Fighting For Him

Epilogue

The howl sounds from deep in the woods and my heart leaps, it has only been three hours since the final round begun and it is already over. I had hardly had time to process the what ifs and the maybes. But Harry is calling and with him the others begin to join, there is a winner.

Two girls had emerged from the woods and neither one of them had been Scarlett, this fact had filled me with equal parts of dread and relief. I want her alive but I want her to be mine, two concepts that may not go together.

Within seconds my father is beside me, the moon reflecting in his jet black coat, and then he is off at a run into the woods, I follow. He’s fast, for an old wolf, and surprisingly still agile on the wet ground for one that doesn’t get out of the office much.

We are led to a field, in which the lack of trees means the rain falls freely and soaks into my fur. There is a ring of officials that I can’t see through and in that moment I want to skulk back into the woods and away from all of this. Panic begins to build and I look for an escape route, the what ifs come rushing back, some of the officials open up the circle and I can see sadness in their eyes. She’s dead. Scarlett is dead, that is the only explanation. I feel physically sick. Without lifting my head I sidle up to Harry my only real friend but he doesn’t give me any indication of what to expect.

I can’t look to the centre of the circle and so everyone stands around me… waiting. I don’t know what is expected of me, I guess I’ll have to look at this girl and then prepare for the rest of my life but I just can’t. The what ifs come back, what if she’s alive, stood to one side watching this moment and I’m dragging out, but what if she’s dead. Harry nudges my side. I look down at the ground at the puddle around my paws and cringe as the red water flows in little rivulets past me. That’s when I decide that I need to know.

 I knew that I shouldn’t be here. That I wasn’t invited, wasn’t welcome, and I had respected that, but I couldn’t say no to Scarlett. She needed me, so I was here.

My parents hadn’t been invited either, even though it is seen as a great offence not to invite the Alpha family to formal events. However, they aren’t heartless, they too feel the loss and although death was always a possible outcome, the guilt sits on my father’s shoulders like a weight. Hunter, on the other hand, had been invited, he wasn’t seen as part of any of this and he shouldn’t have been, yet despite this, I have to admit that I am jealous of the way that everyone just accepts Hunter and blames me, I never wanted to be part of any of this.

So at Scarlett’s request I find myself at Nickie’s funeral. I myself am not religious but even so the small church, that belongs to the pack, has had an effect on me. In here my thoughts seem to be clearer and I feel that I can be stronger, not for me or even the pack but for Scarlett.

The pews are full and there is a small crowd gathered at the back, all these people are here to say their farewells. At the beginning of the service Scarlett and myself had taken seats towards the back, from here I can see Scarlett’s friends towards the front including Harry with Mandy, I had pointed them out but Scarlett had just shaken her head and silently sat down.

I haven’t known Scarlett long, I know that, we only met in the summer but I have never seen her this way, not even when she was on the verge of giving up.  It has only been a week since Nickie died but Scarlett has changed dramatically in that time. She has retreated into herself, she eats only enough to stay alive, she barely talks, except to a select few people and I haven’t seen her smile in longer than I can handle. I miss the girl she was before she went into those woods for the final time, I miss the girl I fell in love with. But obviously I have to be patient, my loss is nothing compared to hers, she lost one of best friends and that will take time to come to terms with and to eventually begin to move on from.