✙ Chapter 1 ✙

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All Rights Reserved. All the characters in this book I have created, along with the plot. No one is allowed to "borrow" anything from my works without my permission. Thank you.

- I wrote this story when I was barely fourteen! Halfway through, I stopped editing. It is an EXTREME rough draft! Seeing as I'm in college now, my writing has improved. This story does not show my true talent, so proceed at your own risk -

Edited: 8/28/15

Ninety-eight degrees.

It was one of the hottest days of the summer and I was perched in a tree, protected from the blistering sun by the branches and rustling leaves around me. Dots of sweat covered my skin and despite the shade, I was becoming overheated. My awkward position on the bulky branch was causing my muscles to cramp. The dagger in my combat boot was digging into my ankle and finally having enough, I shifted my foot and yanked the dagger out in annoyance. A slice of sunlight caught the blade, shining the sharp tip. I took a deep breath and dragged my finger carefully down the edge, scraping the dry blood off with my fingernail.

Despite my lack of interest for daggers, I carried this specific one around with me; it was the first weapon I had been taught to use. My father had spent hours with me, teaching me how to hold and throw it. According to him, I was a fast learner with a whooping time of nine hours, twenty-three minutes, and nineteen seconds.

As a former soldier and police officer, he was taught to count time and even though, counting was unnecessary during certain times, he still did. His paranoia forced him to continue counting each hour, each minute, each second of the day. His counting often prohibited him from having conversations, explaining his lack of friends and connections. At the dinner table, he tapped his thumb against his fork as he ate, keeping track of the time that passed. He even struggled sleeping because he wasn't able to count during his dreamless nights, so he only received around four hours of sleep a night, which was enough to keep him moving throughout the day. After all, every morning, I heard him shuffling around in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes or organizing the refrigerator.

Eventually, my father pushed his counting addiction onto me, claiming it was an important skill.

One hour, twenty-five minutes, and thirteen seconds - that was how long I had been perched in the tree. It seemed endless, but as a hunter, I maintained patience. My whole family were hunters - my paranoid father, my reckless older brother, and me. My mother was dead. Her death happened to be one of the reasons why we strung ourselves into the hunting life. We weren't hunting deer, squirrels, or any other harmless animal that wandered the forest outside our home. Beyond the shallow trees and quiet streams, lurked those with a gnawing, inevitable hunger that grew and grew, defining them as 'monsters', or more specifically, 'werewolves'. The claimed mythical creatures prowled the trees, attempting to pass themselves as normal wolves, but I knew better. After two years of hunting, I was capable of telling werewolves apart from the Montana wolves.

Werewolves were larger with sharper claws and a longer snout. During my first session of training, my father told me that another way to tell them apart was by their eyes. The pupils of their eyes were white, the color of snow - it was a strange sight at first. I had devoted myself into hunting werewolves, just like my father and brother. The majority of my time was either spent practicing defense against my brother or lingering in the trees of the forest, searching for my next target.

Suddenly, the sound of a twig snapping caught my attention. My eyes flickered around the forest floor below until landing on a white, female werewolf emerging into the clearing. Clasped in her jaw was a dead rabbit, one with guts pouring out onto the decaying leaves beneath her paws. She dropped the mauled rabbit onto the ground and continued chewing on it, low growls coming from the back of her throat.

Quietly, I shoved the dagger back into my boot and reached behind me, grabbing an arrow from my carrier. The werewolf dug her claws into the mud, shaking the rabbit back and forth in her mouth. I grabbed my bow from the nearest branch, carefully moving forward on the branch. Remembering their heightened senses, I held my breath to prevent her from hearing my heavy breathing. I put my arrow into place and pulled back the string of my bow, feeling my triceps protest.

Shoot.

As the she-wolf raised her head, I released the string of my bow, allowing the silver arrow to shoot through the air with a whistle. I smirked when the arrow whacked the she-wolf in the ribs, right where I had aimed. She howled in pain and in fear, attempted to run, but when she took a step, she immediately crumbled to the ground, whining. Blood started soaking her white fur as the silver of the arrow started burning her insides, slowly.

Swinging my bow onto my shoulder, I grabbed onto the branch and swung down onto the next. I moved from branch-to-branch until my feet smacked against the ground below. I grabbed another arrow from my carrier as I approached her, cautiously. Her chest heaved up and down as she whimpered. Her eyes, her white pupils, shifted around frantically until landing on me.

Instantly, her eyes widened at the weaponry covering my body.

Seeing my smirk, her jagged teeth snapped together, a deep growl coming from the back of her throat. Playing with the arrow in my hands, I eyed her up and down, realizing she was larger up close. She tried scooting away from me, but every time she moved, the arrow sunk deeper into her organs.

"You'll be my third kill today," I said, slowly circling her failing body. Her eyes were pleading with me. "You think I want to do this?" I crouched down next to her, tilting my head to one side. "Your kind took someone very important from me. I need to do this."

She snarled in response, yet cowered away.

I rubbed my filthy hands together and straightened up, pulling out my gun from the waistband of my pants. It felt heavier than usual, but that didn't stop me from pointing the barrel at her head. She started trembling and tried scooting away from me again. The whiteness of her eyes was what I wanted to see - it was what I needed to see. I shrugged my shoulders and before I could pull the trigger, she tilted her head back and released a shrilling howl. Chills shot up my spine in warning and I tightened my hold on the gun. "You stupid mutt!"

Angry, I pulled the trigger without another word, watching the bullet zoom through the air. It nailed her in the forehead and her head collapsed against the muddy earth.

I stared at her lifeless body for a moment, seeing her pool of blood stretch and stretch with each second that passed. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen . . . My father hated it when I left behind my arrows; apparently, the silver had cost more than I realized. Disgusted, I moved forward and yanked them out of the werewolf's body, hearing the tearing of flesh doing so. I wiped the thick blood onto the fabric of my pants, before shoving them back into my carrier. Then, I ran my fingers through my auburn hair and fidgeted with my mother's bracelet around my shaky wrist. Werewolves were monsters; their hunger was a threat to humanity.

I was fixing my belt, mostly collecting myself, when a howl rang through the air, startling me. Worried, I turned my attention to the surrounding trees, searching for abnormally large figures or white pupils - the werewolf sounded close. But, 'werewolf' turned plural when several more howls followed after the first one from various wolves.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Somewhere inside of me, I knew that they were heading my direction and knowing I couldn't take on an entire pack, I bolted into the trees, the opposite direction of where the howls were coming from.

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