Chapter 1 #3
Something that my wolf absolutely hated. She wanted to fight back. But I wanted to survive, and if that meant curling up and covering my head from well-aimed kicks, you better believe that was exactly what I’d do.
While I had never been held up in the pack, I’d been protected. I’d been sheltered from outside forces. I had been told only the pack could keep me safe.
Maybe that’s why something about this situation rang so odd. The one-eighty left me feeling unstable.
It was like a spell had overtaken Gerald and Theresa the minute they received the letter.
Even Alpha seemed unusually excited. I could admit that while the opportunity was a big deal, it had hurt how pleased they seemed to be to get rid of me.
Normally, it would have made sense to assume they were excited for me, but I hadn’t been part of the conversation.
In fact, no one seemed to care how I felt about it.
There had been no talk about refusing the all-inclusive scholarship, and by this morning, I’d been packed up and placed on a bus that would drop me off across the street from the train station.
Alpha had brought me. Theresa and Gerald hadn’t even bothered to come say goodbye. So this entire thing felt… orchestrated. Planned? Forced? None of this was normal for how my ‘family’ worked, and now that I was finally away from all of them, that reality and fear was invading my chest.
Sometimes the evil you know is better than the one you don’t, right?
Yet here I was, possibly walking into something far worse than before.
What if there had been a mistake and that letter wasn’t meant for me?
My eyes flickered to the letter in my backpack, knowing that it read Effie Harlow. No, it had clearly been meant for me.
I looked down at the small cellular device I had tucked into my bag.
I had never owned one in my life, so when Alpha handed it to me, I wasn’t sure if the expectation was that I would call them or if it was just ‘normal’ to have one.
I honestly didn’t know what to do with it.
I didn’t know how it was being paid for, either, and I hoped that it didn’t have a monthly bill, because when I say I had nothing, I meant… nothing.
I didn’t even have their phone number. I had maybe forty dollars to my name and my bag of possessions.
Most of which consisted of hand-me-downs and thrift clothes, as well as small trinkets I’d collected over the years.
I had been forced to leave anything that the pack could use, which had left me with startling few things in this world.
A feeling that was a lot like depression worked its way up my throat at the notion of having so little to tie myself to this plane of existence.
Why couldn’t I have a home? Why couldn’t I have some personal items I loved? A family? Why couldn’t I be around people that wanted me? Tears started to fill my eyes, but I blinked them away, knowing that crying would do me no good right now.
Especially since I had such a long day ahead of me.
I knew I wasn’t going to fit in here at Silver Falls University.
I hadn’t even had a chance to use the pack computer to look up the school, but their expensive-looking brochure had shown attractive students in designer clothes lounging in front of a stunning lakefront, and all of it had my gut twisting.
I was going to stick out, and in a bad way.
I didn’t know a single family, let alone a hundred, that could actually afford a seventy-thousand-dollar a year tuition bill.
I mean, the money I had on me right now was the most I’d ever had in my possession, and it was less than fifty dollars.
I truly believed money wasn’t everything, but I knew I needed some level of independence, some way to survive on my own.
Crap. They had really put me in a bad place here.
Running a hand over the back of my neck, I resisted the urge to turn around, feeling once again as though someone was staring at me.
I knew I was probably just being paranoid, because that was far more likely than someone actually noticing my small, curled-up form that was practically dipping below the back of the seat.
Bringing my hand forward, I nervously examined the dark ring of bruises that covered my wrist from two days ago when Gerald had dragged me into the living room to show Theresa the now chipped nail polish I had tried out on my fingers.
The bruises had yet to fade, and honestly, it had been a hard enough hold that at one point I thought he might break my arm by accident.
I hadn’t understood—still didn’t—why it was such a huge problem, but they had gotten into such a massive fight about it that I’d ended up locking myself in my room, terrified to get involved.
As I said, the few times I’d tried to step in for Theresa, she had gotten mad at me, so I had long ago stopped trying.
Plus, I didn’t need to be around for what happened afterwards.
I shivered, hating that my bedroom wall had been next to theirs.
I had heard way too much, and the worst part was that I had never been sure how much of what went on post-fight was consensual.
I knew that sounded really messed up, but something about them and how they worked just felt…
off. I didn’t know what, though, because my scope on couple dynamics was so freakin’ limited. As in limited to books and movies.
I didn’t mean sex, either. I meant legitimate romantic relationships and how healthy ones were supposed to look. Unfortunately, I was well aware of the sex part. My lips peeled up, thinking about the crude things I’d been told by my father’s friends and some of the boys who were my age.
The way I’d been cornered before, even after leaving school.
The way I heard other women talking about what their mates did to them.
Sex was everywhere in my pack, and none of it was private.
Which in theory would have been fine if it hadn’t left me feeling so uncomfortable.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I had never experienced that attraction to anyone before or if it was because I felt like I was being constantly harassed by the men in the pack, but it left a dirty taste in my mouth.
Maybe that was normal for relationships, though?
Maybe my books were wrong? Maybe the cruel way they talked about their wives was normal.
Maybe the way that the men looked at other women was normal.
Or the way that the women didn’t bat a lash about them cheating…
was it normal? I prayed that wasn’t the case.
I wasn’t looking for love. At all.
But I really hoped that there was more to life than that.