Eleanor

03 | trois

Growing up in the chaos I called life I lost many memories of my seemingly nonexistent childhood.

I vaguely remembered my mother and my father, but all of my memories consisted of running.

Always running.

It was the one thing I happened to be good at. My father would chase me everyday, training me. He wasn't a powerful wolf, my mother however, was, which brought a target on our family. Training, in my parents belief, was the only thing that may keep me alive in the harsh world I was born into.

My mother was the daughter of a cruel leader, however, my grandfather treasured his children, their mates and their children alike. From what I could barely recall he was a kind grandfather but a horrible leader, killing pack members over small mistakes.

"We can risk nothing Eleanor." I remember him smiling fondly at me as he snapped the neck of a teenage boy, no older than 17, right in front of my very eyes. That was the first time I witnessed death, but most definitely not the last.

Due to his cruelty his children were subjected to his enemies.

His pack members, although loyal, began to grow angry with his antics as their numbers had dropped incredibly by unjust death, escaping for the rouge life or falling for the false promises humans provided.

The former alliance between rouges and humans slowly deteriorated until it was hanging by a string that was slowly growing thinner and thinner as arguments were created over land and blood was shed.

My parents made sure that I was not a witness to this tyrannical rule and they did the only thing they could to prevent my life to be surrounded by chaos.

They fought. They fought for their people, their life and their child, Eleanor.

And so they brought the king I called my grandfather down, one wise word at a time.

With their new kind rule, the alliance officially snapped.

From the short time I knew them, my parents were just people with envious enemies seeking power and starved with greed.

Enemies that consisted of wolves and humans alike. Wolves seeking title and humans seeking scientific experiments; it was never safe for us, but as my mother tucked me into bed during my earlier years of life she repeated the same phrase: fight for yourself, don't run from fear, face it with your head held high and never back down.

It was bittersweet and thinking about them as I was on the verge of possible death seemed like the most melancholy thing to think of.

As soon as the bus stopped I had sprinted into my apartment, in a building occupied by homeless men and women seeking shelter from the cold, Californian evening.

I tiptoed, as not to make a sound as I quietly made my way around the small space. So small, yet convenient for someone like me.

Grabbing my knife covered in wolfsbane and coated in silver poisoning I sat on my couch, impending an attack that never came.

Looking from the clock to the door, I waited. And waited. And waited.

Time continued ticking and I continued staring, unblinkingly at the wooden door chipped with a dirty yellow paint.