Never Let Me Go (Derek Hale Fanfiction Book #3)

Chapter Twenty: Haunted

                                     A few weeks passed, but even after days and days of kissing Derek, planning our wedding, and working to graduate high school early, I still couldn’t shake the image of the four horrific scars running down my sister’s face. I did that. I scarred Loni for life. Sleeping was growing more and more difficult; my mind wouldn’t shut off, no matter how tired I was, and instead constantly tortured me with Loni’s ear-splitting shriek of pain when my claws made contact with her delicate skin, the blood that splattered across my chest and sprayed in front of my eyes. The repulsion and fear in Michael and my mother’s eyes as I stumbled away from my sister, and the unheard sighs of relief when Derek and I finally fled the restaurant. The disappointment in my mom’s eyes when I told her I was pregnant, the way she regarded me morosely, as though she’d just lost a daughter. Her daughter.

                                     “Chris?” Derek murmured, his heavy arm flopping against the mattress as I pushed it off my torso and slid out of bed. According to the clock on the TV, it was hardly three in the morning, but my brain was wired, the guilt pounding at my skull like a relentless sledgehammer. Erica and Aiden were just down the hall, and knowing my cries wouldn’t go unheard in an apartment full of concerned werewolves, I hastily stepped into a pair of Derek’s boots that were sitting by the front door and left. It was now mid-December, and while the California air didn’t get nearly as cold as the East Coast’s did, it was still pretty chilly, and I found myself wishing I’d thought to grab a jacket. My feet carried me around and around the block, my nerves numbed by the frost, my thoughts sizzling hot. The images of Loni, my mother, my pregnant stomach, the scars on my sister’s face all flashed through my mind like a rewinded video, searing into my brain and increasing my pre-existing headache. Losing my sister would’ve been one thing; I’d already been through that, and had come to accept the fact that Loni and I would always be on opposing sides of a small family feud. But seeing my mom and brother publicly renounce me, shame me for being happy and starting a family of my own...it ripped away pieces of me that I didn’t even know I needed. The pain. I can’t deal with the pain.

                                     I was just starting on my way back to the apartment when a car swerved too close to the sidewalk, bright lights flashing and horn screaming. In my haste to get out of the way, I tripped over a row of hedges and hit the pavement hard, scraping half the skin off of my forearm in the process. My shout of agony died on my lips as the pain receded, instead leaving me breathlessly elated and peaceful for the first time in weeks. All of the energy in my brain flew to my impending danger, and for the splittest of seconds, I wasn’t plagued with guilt over what I did to Loni. Whoa.

                                I walked with an extra bounce in my step for the rest of the day; my workload was lighter, my tests easier, my smile brighter. Everything felt positive, because I’d finally found a way to relieve my guilt and despair, even if only for a second. But after taking three placement tests for classes that I needed to graduate, I left Beacon Hills High with a mission: I was going to test out my new theory. I skipped my yoga class so that I could get home early, before Aiden and Gracie and Erica would be home from school. During her time off from Wesleyan, Gracie had taken up classes at the nearby Barstow Community College, and had moved in with me and Derek, putting our small two-person apartment at full capacity. I dropped all of my stuff on the couch in the living room, dashing straight into the kitchen and grabbing a steak knife out of the special drawer. We hardly ever used them, since werewolves didn’t need to fend off intruders with kitchenware, so I knew nobody would miss this one. 

                           Stepping into the bathroom and locking the door, I braced myself against the wall and, sucking in a deep breath, drove the knife straight across my wrist, slitting the flesh and nerves there. My lips were clenched tightly together, to hold in the instinctive scream, but none came. Instead my mind went blissfully silent, the panic that was surging through my system relieving the ache in my stomach that told me I was a monster. A monster who attacked their sister.