LAZARUS
If someone had told me that my day would end with my claws deep in someone’s gut, I would never have believed them. Sadly, I have no choice but to live with the consequences of my lapse in judgment.
I stare down at the body beneath me, too disgusted with myself to think about anything else. How could I have made such a mistake? Even worse, I have no memory of how I ended up killing one of my own.
She was . . . the last thing in my mind before I was suddenly overcome with a torrent of bloodlust and rage, and then, I found myself here.
The last thing I can remember vividly is thinking about the only person that has been in my thoughts for such a long time. I'm not sure what her name is, but she's always on my mind with her beautiful brown hair and innocent face. We go to the same school, but I'm a level above her, and hence, I have little chance to interact with her. Whenever we walk past each other in the halls, it's like there's a string pulling us together, and our eyes always meet. The first time it happened, her cheeks reddened, and she immediately looked away, but as time went on, she became bolder, even managing to hold my gaze for a couple of moments.
Jared, the alpha of the Moon Stone pack, is said to be her boyfriend. He's in my class, but there's nothing particularly interesting about him. He's much too talkative and had the personality of a typical jock that knows and cares about nothing else but himself. For someone in a relationship, he sure flirts a lot, and I'm sure I've seen him in a too-tight embrace with more than three girls alone this week.
But enough of that now, because I need to focus on the trouble at hand.
I stagger away from the body on the floor, as whatever had kept me in a trance loses its hold on me. I lift my bloody hands up to my face, unable to believe what I’m looking at.
Mallory’s face is frozen in a silent scream that will forever haunt my dreams, with his limbs sprawled about like a ragdoll’s. His blue eyes, which once held so much life, now hold nothing but emptiness. If I look too closely at him, it’s like he’s accusing me of murdering him in cold blood, even if I have no memory of ever doing so.
But if I’m not guilty, then why are my hands all bloody?
Someone screams, causing me to turn around in panic. It’s the last person I want to see, which just happens to be my aunt, Mallory’s mother. She brings her hands to her mouth as she finds the body of her dead son on the ground. and then sinks to the floor on her knees.
“What have you done?” she screams into my face, grabbing my arms and shaking me so hard that I stumble backward. “How could you kill him?”
I want to tell her so badly that I didn’t do anything to him. I want this to all be one long nightmare that I’ll wake up from in a few minutes. I want to tell her that her son is still alive and well, painting portraits of another woman he had fallen in love with at first sight.
How can I tell her all this when I’m not even sure what happened? I’m not even sure whether or not I actually dug my claws into his chest and ruptured his heart. I’m not sure about anything at all.
My heart rate speeds up, and my vision blurs with tears. I violently pull away from my aunt and rush out of the little cabin they both lived in. My uncle died five months ago from a mysterious accident, and now she’ll have to deal with the loss of her only son.
I run my fingers through my hair and pull at the strands, screaming into the sky. Why can’t I remember anything? I slap my face over and over again, hoping to jog my memory as I dash through the village belonging to the White Oak pack.
I have broken the one sacred rule of our pack: never kill one of your own. No matter what happens, I can’t shield myself from what I’ve just done. I deserve to perish as well after committing such a sin.
How could I have done such a thing to a member of my own family?
I move through the village swiftly, heading over to my home. I have to turn myself in. I will never be able to live with myself after this incident, be it an accident or not.
As I step into the large building, I see that four people are already waiting for me. My mate-to-be, my father, my sister, and finally, my older brother, whom I haven’t seen in more than five years.
Before I can open my mouth to speak, my brother rushes at me and pins me down to the floor, growling into my face. “Have you lost your mind? You have broken the one sacred rule of this pack.” He grabs me by the chin so hard that his nails press into my skin. The scent of my own blood greets my nostrils.
I have nothing to say, and I have no defense at all, so I keep quiet. All in all, this is what I deserve.
“Will you say nothing at all?” He asks, his face full of anger and pity.
“He has been acting out of place for weeks now. talking nonsense about shadows watching him and gaps in his memory. Maybe I should have listened to him, but I never expected that he would go on to kill his own cousin,” Father says, his voice conveying all his disappointment.
“But, sir, you know what they will do to him once this spreads all over the pack. He will be killed, Alpha or not," begs Sasha, the woman my father has insisted I marry. Her golden hair is swept across one shoulder, and it's obvious that she doesn’t really care about what happens to me. Her concern lies with what she’ll have to lose when her ticket to becoming Luna is gone.
My father looks at her, and his eyes dip down into her exposed cleavage. I know what they’ve been doing behind my back, and it’s even more disgusting that they aren’t ashamed to show it in public.
A flash of anger runs through me, and I almost throw my brother off me, but my little sister doesn’t need to see any more violence. Her little doe eyes are fixed on me, full of tears, as she stands by a chair too big for her four-year-old self.
I want to call her name, but my brother presses his arm across my throat. His strength is admirable, but in the end, he’s simply a Beta that can’t take me on in a fight. The only reason I haven’t broken free of his hold is that I’m too devastated to fight back.
Sasha’s eyes light up as an idea comes to her. “What if we send him to that place?”
“What place?” my father asks.
Her eyes fall on me, and her smile is far too sinister to mean anything good to me. "That detention center for wild, undisciplined werewolves like Lazarus."
From the way she looks at me, I can tell that this is something that has been on her mind for a long time. She never liked me, and my father hated the fact that he handed over the Alpha title to me instead of the illegitimate son currently pressing on my windpipe.
Could it be that somehow they planned this just to get me away from White Oak?
A familiar scent fills my nostrils, and I start to jerk violently, trying to get away from the putrid odor. It’s what I smelled right before I blacked out and woke up beside my dead cousin.
Sasha grins, now holding something in her hand. “Now, with you out of the way, White Oak can finally become what it has always been meant to be. A pack without boundaries, a pack without restrictions." She comes to kneel beside me and presses the pouch in her hand on my nose. “The only pack that will have me as its one true Luna!”
The deadly scent finds its way into my lungs, and I finally break free of my captor. Before I can grab my baby sister and get away, the poison kicks in.
I lose consciousness before I take my next breath.
EliseI can't stop the tears from flowing, no matter how hard I try.How could he do this to me? After four years of promising to love one another for eternity. Why would he do this to me? All I ever did was love him.And why would he do this with my stepsister of all people? If it were a random girl, it'd still hurt as hell, but hearing him pound into the girl that made most of my life here a living hell makes it so much worse.With every moan and overly sexualized conversation, they have, my heart breaks even more. They both sound like something out of a poorly shot blue film.I clench my fists and step back to the door. They didn't even bother to close it properly.Biting my lower lip to stop any sobs from escaping me, I push the door open further. The haphazard pounding of my heart is loud enough to give me away, but I stare ahead.I need to see it. The anger and sadness welling up in my chest have deleted all rational thoughts from my head. I wrinkle my nose in displeasure. The s
EliseRivulets of water run down my body as I sit huddled underneath the shower this evening. I scrub my body rigorously, trying to get rid of the disgusting feel of Jared's hands on my body. My tears run down my face, mix with the soap, and settle on my lips. The saltiness of my tears is a harsh call to reality.I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all, but I'm suffering from sensory overload. This isn’t what I had planned for my life. Today was supposed to have gone far better than this, but now I was under the mercy of the Moon Goddess and her cruelty. The ceremony is probably going on without me right now, with someone else taking my place.The bathroom door swings open, and my foster mother steps in. I smell her expensive but horrid smelling perfume before I actually catch sight of her. I shrink further into the shower stall as she approaches.I'm certain she knows that I'm taking a shower, but that doesn't seem to stop her from sliding open the glass door. She glares down
LazarusThe facility already smells like hell. I wrinkle my nose instinctively as I step down from the vehicle that conveyed me and two others.I didn’t even bother to ask for their names, they seemed too closed off and hostile. I wonder how many more similar individuals I'll meet in this facility.A harsh nudge to my back propels me forward. "Move!" I refrain from shooting him a glare and opt for a low growl instead.The facility looms before me like a mountain, with sealed windows and barbed wire fences that scream 'You will never get out of here!' The peeling paint and ivy crawling up the buildings further solidify their formidable aura.We move towards the gate, where we are allowed entry after the two officers with us display their badges. They look the same, a typical inverted triangle with the longer sides slightly curved outwards. Inside the triangle, is the unmistakable shape of a wolf with its mouth open in a roar or snarl—I can't tell which because I'm once again pushed for
EliseAs I step off the transport vehicle and into the correctional facility, I can't help but feel a sense of dread wash over me. I know that the next four years are going to be difficult, and I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to survive.I'm led to my assigned room, and I'm told that I'll be sharing it with three other inmates. I try not to let my nerves show as I enter the room, but I can't help but feel anxious as I take in my surroundings. The room is larger than I had expected, with four separate beds placed in all four corners of the room. There is an adjoined bathroom and toilet connected to the room, removing my fears about having to bathe in a public space.Currently, there's no one else in the room, but the other luggages and other stuff arranged beside or on three beds, I'm likely the last person to join.My bedspace has the number given to me etched into a small rectangular metal sign above the bed. 0145.I'm just starting to unpack my things when I hear a commotion in th
LazarusI can't seem to get that girl out of my head. She's always there, lurking in the back of my mind, and no matter how hard I try, I can't shake her. It's not normal, and I know that I shouldn't be thinking about her like this. But I can't help it.Her quiet beauty stunned me at first, but her voice did far more damage. It's like warm honey: sweet, and pleasant to the ears. It did have a tinge of fear within it though, but it was a gift regardless. Her straight brown hair was slicked back into a low ponytail, and if not for self-control, coupled with the knowledge that touching people without their consent is wrong, nothing would've stopped me from running my fingers through it.She barely came up to my chest, but I think those eyes of hers can bring any guy down to his knees. She's not the conventional type of beauty, but rather the kind that makes itself obvious the more you focus on it.When she'd walked away from me, it took everything in me to not have focused on her curvace
EliseI can't shake this feeling of Deja-vu as I stand outside my bedroom. It's like I've been here before, or like I already know what I'm going to find when I walk through that door. I try to look past the feeling, but I just can't.This whole situation hits too close to home.I can still hear sounds coming from inside, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to face whatever is waiting for me on the other side. But I'm overcome with a sense of anger, and I can't resist the urge to burst into the room and confront whatever is happening.I throw the door open, shouting at the top of my lungs as I stroll into the room. "What the hell is going on here?" Heat rises up my neck as I talk, and my agitation increases with each breath.The laughing stops, filling the whole room with a thick, pregnant silence.I'm met with the same sight of two men in various states of undress, laughing and joking as they play around with a woman who's lying on one of the beds. My cheeks flush with embarrassment as I r
Elise"Hey, wait up. What's the big deal? We're not going to hurt you." The redhead says, crossing the distance between us too fast for me to comprehend."Get away from me!" I lash out, throwing an arm out wildly.He hisses when my palm connects with his shoulder. A pang of guilt rises in me at his pained expression.My mouth parts involuntarily to apologize, but the words never make it past my throat."Damn girl. You've got some fire."I step back, not liking the intense look in his eyes. "Are you going to hurt me?"He pauses for a moment, expression shocked. Then, he bursts into laughter that lasts for a full minute. He's wiping off tears from the corner of his eyes when he speaks, "Hurt you? Now that is the most absurd thing I've ever heard."He sighs, relaxing. "Look, I'm Rory, and that guy over there," he points to the dark haired guy, "is Thomas. We're both roommates, and from what I've seen so far, you're our final roommate."At the sound of 'roommate', panic rises within me ag
LazarusAs I stand in front of Elise, I can feel my desire for her building once again. I know I should resist it, but it's hard to ignore the way my body reacts to her presence. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and filled with fear, and I can tell that something is wrong.I breathe in deeply through my nose to stop my wolf from it's restless stirring. There's something about this girl that has been making me restless on the inside. Her smell, her eyes, her figure.I've never felt like this before.I shake off the haze, brought back to reality by her distressed look."Calm down," I tell her, trying to soothe her. "It's going to be okay."She shakes her head, her voice laced with desperation. "I can't stay here," she says, her voice shaking. "I have to leave, now."I can see the fear in her eyes, and I know that I can't let her leave. I'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe, even if it means putting myself in danger."What's going on?" I ask, trying to keep my voice calm. "What hap