9. Vivianna
VIVIANNA
My first coherent thought was I was in agony.
It felt like my body was being ripped apart joint by joint and put back together, just to be torn apart again.
Searing pain followed by an overwhelming heat battered my body for what seemed like hours or even days.
I couldn’t tell. I screamed with pain, trying to release some of what was pouring through my body.
I had moments of clarity when I saw flashes of a concrete room with metal bars, could feel my nails digging into the dirt beneath me.
But then another wave of pain wracked through my body, sending me spiraling into darkness once again.
In the darkness, my mind decided to add its own version of torture. Flashes of my childhood reared its ugly head, reminding me just how trapped and useless I had been not that long ago.
“Daddy, please don’t send me away again. I promise I’ll be good, just don’t make me go back to America,” I begged on my knees in front of my father.
The plush carpet was the only thing that was warm and comforting in the room.
Father hadn’t wanted to look at me when I first came back, furious about my behavior.
I’d only been back in my childhood home for a week after being sent away for four years.
I’d been kicked out of my boarding school for fighting, having used up all my warnings.
My father sat in his large wingback chair with the fire next to him, casting shadows over his disdain-filled face.
Mother silently sat in her chair to his right, keeping her eyes downcast, working on her needlepoint.
“Stop your begging and stand up. It’s unseemly. You should feel privileged to have such a good education. This is one of the top boarding schools in the world, and they will take you even with your past transgressions.”
“It’s so lonely that far away. I never make any friends, and when I do, it’s because their parents tell them to,” I said, trying to get him to understand. “Why don’t you want me home?”
I readied myself for his answer. I knew deep down that he didn’t really love me or want me. Somehow, I thought it would hurt less to just have him tell me that he wanted nothing to do with me.
“What father would want a child who has disgraced them as you have me? Elena, remove her from my sight. I don’t want to see her again until she has learned her place in the world,” my father said, waving his hand at my mother and turning away from me.
My mother stood, nodding her head to my father and reaching out for my hand. “Come, Vivianna. You have an early flight tomorrow, let’s get you to bed,” she said, ushering me upstairs.
I let her take me away, looking over my shoulder and seeing my father had gone back to reading his book. It was the first time I truly realized that I was an unwanted child. A burden to my family that they would rather hide away in some boarding school in another country.
Another wave of torment rushed through my body, pulling me out of my nightmare.
I convulsed, my muscles screaming as if they were being ripped apart and remade.
It felt like my flesh was being burned off layer by layer.
It heated until it split, leaving me to just bleed out on the dirt floor.
Once it stopped, my memories pounced, digging their claws into me, causing a whole other type of pain.
“You will be a surgeon, or I am pulling you out of this school. The deal was that you could pick between the medical field or being a lawyer,” my father said, and I heard him slamming something on his desk.
I pulled the phone away from my face and took a deep breath. I could do this; I could finally take my stand against him. It only took me twenty years, but I wasn’t going to back down now.
“I already got accepted into the school. Do you have any idea how hard that is? There is a waiting list hundreds of people long. This is the Royal School of Emergency Medicine we’re talking about.
If I pull out now, do you have any idea how bad this will look?
” I asked, knowing that would get his attention.
There was no way he would let anything tarnish his image, least of all his unwanted child yet again. After graduating high school, my father had given me two choices. I already knew I would pick a school back home in England. I wasn’t going to be his dirty little secret tucked away in America.
“If I find that you ever drop lower than the top of your class, I am pulling you out and sending you to a proper medical school. I will have a flat provided for you since I can’t have you staying in the school dorms with your oddities.
There will be no need to come home on your breaks.
It will only upset your mother to see you throwing away your life on this silly venture,” my father said, somehow managing to turn this all on me.
How does he do that? He can take my defiant stand and turn it around so I’m the one who looks like the asshole.
“That’s fine. It’s not like you want to be reminded you have a daughter. Sorry I can’t be the perfect puppet mother is,” I snapped. As soon as I said that, I knew I had crossed the line.
I waited as the other end of the call was filled with a heavy silence. All I wanted to do was hang up the phone and avoid what was coming next. I didn’t know what possessed me to say those things out loud, even if they were true. I was trying to be bold, but this was just suicidal.
“One day, Vivianna, you will realize that I have treated you better than most in my position would have. I have provided for all your needs and continue to do so, even with you behaving so disrespectfully. When the time comes and you realize your place in the world, only then will you see what I’ve known all along.
Your only worth is in your husband. Your mother knows this and has shown her worth to me,” my father replied.
“One day, I will find the right man to trim those independent wings of yours, that is a promise.”
From that point on, I never had a serious relationship, only one-night stands or casual attachments.
After this last nightmare, the pain started diminishing.
I managed to open my eyes and saw a man in a lab coat crouching over me.
He checked my pulse and listened to my heart, nodding to himself as he went.
I struggled to keep my eyes open, wanting to take in the world around me.
I could feel him working on me, but when I looked where he was holding my hand, I saw he was holding what looked like a dog’s leg.
The fur was a soft golden color that reminded me of sunshine reflecting off wheat fields.
Hmm, I wonder what kind of dog has that color fur? Come to think of it, why was there a dog in here? Wait! Was there another wolf waiting to attack me since I managed to survive?
“Her first shift is done. Now we just have to see if she’ll live long enough to bond with her wolf,” Mr. Lab Coat Man said, brushing his hands down my side. “Look at my beautiful girl. There hasn’t been a golden werewolf in generations.”
Ha, ha, ha, did he say ‘werewolf?’ Right, like that’s a real thing. Oh man, I really must be out of my mind to think he just said that. Is that why I can’t feel the pain anymore? It’s nice that the pain has stopped for a little while. I wonder how long it will last this time.
I’m blocking the pain from you, a voice said in my head.
What’d ya know, after talking to myself for so long, my mind has finally decided to answer back.
You’ve been talking to me, you just couldn’t hear me answer, the voice said, snorting at me.
Excuse me. So sorry I ignored you, figment of my imagination. Only I would have an imaginary friend with attitude.
I’m not imaginary, you idiot. I’m your wolf. I’ve been a part of you your whole life. You just needed to go through the transition to hear me.
You’re a wolf? Why a wolf? Why didn’t I take better notes during my psychology rotation?
Then I might have a clue about why this recent trauma has manifested itself into a wolf talking to me.
Come to think of it, why are wolves suddenly popping up in strange places around me?
Hey, voice, did you know I got attacked by a wolf today?
Oh—well, I guess if you’ve been around this whole time, you already knew that.
Gosh, this is going to take some getting used to.
Listen up and try to follow along here. I am you, and I am a wolf. Put those together and that makes you… a werewolf.
Okay, whoa, tone down the bitchiness, missy, this is all new to me. God, why am I even entertaining this notion? Okay, here goes nothing. If I’m a werewolf, is that why my arm looks like a dog’s right now?
Yes. Right now, you’re in wolf form, which is how I’m able to block your brain from some of the pain your body is going through.
That’s a nice perk. Would you mind explaining to me why I’m in so much pain since you seem to understand everything that’s going on here?
You just survived your first shift, which activated the werewolf gene that’s been lying dormant in your system. Hence how I’ve been here all your life. You needed a bite or scratch from a shifted werewolf to trigger the transformation, or at least that’s what the creepy doctor said.
Alright, I’m with you so far. So, what happens now that I’ve survived that god-awful transition?
I don’t know! I’m a part of you. If you don’t know, then how the hell am I supposed to? The only reason I know this much is because I didn’t pass out like a baby from the shot they gave you.
You and I are going to need to have a talk about your attitude later, ma’am. I don’t appreciate it one bit. I sighed, exasperated from this strange conversation.
Feeling my chest expand, which in this current body was a strange feeling, I was hit with a flood of scents around me. From the musty smell and the sound of water trickling down the concrete wall behind me, I could make a good guess that I was underground.