Daily check in, how are you??
There may be a possibility that I get quarantined even longer if my brother tests positive on Monday, yay. Covid is becoming a real bitch.
I'd like to go back to school sometime.
Hope:
I knocked on the door, my hand nervously clutching around the handle of my duffel bag. I take a deep breath, allowing the scent of sweaty boys to hit my nose. I definitely did not miss that part about home.
The door opened, and I saw her face.
"Hi, mom."
She wrapped her arms around me as she cried. I hadn't been home in over a year.
"Oh, my dear Nadja."
"Camille, qui est à la porte?" (Camille, who's at the door?) A familiar voice asks in French.
"Damien, it's Nadja." My mother smiles. My dad shows up behind her.
"Father." He gives me a hug. "I've missed you."
"Me too, fille." (Daughter.)
They allow me inside the house, and I set down my bag. The thunder of feet made me jump. The boys began piling into the entryway from the kitchen. My parents had a large house, considering it was the pack house. None of them lived here though. Just my parents, my siblings, and now me.
"Je t'avais dit qu'elle reviendrait." (I told you she'd be back.) Marco laughed.
"Marco." My father said. Marco's laughing stopped, and he gave me a genuine smile.
"It's nice to have you back, Nadi."
"Thanks."
Marco is the best friend of my ex boyfriend, Liam.
We have a large pack, one of the largest and strongest ever known. Over three hundred pack warriors, most of them are males. I was the first girl to ever shift in the pack. I was eleven.
"Clementine, Bastien, Genevieve! Get down here your sister's here!" My mother yells. Two of my little siblings come running down the stairs. Genevieve just walks with her arms folded across her chest. While Clementine and Bastien hug me, she doesn't and avoids eye contact.
"Okay, Gen, what's wrong?" I ask.
"You're going to leave to go to the US, for what? You had it great here but when you turned seventeen you thought you'd just leave and go to a whole other country across the world. Never once bothered to call for over a year, Nadja. You could've called." Genevieve storms back upstairs and a few seconds later the sound of a door being slammed is heard.
"Sorry for her." Clementine says.
"So, you're thirteen now? Wow. You're really growing up buddy." I speak to Bastien. He's gotten tall. Almost as tall as me, and I'm eighteen.
"What are you doing back Nadi? Liam's gonna flip when he sees you." Beau says. Marco hits his arm.
"Dude."
I laugh at Marco. Beau is one of the pack warriors. Most of them are in this room. The best of the best get the advantage to come into the pack house on a daily basis. But the other wolves are allowed to enter upon occasion.
"Well I, uh, I don't really wanna talk about it. You know?"
"Yeah I get it. We're glad you're back, we've missed ya. You were one of the best fighters. We really coulda used ya for combat training." Marco replies.
I look over to notice two short pack members. And to my surprise, they were girls. I recognized them instantly.
"Lettie? Paris?" I used to babysit them when they were kids.
"What are you both doing in here?"
"We're pack members, the highest in our class. We shifted recently." Arlette says.
"But you and Paris are only fourteen."
"Yeah we know. Second and third youngest shifters, you coming in first. You know, you're a real inspiration to everyone." Paris says. I thank her, and go up to my room.
I truly don't know why I came back. I guess I just needed the feeling of the safety home once brought me before I left Paris, and moved all the way across the world and became Lieutenant Colonel Hope Monet of the Confederate Army.
My mind wanders off to the memories of my best friend. He was major, a rank below me. He was there longer than I, and was shocked to know I beat his ass in training. Top of my training class and gained the position of Lieutenant Colonel. I may have been better than him in the army world but in the world away from that, we were best friends. We grew close during training and would often hang out. I miss him a lot. He went missing recently, and I've traveled day in day out to find him. No signs.
I sighed, and pushed the thoughts out of my mind. I wasn't going to put myself in that dark place again. I worked so hard to get out of it. I wouldn't go back there.
I unpacked my things, and rejoined my parents and a few of the boys downstairs. Most of them went out for a run. But Liam was here. He noticed me walk into the dining room and froze.
"Nadi?"
"Yeah, it's me." I said awkwardly. My parents loved Liam, and supported our relationship one hundred percent, but they don't know why we broke up. They were quite disappointed to hear I broke up with him. I saw him kissing Sophia. Sophia was one of my best friends, along with Liana, Liam's little sister. But we both were out walking one day and saw them in the woods. Liana slapped both of them.
"Where's Lia?" I ask in a stating tone. Lia's what everyone calls Liana.
"Out front... do you wanna go some-"
"Thanks, bye." I cut him off and walk out front. Liana was sitting on the porch swing. "Hey."
"Nadi!" She gives me a tight hug.
"Damn Lia, you're tall for a fifteen year old." I laugh. She was about as tall as Bastien. They were both almost my height.
"Wanna go for a run?"
"Sure."
Liana and I shifted and ran out to the tree line, crossing and going into the woods. The entire city of Paris was our territory, and it had a pretty large wood area on the outskirts. Wolves and nomad vamps would often cross into our territory, so this was also kind of a scout trip. We'd check the borders, run throughout the lands, and make sure it was clear for the new shifters who'd be training today. It was a schedule we had before I left.
"So, what made you come back?" Liana asked through the mind link. When the pack was out on patrol or all together in their wolf forms, we could hear each other's minds and communicate telepathically. You can't choose to drown them out either, so your mind is completely open to the pack whenever you're with them. You have to keep your thoughts away if you don't want them getting read by everyone. But when you're as far as we are while we're running through the entire land, or unless they're not in wolf form, your mind can't be read.
"I lost a close friend. One who I met in the United States. We were really close, and he just disappeared one day." I reply.
"I'm sorry, it must've been hard for you."
"It was. I searched for him nonstop since he went missing. I could never find him. I even went as far as to search the European side of the world. I ended up in Versailles. I decided why not run the forty minutes to Paris?" Originally it's forty minutes to drive to Paris from Versailles, but as a wolf we have extraordinary speed, faster than a car's.
"Oh, well that's good. Ever since you left the packs been going awol:
'When can we call Nadi?'
'Why won't Nadi call us?'
'I wish Nadi would visit.'
'Maybe we should visit Nadi!'
I mean, it's all they ever talk about." She laughs.
"I know, I'm sorry. I wish I could've visited but I was really busy in the States."
"I know," she says, "it's okay, we all understand."
"Not Genevieve." I mutter. "She hates me."
"She doesn't hate you, Nadi. She just-" all of a sudden four vampires jump out in front of us. Before we had time to spring into action, two of them had pinned me down first since I was the larger wolf. I managed to bite one of their arms, but it didn't come off. The other two vampires bit me in the neck. I shifted back, as the pain seized through me. I felt the venom entering me, and I knew that wasn't supposed to happen.
Vampires can't release venom into a wolf, only drink blood from them. The vampires were aware of this as well, and their shocked figures retreated back into the woods. Liana chased after them, running farther into the woods while I laid there, helpless.
I screamed in pain as the venom continued taking over my body. I felt like I was going to die, and I probably was. There's never been any stories on wolves getting bit by vampires and dying from it unless they were completely drained.
I feared for my life. For Liana's life. If they could kill me with their venom surely they could do it to her too. I had to help her, but I had no energy or strength to get up. I was shouting for help, for anyone to hopefully be near and come wake me from this nightmare.
The nightmare of my death.