Wolf #2: The Beast Within [COMPLETED]

Chapter 14

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Chapter 14

My bones click like a cricket's symphony as I jump from the car and stretch out. Rachel presses against the car as she stretches her spine out like a cat.

"You guys drive this several times a year?" She looks up at Kiana incredulously.

Kiana laughs, "Now you know why we like to take the boat out every once and a while. Not as time-efficient, but it beats the pins and needles."

I reach for my toes and breathe out, trying to relax my tight hamstrings. After a couple breaths, I'm able to press my chest flush to my thighs and tilt my hips up. My muscles sigh in relief as I stretch out the cramps and stiffness out.

Mateo is watching me with wide eyes but makes no comment. I shut my eyes again and stand up, reaching back and pulling my arms back to find length in my shoulders. The feeling of my graunched muscles, the smell of the petrol station, and the heat from the car as the sun beats down on us reminds me of one of the trip my family took when I was eight.

We had been driving to Yellowstone. It was one of the few roadtrips my family had taken, because my parents had always preferred taking the yacht out on our school holidays. But the previous boat trip hadn't gone too well for me—I had gotten tangled up in a school of jellyfish and spent the rest of the weekend feeling ill—so we had taken a break from the ocean and decided to do a family road trip.

It had been so much fun. Yellowstone was so incredible and beautiful—I still had some of the photos that we had taken. We camped just outside the park during the night, and Steph and I had spent all night looking at the stars and making s'mores.

I can feel her beside me, reaching out for my shoulder. She has always been such a great big sister. Even my parents...despite not being there for us in our teens, I miss them. I lean against the car and take a shuddery breath.

Perhaps we had been far from a normal or a perfect family, but we were still a family. A little pack that is now survived only by me.

"You want to come buy some goodies with me?" Kiana's voice has me snapping my focus on her. She smiles at me and waves me over, like a mother bird coaxing its young from the nest. "Atta lass. I was thinking of getting Mac some root beer. The man has become obsessed with the stuff since we moved here."

"Probably because it has the word beer in it," Adrian comes up from behind us and ruffles Kiana's hair.

"Piss off, will ya," She rights her ponytail and heads towards the chips aisle, "Amelia, what're your favorite kind of crisps? I was going to get some stuff for the ravenous beasts outside."

I grab a bag of tortilla chips and some of Rachel's favorites chips.

"Is everything alright, lass?" She catches me staring at the queso and bean dips. I pick up one of the cans... "Amelia?"

My mom always used to buy this cheap bean dip. She would buy it every damn time, use it on the tortilla chips and whatever else she snacked on, and could complain about how it was a cheap, American knock-off.

"No es la cosa real," I can almost hear her muttering those words while she scoops another chip into the offensive bean dip.

"Did you want to get it?" Kiana peers over my shoulder. She doesn't press the issue when I set it back on the shelf.

Kiana passes me several more bags, enough to feed a whole army. She goes around the store, adding to the piles in our arms, and I follow her quietly. The entire time, she and Adrian are tossing banter from both sides of the store. The other shoppers in the store quickly clear out, eyeing us warily.