The Irony Of Being A Werewolf

~Chapter 1~

        When I got home from school, I immediately changed into my work clothes and headed to the ice cream shop that I worked at. My boss was surprisingly nice and had hired me without asking too many questions. It was nice to work there but lately she’d been getting more curious about me. That was another reason I had to leave soon.

The last time I had trusted someone enough to stick around with them; it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. When I first was on the run, I underestimated my parents and their will to find me. They had connections all over the country and they had been trained to track people since they were born. Of course they’d find me.

 Turns out, the person who I had thought was sheltering me was actually just watching me until my parents could arrive. And when they did, it was hell. They thought that they could torture the wolf out of me somehow, which did not work at all. I managed to escape after a week of being strapped to a metal table in some sort of experiment room.

Oh, the love I feel from them is overwhelming. Note the sarcasm.

 You may be thinking that all of this is a little too much, but trust me; my parents take things to a whole new level. They’ve been after me ever since the night of my sixteenth birthday, when all three of us figured out that I was a werewolf.

They convinced the Curators, which is what the werewolf hunters called themselves because it meant guardian in Latin, that I'm extremely dangerous because I know all about them and could give that information over to the other werewolves.

And no, my parents couldn't tell them that I was their (adopted) daughter because that would bring shame to their family. Instead, they managed to convince them all that I'm some random girl who broke into their headquarters and stole all the information.

 So now I’ve got practically all of the werewolf hunters in the United States on my ass, chasing a completely false person. They think I’m a brown-haired, green-eyed girl named Alison Quena thanks to the hair-dye and contacts my parents forced on me when they captured me so that no one could recognize me as their daughter.

 Obviously, I could’ve taken out the contacts and let the hair dye fade, but then my parents would recognize me. So I was left with the last option of black hair and blue contacts. Not that flattering on my not-so-tan skin tone but I honestly couldn’t care less.

 I finished up my long shift with no problem and worked over-time for a little extra pocket money to spend. I was just about to leave when I saw a man shove by a little boy, knocking his ice cream onto the floor. The man just continued out of the shop, not even saying sorry to the boy.

 The little boy stared at the ice cream on the floor, but instead of throwing a tantrum like I’d seen many children do over dropped ice cream, he just continued to look at it sadly. His mom put her hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry sweetie. We really can’t afford another one.”  

“It’s fine. I don’t need a lot of sugar before bed time anyways.” He said, trying not to make his mom feel bad. I went behind the counter and got him an even bigger cone of the same ice cream he had had.

“Here, it’s on me.” I couldn’t stand the disappointed look on his face.

 “Really?” He said, looking up at me with wide eyes. I nodded and gave him a small smile.

 “Thank you, miss!” He said and hugged me, before taking the ice cream and hungrily licking it.

 “Thank you so much.” His mother gave me a grateful look, and I sensed that she was angry at herself for not being able to buy him another one.

“It’s no problem, really.” I smiled warmly back.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

 “Anna.” I replied, my current fake name rolling easily off my tongue.

 I went to bed that night feeling satisfied over making a little boy happy yet strangely sad. I lay awake for an hour, staring at the cruddy ceiling over my broken bed, before I finally placed the feeling.

Nostalgia.

 When I grabbed my savings box from under my bed and hit the road after my parents tried to kill me a year and a half ago, I had forced myself to get rid of all the feelings of hurt and pain. All the feelings I didn’t want to deal with. It was surprisingly easy. I had grown up with two detached parents after all.

But yet, on nights like this, when I had no one but myself around, I couldn’t help but think of the past. Of when we were only a slightly dysfunctional family. And I couldn’t help but think of where I would’ve been right now. I would still be Kaylee Williams from South Point, Florida, instead of living off all these false identities. My parents would probably still love me; I’d still have all my old friends who currently thought I was ‘traveling’ with my parents. I might even be at some typical high school party right now, instead of wallowing away in self-pity, feeling sorry for myself.

         The next morning, I woke up early and got in a workout before I started packing to hit the road. I managed to get everything I needed done with a good half hour to spare, so I jumped onto the couch and started going through the TV channels in search of a certain beloved square sponge. When I was passing through the News Channel, I heard a sentence that made my blood run cold; “Anne Williams, James Williams, Mary Becker, Shannon Westerfield, and Janon Rouse are among the only bodies that have been identified so far.”

 Why did they say my parents’ names? And list them as bodies?

 I stared at the screen, in shock, as it flickered to an image of a smoking pile of plane wreckage.