Sierra Brookes had been Bianca's closest friend for over a decade. Before Sierra had died, a lot of the wolves their age had been eager to make friends with Bianca, per their parents' requests. They'd believed being on good terms with Lorenzo's daughter would eventually mean being on good terms with Lorenzo himself.
But to Bianca, all those other kids had been nothing but a nuisance. Sierra and Henry had been the only people she'd been comfortable around, comfortable to actually be herself around. The three of them had done everything together, from going to school to sharing stories and insulting people behind their backs.
Shortly after Bianca's sixteenth birthday, she had gotten herself a boyfriend: A human, the quarterback for Crescent Cliff High's football team. Dating him had been a joke in the beginning, a dare to see how long the stupid human boy could last. Then Bianca had developed feelings for Adam. About two weeks after realizing she was in love with him, Bianca had found Sierra and Adam on the verge of fucking each other in Sierra's bedroom.
One would have expected Bianca to go ballistic. She was a Blackburn, and if there was one thing Blackburns knew how to do, it was to explode at people. But right then and there, Bianca had broken down into tears and had raced out of Sierra's house. She'd rushed off into the woods and had transformed into a wolf. After that, it had only taken her a few minutes to get to the steep and rickety cliffs that gave her town its name. Back in her human form, she'd sat at the cliff's edge, staring down at the water below her. She hadn't been able to understand how her best friend could betray her like this. How her best friend could've been stupid enough to betray her like this.
Not sure what she was doing, Bianca had climbed up a stack of boulders a couple feet away from her, and had sat on the ledge that had no path leading up to it because it was too dangerous for any hikers to get close to. She'd hated Sierra. She'd hated Adam. She'd hated herself for letting herself get caught up in this ridiculous teenage love mess, for letting herself be vulnerable for once.
About an hour passed, and Bianca caught the sound of footsteps bounding through the woods. Soon, Sierra had appeared in the clearing with mascara running down her face. "Bianca, I'm so, so sorry-"
Bianca had sent Sierra a glare, hoping to shut her up, but she hadn't been expecting it to work so well. Sierra struggled to speak for a few seconds before finally blurting out, "Your eyes are glowing red."
Scowling and unsure as to whether Sierra was lying or not, Bianca turned her back on her and swung her legs back and forth off the ledge.
"Get away from the edge, Bianca, you're going to hurt yourself."
Bianca had laughed at this- How funny was it? Sierra was pretending to worry for Bianca when she was the one who'd hurt her in the most twisted way imaginable.
This entire situation was ridiculous, and if her father knew about it, he'd probably kick her out of the house for a week. Here she was, Bianca Blackburn, the future alpha of one of the strongest and largest werewolf packs in the country, crying because she'd had her heart broken by a boy and her ex-best friend.
Sierra had sat down next to Bianca, nervously fumbling around with her fingers. "Bianca, I-"
"Why?" Bianca had whispered.
Sierra had looked down, then had sighed. "I wish I hadn't, you have to believe me-"
"Why?"
"You always get everything you want!" Sierra had exclaimed. "Was it wrong of me to want a normal, decent, human boyfriend too?"
That was the stupidest excuse Bianca had ever heard of in her entire life. "So you decided to go after your best friend's boyfriend?" Bianca had shouted, slamming her fist onto the ground. If she'd been in a right state of mind, maybe she would have noticed just how powerful her blow to the ground had been, how cracks had begun to appear on the ledge they were sitting on. "And what do you mean, I get everything I want? You're the one with a loving family, the one with two parents, the one who's free to choose whatever future she wants for herself because she hasn't had to live with the burden of one day carrying the crown!"
"Bullshit, Bianca, what burden? We both know you're two seconds away from killing Lorenzo so you can take up the position of alpha that much faster."
Bianca had lunged at Sierra, and to this day, she wasn't sure why. Why had that comment about her father angered her so much?
Whatever the reason, the cracks on the ground grew larger and larger until the entire ledge had broken down to rubble and the two of them were free falling from one hundred feet in the air. Bianca's arm had instinctively hooked itself around a stable ledge. Sierra had managed to grab ahold of Bianca's ankles.
Had they been in their wolf forms when they'd fallen, they might have been okay. Bianca often went jumping off cliffs of this height in her wolf form, and each time, the powerful kick of her back legs had been enough to ensure a safe dive into the waters below them.
Neither she nor Sierra had kicked this time. Were they to drop now, they would be plummeting straight onto a cluster of jagged rocks. Bianca had used all her strength to try to pull both herself and Sierra to safety, but at the last moment, Sierra had lost her grip. The world had slowed around Bianca as her best friend's screams had reverberated in her head- And suddenly, all screams had ceased to exist.
Bianca had gone straight back to town and hadn't said a word of what had happened to anyone. Hours later, when Sierra's body had been discovered by a search party, Sierra's parents had come to Bianca's house, claiming Bianca had murdered their daughter. Her father had asked her if she had, indeed, murdered the daughter of two of the most powerful wolves in his pack.
A lot of thoughts had run through Bianca's mind in that moment, beginning with how there was no chance in hell Sierra's parents would believe this had all been an accident. A single question to Adam would reveal that Bianca had had both the means and the motive to kill her best friend. Her father, on the other hand, would choose to back her words, regardless of whether he believed her or not, simply for appearance's sakes. He would never let anyone get away with doubting a Blackburn's words. If Bianca told the truth, turmoil would boil between her family and Sierra's, and a fight would be inevitable. In the long run, claiming that she had murdered Sierra in cold blood would be better for all of them.
Maybe. Or maybe Bianca had just wanted to punish herself for having let this happen. Sierra was dead because of her. Was there even a difference between pushing someone off a cliff and leading them onto that very cliff?
"I killed her," Bianca had said. "The bitch deserved it."
Sierra's parents had been a second away from tearing Bianca apart, when her father had done so first. Looking back on it now, Lorenzo's move had been smart and tactical. Him being the one to deliver the consequences would help ease the murderous feelings Sierra's parents had undoubtedly been cultivating towards him and his daughter just then, and this way, he would've been able to minimize the damage done to Bianca.
Would've been. This didn't necessarily mean that he had.
Bianca was sure that at one point, the rage Sierra's parents had been feeling towards her had turned into horror and pity. Lorenzo had hurt her many times before, but never like this. Continuing to tell herself that she deserved it all, Bianca had curled up on the ground and had taken the beating, until something in her had snapped. A father was supposed to be the one to protect his daughter from danger, yet here he was, voluntarily doing all the dangerous damage to her himself. What kind of twisted, inhuman person would act this way?
She'd fought back. Bianca had managed to land a single punch to her father's jaw, and this had caused his eyes to light up red. A sudden transformation in his outstretched fingers had taken place, and neither he nor she hadn't been able to pull himself away in time. An alpha's claw had raked itself across Bianca's face. Her entire skin had burned, her blood had boiled, and all she knew as she collapsed onto the ground in a writhing mess was that this was no ordinary wound. Her supernatural powers would do nothing to help her heal from this scar.
Insane. Unstable. Mad.
The human students and teachers at her school had worried for her, asking how she'd gotten that scar. The wolves, on the other hand, had gone out of their way not to cross paths with her. News in this town traveled fast, especially news involving murder. Crescent Cliff's police chief, one of the high ranking members of the Blackburn pack, had done a good job in cleaning up after Bianca's mess. Someone had been sent by her father to scare Adam into silence. Bianca Blackburn would be getting away with murder, and there wasn't a single wolf alive in Crescent Clfifs that hadn't found out about this by the end of the week.
Henry had been the only one to think there was a chance Bianca might be lying about this whole ordeal. "You didn't do it," he'd said to her confidently. "I know you didn't."
"I did."
"No," he'd insisted. "You didn't. You're a lot of things, Bianca, but a killer isn't one of them."
Mourning Sierra's death, the two had grown closer over the next few months, and once spring break had ended, Bianca had slowly managed to fade into the shadows at school. Wolves had stopped running away each time they saw her because she had done everything to keep their attention far from her.
Through all that time, Henry had been by her side. Even when she'd been labeled a murderer, he'd refused to break their friendship.
So what the hell was it that had made him do what he'd done today?