looked at them both warily as she asked,

"Are you here to adopt?"

Her gaze moved from the man to the crying woman held close to his chest. She had welcomed many couples who had come here looking to adopt and knew the look well enough. The woman was probably crying because she couldn’t conceive, and finding this place must have brought her some measure of relief.

Viola wiped her tears and took a slow, deep breath, drawing in Sebastian’s warm scent before stepping back from him and walking around to face the girl. She needed to get a grip and not let her emotions control her.

But her eyes narrowed on the girl as recognition began to settle in. She knew this girl. Though the girl had grown considerably, she still had the same brown eyes and dirty blonde hair, and her face still carried the unmistakable resemblance to one of the children they had shared a room with in this orphanage years ago.

"You are Julia, right?" Viola asked.

The young woman looked surprised that a well dressed stranger knew her name and gave a short nod. "I am. Who are you?"

Relief washed over Viola and she felt herself breathe for the first time since they had pulled up. If Julia, who had been Ivy’s closest friend, was still here, then there was a real chance her sister was too.

She and Julia had never gotten along well, mostly because of the way Viola had always made Ivy take her punishments for her. Julia had watched it happen and had resented her quietly for it, her glares saying everything she never put into words. But none of that mattered now. Right now Viola was genuinely glad to see her face.