The Other Girl
eight
*FOREST*
For a moment, my heart is beating so fast I feel dizzy, but it suddenly slows down so much that I am not sure if it’s beating at all. I only feel cold; dark and scary dread settles into me.
It can’t mean what I think it means. It just can’t!
“I felt sorry for her,” Mom says. “But she needed to go.”
“If Forest had spotted her and realized they were mates, he would have done everything to keep her. He is weak, but his morals show at the wrong time,” Dad says. “He doesn’t have the interests of the pack in his mind, at times like these. We couldn’t allow it to happen.”
“Good thing she was one of your friends, Lissa,” Mom says. “So, you were able to notice it in time.”
“Yeah, we were hanging out on her eighteenth birthday, and she told me she smelled some heavenly scent.”
I feel the same cold dread that keeps suffocating me, crawling on my wolf now. He is usually one who is quick to anger, but now he is just shocked.
My heart stutters, once, twice, and then a third time, beating so irregularly that I am scared I might suffer a heart attack.
It couldn’t have been so long ago; a couple of years, maybe.
One of Lissa’s friends who suffered a sudden death around her eighteenth birthday…
A sweet young woman with brown locks. She was a bit younger than Lissa and me.
We only talked a very few times. I remember her being shy and of no specific rank.
Her name was Hannah.
My mate.
I had a mate!
I had a mate, and my parents knew about it.
They killed her. They fucking killed her!
I know they always found me incompetent and useless.
I know Dad, in particular, didn’t like who I am, and how I don’t resemble him at all.
But it’s one thing to humiliate and shun me, but an entirely different one to kill another person? !
To kill my mate!
How could…
I feel something cold grip me again. And then, in a flash, I feel Darien take over, his strength overpowering me suddenly. For a moment, I believe he will rush into the room and rip them all apart, or die trying, because Dad still has his alpha power.
And for once, I don’t want to stop him.
To my utmost surprise, however, he just turns us around, leaves and runs out of the pack house.
Outside, at a safe distance, he shifts and runs; so fast like never before.
He only stops when we are far away from the pack, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
There he finally sits down, looks up to the moon and howls.
Hearing him, sounding so desperate, breaks my heart all over again. The coldness leaves and makes way for something much darker. Darien hands the reins back to me, shifts back to my human form and retreats, while I drop to the ground.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Hot tears fill my eyes as I hammer against the ground with my fist.
My family killed my mate. My own family killed my mate.
Not only do they absolutely despise me, they also got rid of an innocent person, and the only chance of love I had.
Lissa never even liked me as a friend; she is a vile and shallow woman.
I have no doubts anymore that she had an affair with Jordan, just like Tristan told me.
How could they? How?!
I wake up to the sound of rain, starting fully awake when I feel thick, cold raindrops fall down on me. I must have fallen unconscious at one point.
Darien, are you here? I pause, listening to the silence inside me. Please don’t leave me, I beg. Please. You are the only one left.
It’s silent for a while longer, then I can feel him stir. I am still here, he mutters. If I wanted to leave, I would have attacked those asshats immediately.
You didn’t, I say. I thought you would.
I wanted to, he growls. But I’d have no chance against all three of them, especially not Dad. And I want to win. His eyes grow dark and angry again. I have despised them for a while, but they were family. Now, they aren’t anymore, and I want to see them burn.
You made a tactical move? I exclaim.
Why does that surprise you?
Because it’s nothing you usually advocate, I point out. Most of the time, you are angry and ready to snap.
Yes, he snarls. Because they constantly walk over you! But this time it’s different. I want them to hurt.
I pull myself up to a sitting position, not even minding the rain anymore. You were right all along, I say. With Lissa, with everything.
Yeah, I know! But even I couldn’t tell how far they’d go, he growls, pacing up and down in my mind.
When was it? I ask. That one night, we felt really sick?
Darien stills, narrowing his eyes. Must have been four or five years ago. You mean…
We felt sick because our mate died. We didn’t know, so we couldn’t tell if it was what made us sick. It was also the only time Mom was actually worried about us and kept tending to us.
We both fall into an eerie silence once we put the puzzle pieces together. My life has always been a mess, but now it’s so fucked up I can’t make sense of it anymore.
How are we going to achieve it? I ask. To make them pay for what happened. We have nothing. No proof, no… nothing.
Darien stays quiet. We need to have a plan, he mutters.
I know, but how am I supposed to carry on, meanwhile? How can I go home and spend time with them, and act like nothing happened?
Again, silence engulfs us. I have no idea, Darien mutters.
Well, for now, I need to seek cover, or I will actually freeze to death here. Where are we even? I look around, trying to gather a sense of orientation. There is a river a couple of steps ahead of us, which looks familiar.
We have been here before, I say.
Grandpa had his cottage here, Darien says.
The old, family property! My parents never cared for it because it was simple and rundown, but Grandpa liked it.
I remember having been there as a kid and sometimes as a teen.
I always liked my grandfather. He was patient with me, and actually liked spending time with me, showing me how to fish and make a campfire.
“What am I going to do now?” I mutter my question. I have nothing with me, not even my phone or any clothes. I can’t contact anyone and make any excuses for not coming home for a couple of days.
Maybe I will find some clothes in Grandpa’s old cottage.
I perk up a little. I definitely will! He died two years ago, and no one really retrieved his things. If I remember correctly, he even had a very old phone. Maybe I can charge it and use it.
When I finally force myself to stand up, my legs feel shaky.
Damn it, I really am a lost cause. I should be burning with fighting spirit now, I should be fueled by my wish for revenge, but all I want is to curl up somewhere, sleep and never wake up again.
The only light burning inside me seems to come from my wolf, who is burning red with hatred and anger.
Good thing he is here, or I would have stopped feeling anything altogether.
When I take the first couple of steps, I hear some rustling coming from the river. Did you hear that?
An animal, maybe, Darien says.
I furrow my brows, staring into the darkness. Dawn is approaching, but due to the bad weather, it was a cloudy night and will be a cloudy day. Yet, I swear I can see something floating in the river. What is there?
I take a couple of steps closer, curiosity winning over me, and stop once I am close enough. There, draped around a rock with her upper body, is a woman.
“What?” I exclaim. “Fuck!”
She is not moving! I don’t hesitate for a second and rush towards the river, jumping in and swimming until I reach the rock. The woman is completely naked, her skin white, almost bluish, against her brunette hair. She must have been in the cold water for way too long!
Is she still alive? I blurt out.
Darien frowns and tilts his head. She is still breathing. She… she is a shifter!
I have no time to lose. With newfound motivation and trying to remember what I learned about safely retrieving a body from flowing water, I pull her towards the shore, making sure her head remains above water.
It’s more difficult than I expected it to be to move a motionless body, but once I reach the shore, it gets much easier.
I pick her up immediately and run towards the cottage of my late grandfather.
Instinct takes over, finally waking me up from the shock I was in.