Hunting You, Hunting Me (Watty Awards 2012)

Chapter 27- Part 2

A/N: Dear Readers, I just returned from a three-week vacation during which I had no computer and limited access to the Internet. I wrote this on the plane back and just finished typing it, so here you go! The next chapter will be up very soon. You can expect faster uploads to make up for all the time away. The story is coming to an end soon. : )  This chapter is the second part to the last chapter to give you a little insight into Abby. Sorry for any mistakes...am exhausted! Hope you enjoy it! x

All rights reserved, © 2012

Not edited.

Chapter 27- Part 2

Most children are usually told that they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up. But Abigail Anderson had never once heard those words from her parents.  Come to think of it, Abigail possessed no recollection of encouraging words from her parents, no memorable snippets, or funny anecdotes. In fact, Abigail Anderson, if that was even her real name, had no memory of her parents at all. 

The oldest memory she could recall was the one that had plagued her in her sleep for as long as she could remember.  No amount of training, therapy or brainwashing could rid her of the recurrent nightmares of being left on the weathered stone steps of that grimy old building. Had Abby been old enough to read, she would have bolted as soon as her eyes recognized the word orphanage.  No. Abigail was not that lucky and bad luck would continue to plague her life until its very end.

On that fateful day, the creaking of the heavy wooden door had distracted her and when she had turned around to look for whomever it was that had deposited her on those steps, they had vanished. For years she tried to picture a face, to force her memory to identify whether it had been a man or a woman who had abandoned her, but to no avail.

Luckily for Abby, or unluckily some would argue, her stay in the orphanage only lasted a few months.  One afternoon in the middle of winter, while the sun had shone on the eerie old building causing the wet stone to glisten like gems, the children had been let out to play.  It was then, that a passerby had noticed little Abby Anderson sticking out like a sore thumb in a throng of children- a werewolf amongst humans. The very next day, she had found herself leaving the orphanage with the promise of a new life, hopefully a better one.

It was indeed a new life and definitely a better one compared to her days at the orphanage.  But what she hadn’t expected was to go from one home for children to another. Much to Abigail’s dismay, she wasn’t placed into a loving family who would erase all the fresh wounds that the abandonment had unleashed upon her young heart. Instead, Abigail Anderson was placed into a boarding school for Weres. It was there that she spent her pre-teen years. While other children had gone home for Christmas, Abby had stayed at school along with a few other orphans but they all kept to themselves, afraid to get attached to another person.

On a bleak winter’s day during one such Christmas break, each of the twelve orphans was called to meet with a group of people.  They were all told the same thing- that they were exceptionally bright and chosen to participate in an accelerated training program.  That wasn’t true, most of them were average students.  But what mattered was that they were orphans.  Nobody cared what happened to them. And although it was made to seem like they had a choice, the truth of the matter was that they didn’t.

So once again, Abby Anderson was shipped off at the innocent age of nine.  What was to be her new home for the next few years was no boarding school, neither was it anything like an orphanage. To begin with, it wasn’t even in London, and London was the only place she had known. The picturesque drive to her new home took three hours through the English countryside and the moment Abby had laid eyes on the monstrous castle with its extensive grounds, her heart had leapt with joy.