Nocturnal

Chapter Nine.

“I hate you! I hate you! You stupid bitch!” I pounced at my mother and she toppled over, making the metal tray go with her. I grasped for the scalpel and held it to her neck. They hadn’t fed me in nearly five days and I could feel my stomach gnawing at my insides. I pushed the scalpel hard against the skin, the blood droplets went down the sides of her neck and she looked at me with fear. But before I could carve her up I was grabbed around the waist and thrown to the ground.

“You are the monster! Not us!” my father shouted as he landed a kick to my side. My body collapsed in on itself and I curled into a ball and held my knees crying. My mother looked at me with disgust but made me get to my feet.

“Where are you taking me?” I whispered. My mother slapped me making my cheek burn and I held it as tenderly as I could.

“You do not speak to us” my mother said with malice. I nodded my head trying to hide the tears. We entered the lab and they forced me on to the lab table.

“We haven’t been feeding you because you have an advantage as a vampire and a werewolf. But we need you to have the aspect of only a vampire so we suppressed both sides until you were balanced” my father said. He placed the chains on me to hold me down while wearing his gloves so he didn’t burn his hands.

It burned and I whimpered but I didn’t cry out. I needed to be strong and I didn’t have the energy to scream like usual. My mother picked up a needle filled with a silver substance, she flicked it with her finger a few times.

“We are going to inject you with pure silver. Vampires and werewolves barely survive this so we are testing to see if you recover from it faster due to your mixed genetics” my mother said. All of a sudden I was afraid, I tried to break the chains again but they wouldn’t budge.

“Please don’t” I whispered weakly. But they ignored me, my mother got the antiseptic ready to use for my arm and my dad got his clipboard. I don’t know how long I had been their experiment but I knew it had to be at least a  few months. At this point I’d rather be with Clayton and his irrationality. At least most days he gave me food and let me sleep in a really comfy bed.

“Prep the patient” my father said in a mechanical voice, my mother found a vein on the inside of my arm and wiped antiseptic on it. She flicked the needle again and then positioned it for the vein. I knew what was coming was going to hurt so I closed my eyes and imagined someone, anyone saving me. “Okay to inject the patient” my father’s voice echoed in my head. There was a pinch and then at first I felt nothing. Then there was this exploding pain that made me scream and scream and scream. The pain coursed through my veins making me hope for death.

“You’re safe. I’m here, you’re safe” a voice whispered, I was clutching onto this person like my life depended on it. When I felt the tingles I knew that it was Ben. I clutched onto him tighter and he just rocked me back and forth. “What happened? What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“I get flashbacks of them hurting me” I sobbed into him. “They were injecting me with pure silver” I finished. I felt like clawing at my skin, I didn’t think it was healthy. Ben growled and held me even tighter, I knew he didn’t like the idea of anyone harming me.  

“Shh, no one can hurt you now. Okay?” he said against my hair. I looked up at him and noticed we were outside. Kira was handcuffed and being held by guards and Gage was looking at me worriedly.

“You’re weak, too weak to lead this pack” Kira whispered to me. Her nose looked broken after all the punches I had landed on it, she had a bruise forming on her jaw and her eye looked like it wouldn’t be okay for a few weeks. But she was a werewolf so it would all be gone within a couple days. Ben growled at her harshly, I pulled away from him.

“Stronger than you’d ever be” I replied back.

“Not if you’re in the middle of war and have a mental break down, face it, you’ll never be good enough for this pack” Kira looked at me with malice. I couldn’t handle all of this, so I turned away and took off running. I heard Ben and Gage calling after me but I ignored them. Running as fast as I could, I made it to the end of his territory and headed to the town.

I found myself sitting in a diner that I couldn’t remember the name of and ordering a basket of French fries. I remembered when Christian and I would sneak out of the house at random times at night and go to get food anywhere that was open. We’d talk about everything going on with us and talk about the future. I missed my brother badly, missed talking to him and hugging him. I wished things would go back to how they were, when I actually had a family.

“But you wouldn’t met mate” my maybe wolf whispered in my head. I guess she was right, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him and I didn’t want to know. I just missed my family so much some days and I just wished I was as normal as everyone else was. I didn’t want to be part vampire, I just wanted to be all wolf. 

The waiter brought me my fries and left me to my thoughts. I took a bite of one and thought of my mother’s homemade fries. The bell outside the door jingled and I looked to see Gage and Ruckus scanning the diner, when they found me they walked to my table and slid in.

“He’s worried about you” Ruckus said. I nodded at him but shoved another fry in my mouth.

“We’re worried about you” Gage said, I looked up at him and something in his eyes changed. We sat in silence and then Ben walked into the diner a few minutes later, he spotted us quickly and headed over to us.

“You guys can go” he said. I felt like I was unraveling, like I was waiting on him to grab a stray string and pull to hard so I could fall apart. But like usual he was very gentle and sat next to me. I was pulled into his arms and held there, and in that moment I knew that no matter how much shit my past threw at me. Ben would get me through it all; he was the anchor to the ship that had been lost at sea for years. He felt like home.