Repeal

Chapter 31

“I’ve never felt more like that” She mumbles absently. Chase’s words don’t register in her head. The town is still only a dark blotch on the horizon, but for a moment it is the closest thing to her. “So connected….and yet still…vacant. Why out here? Why so far away from everything else…why in the middle of nowhere? Is it better? Do they like the quiet? The loneliness?”

“What are you talking about?”

Slightly she inclines her head toward the dark blotch. It’s only a smattering of houses, all connected by thin white roads. The only thing separating the people is a few feet of snow and thin walls, but it may as well have been thousands of miles. Contents away. Even with the welcoming sun the people stay locked within the little buildings rather than explore.

Chase leans forward, squinting at the town in confusion. When he glances at Kiera, she can’t distinguish the emotion on his face. It’s so foreign. Without a word he stands up and trots away.

Somewhere deep down something prickles in her, but the feelings gone before she can address it.

Sometime later Chase returns. “I wasn’t going to give this to you…I was thinking it might…I don’t know…break you?” There’s no angry retort, so he continues. “But right now, I think-I hope- it will actually help you.”

Without any hesitation Chase holds out the skinned pelt like someone passing over a tiny baby.

The pelts dark, almost black, but where the light catches the hairs the coat turns silver.

Without thinking she reaches out to take the skinned fur. There’s no recognition until her fingers curl into the cool, fine fur.

She bites back a strangled cry and pulls the pelt to her suddenly tight chest; Chase backs away without a word as she cradles the last thing she has left of her friend. Emotions, that had for so long been locked away tight, flood out. Regret and grief rush out, but no tears fall.

For some time she just pats the fur like it’s actually real, like the owner will wake and speak and…she doesn’t know what Romy would do. Her furs nothing special, but right now it may as well be woven in silver and gold, blessed by and gods and cursed by hell. Lightning may strike her down, or fire burn her up, but she doesn’t release it.

It’s a lifeline.

Once, Kiera had thought that a pack made people invincible, that courage and fearlessness was the way to win.

If it was though, why does she feel like the biggest loser in the history?

Were others not brave enough? Were they too scared by something? Is that why so many perished?

She swears she’d seen the fire in their eyes and the fearless acts they took. And yet, here she is, and they are not. What was so special about her? What had made the difference between her living, and the next? Why did someone say, she was the one to live and not…