I sat in Allison's bed with her. I could feel the silk sheets against my legs. Allison's hand was in mine, her skin soft. Her hair brushed my cheek where I rested it on her shoulder, both in comfort and in need to be comforted.
Victoria was dead.
I'd just gotton home when I found out. Tears hastily rubbed away, tracks of it still staining my cheeks. I'd managed to stop crying by the time I'd gotton home, though I knew this blockage would only last for so long.
I'd entered the house, the very air heavy. I hadn't been able to notice the difference between that and my own sadness, until I'd passed Allison's room and heard her muffled crying.
I hadn't been in a state to comfort her, but I couldn't very well leave her there alone, so I'd hesitantly knocked on the door and entered. I wasn't prepared to see Allison in the state she was in. I wasn't prepared to see her so... broken. It was as if someone took a fundamental piece of her, and she couldn't function without it; couldn't live without it.
"You heard about her?" Allison sobbed, noting my tear-stained face.
Something in my chest tightened. "Heard about who?"
Allison shook her head, hands starting to shake as she held a tissue in her hand, focusing on it rather than me. Panic seized me and I moved towards her, grabbing her hands and forcing her to look at me.
"Heard about who Allison?" I pressed. "What happened?"
Allison let out a sob, ripping her hands away from mine to cover her face. I waited with an ever increasing sense of dread, as Allison tried to choke out the words.
"Mum," she whispered, voice cracking. "My mum is- my mum is dead."
Allison was shaking again, sobs racking her spine as she shuddered over and over again, fighting viciously with the grief she was feeling. Fighting and failing. You could hear it in every gasp, every tear that fell down her face, every strangled scream and rock of her body. The grief was stabbing holes through her. Through her heart, stomach, head. Wherever it could. It was inside of her, scraping it's claws against her ribs, clawing at her insides, squeezing her heart.
I couldn't bare looking at her, knowing what she must be feeling right now. Her mother was dead. The woman who gave life to her, who raised her and loved her with everything she had. The woman who was supposed to stay with Allison for so much longer, who was supposed to cheer at her graduation and cry at her wedding. The woman who was supposed to be her best friend, there for any advice needed. The woman every child needs to lean on, until they're ready to run.
Allison wasn't ready to run. She was still just a child. It was cruel, taking her mother away from her. What was Allison to do now? How could she go on when her mother could not? How could she live her life when her mother was not there to experience it beside her? She wasn't ready to lose the one person that was supposed to understand her more than anyone. Allison hadn't even expected it. It took her by surprise, which was probably the worst part.
She didn't even get to say goodbye.
Without a word I climbed into bed with her, wrapping my arms around her shaking figure. I pushed my own grief away and let myself focus on her. She clung onto me desperately, fingers digging into my skin as she wept for the loss of her mother.
It was a while before she managed to calm down. An hour at least. Grief kept her going, kept her crying. She cried until there was nothing left, until her eyes were dry and itchy, her body exhausted beyond measure. After that she curled into my side and I let her, content to fall asleep and escape this horrible reality.
"Why were you crying?" Allison croaked, surprising me. I'd thought she'd fallen asleep, but she was still conscious, and moved away to look at me. "You were crying when you came in here, but you didn't know about mum."
I looked away, feeling my heart squeeze. "We don't need to talk about it."
Allison stared at me for a moment. "Can we? Please? I can't think about her anymore. I can't."
I swallowed. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to remember. I wanted to push away my feelings, focus on Allison and her grief, and hope that my own just faded with time. Allison seemed to be thinking the same thing though, and I knew she needed this more than me.
"Isaac..." I trailed off, inhaling sharply, willing myself not to cry again.
I didn't know how to tell her properly. Telling her my boyfriend was never really interested in me didn't cut it. It was more than that; so much more. How could I tell her that after Kate I'd never trusted another person? That I'd always relied on myself and only myself, because trusting another person would mean they could hurt you, and I was terrified of that more than anything else. That after living with Kate, with having her kick me down at every chance, realising that the woman I was supposed to trust more than anyone else was untrustworthy, it affected me. It isolated me from others, because I believed I would never trust another person. Not after Kate.
I never talked about Kate for a reason. Never thought about her because I'd numbed myself from the topic of her. I never talked much about being raised by her, because it made me feel alienated. Everyone else had a mother who loved and cared for them. I had a woman who would rather see me dead than admit she loved me. I had a woman who mistreated me. Who neglected, manipulated, and lied to me, over and over and over. Who abused the trust I had so naively placed in her, believing she could never do any harm to me because she was my mother, and mothers didn't hurt their children.
Or so I thought.
Kate did though. I trusted her and she broke my trust. The woman that was supposed to always be on my side. Who was supposed to love me and protect me and never ever hurt me. She hurt me plenty. She wasn't my mother, and I had been quick to learn that lesson, as well as many others. It blocked me off from everyone else, made me feel like if I couldn't trust the woman who raised me, how was I supposed to trust anyone else?
And then there was Isaac. The first person I trusted after her. With Kate's death I felt relief. With her passing I felt freedom. I was introduced to a life outside of her, and instead of cowering from it I embraced it. I wanted to feel, wanted to love and trust. So when Isaac came along, I took a chance.
A wrong one.
The first person I manage to trust after Kate stabs me in the back. How poetic. The only two people I've ever trusted have proved unworthy of it. Have proved that my trust means nothing to them, just another tool to be used.
I was more focused on the fact that Isaac had lied to me than on the actual deceit. He'd been sent by Derek to get close to me. He'd spent all that time with me because Derek had told him too, not because he wanted to. Not because he wanted to be with me. What was I supposed to do with that? That he'd just used me because Derek had told him to. That the only reason he'd continued to see me was because of what I was, not who I was.
He'd lied to me that day on the roof. He'd said we were just us, but we'd never been just us. I'd always been the witch to him, and I always would. He would never be able to look past it, and we would never be just us, because if I was just me he wouldn't have been with me in the first place.
"Isaac was ordered to get close to me by Derek," I said, my eyes fixed on a loose thread of Allison's blanket. "None of it was real. He didn't care about me. It was all about Derek and what he wanted. Not about me or what I wanted."
Allison's eyes flashed, and she let out a harsh laugh. "He's the reason for both our problems."
I didn't understand what she meant for a second, but when it clicked my eyes went wide at the implication. "He killed her?"
"He bit her," Allison spat, "and she killed herself rather than turn into a werewolf and dishonour the family. He let her live because he knew this would be a worse fate for her. To either continue living and become the very thing her family hunts or kill herself and leave her family to mourn her death that did not have to come."
I grabbed her hand, trying to calm the hatred burning in my veins. Hatred for Isaac, hatred for Derek, hatred for myself for being foolish enough to fall for their deceit. No more. I refused to let them have that power over me, to shed any more tears over someone who broke my trust without so much as a bat of their eye.
I would cry for Victoria though. I would cry for the loss of the woman who might have one day become something more to me, if we'd only had enough time. I could only imagine what Allison was feeling.
She wasn't dying. She was bit. If she moved past her prejudice and hate, she could have survived. If she had loved her daughter enough, she would have stayed, found a way around the bite, embraced her new life if it meant being able to watch her daughter grow up.
The thoughts going through her head right now would be her ending. The worthless feeling in her gut would only grow as time went on. The dark thoughts rotting and slowly spreading through her, destroying anything good she thought of herself. She'd believe she wasn't enough, spend years trying to be better so that if it were to ever happen again, she would choose to stay. It would never happen again though, and she chose to leave. To leave her alone.
I don't know how much time had passed since then. We'd just sat there together, silent in each's sadness, an anchor in an ocean of grief that was so unstable that without the other it would just drift away, lost to the pain and sorrow.
The door opened and my gaze darted upwards to find Gerard standing there, two envelopes in his hands.
"Girls?" he started gently.
Allison didn't look up from the blanket she had been staring at for the past hour or two. "We don't want to talk."
Gerard stood there for a bit, looking genuinely upset to see Allison and I in such disarray. Maybe he did care about this family. "I understand. I don't think there's anything I can say. I won't pretend to know what you're going through."
"Then leave," I snapped.
It felt good, being angry at him. A small relief in a world of pain.
"Of course," Gerard said. "I just wanted to give you something from your mother." Allison looked up then. "Partly because I couldn't help but notice things had been difficult between you two, but it can wait."
Gerard started to walk away but Allison spoke up. "What is it?"
"No, really sweetheart, it can wait. You get some rest."
Allison repeated her earlier question, a little bit of fire in her demand. It seemed she also found safety in anger.
Gerard paused, before moving back into the centre of the room. "As you know, your mother wrote a suicide note to explain away the difficult situation to the police. She wrote these notes to explain to the both of you."
I blinked, surprised. She'd written one for me as well?
Gerard noticed my surprise. "Yes, she wrote one for you too. No matter how new an addition you were, you have joined this family Y/n." I ignored the way my heart ached at his words and listened as he continued talking. "If I give these to the both of you, you have to destroy them immediately. You burn it. Promise?"
We both nodded our heads, murmuring our agreements as our eyes strayed to the envelopes, desperate to read the content inside.
"I just want you to know she asked me to read them-" Gerard glanced at me, "-both of them. I told her I shouldn't, that it was private between the two of you, but she wanted my thoughts. As I said before, I don't know what you're going through. I wasn't close with my own mother, but reading this-" he held up Allison's letter, her name written in smooth black ink, -"made me sorry I hadn't tried to be, and reading this-" he held up my own letter, "-made me realised just how hard it must have been for you, Y/n, losing your real mother, then Kate, and now Victoria.
"Reading these, I felt so sorry for both of you, because if this was my mother, if these words had been written for me, I don't know how I could sit still until someone paid for her death. Any pity I'd have for Derek, for Isaac and the rest of them would be burred on by a white hot desire for retribution, or a kind of blood and destruction that would have Derek and his wolves howling for not mercy, but for their own sweet deaths."
After he finished speaking, he handed us the letters and stood up, exiting the room with nothing more to say. I stared at the letter in my hand for a moment, scared, before Allison started ripping hers open and I followed suit.
Dear Y/n,
I know I'm not your mother. I never claimed to be, and we shared no blood to one another, but I did feel a connection to you. You were a young girl, orphaned as a baby and again as a teenager when Kate died. You were scared, lost, alone, and I wanted to help you. I saw you, and I saw a future that could have passed, if only we'd had more time.
I had hoped the connection I felt, the mother inside me reaching out to the daughter in you, could have developed in time. That it could have become something you could love and be proud of, that could make your place in this family definite.
I am devasted that this dream could not come to pass. That Derek ruined what could have been a real shot of happiness between you and I. Heaven knows I had love to spare, and I would have been honoured to be able to use that on you.
I know that you're a witch. I've known for some time. I just want you to know it doesn't change my thoughts of you in the slightest. It does not affect how I see you, nor how I treated you. You are Y/n, first and foremost. Whatever else you are doesn't define you; you do. I want you to know that, and I want you to know that we will wait until you're ready to tell us. The rest of us have all been aware of it, but we've been waiting for you. We won't pressure you because the war is here, or try to use you in any way. All we want is for you to feel safe enough and comfortable enough to tell us, which is why I didn't say anything to you about it while I was still here.
I am so sorry for leaving. I mourn what we could have had between us. I know we'd only known each other for a short period of time, but I'd already started to accept you as my child. You needed someone to cling onto, to help guide you through this treacherous time, and I was so happy to have that role. I was so excited for what our lives could have become. Of what we could have had. And I will never forgive myself, or Derek, for being unable to give that to you. For letting you down, as you have been let down so many times before.
I send you my love, and I hope you will one day move on from the what if that Derek had caused our story to end in. Forgive me for being a mother when saying this- I truly just want to look out for you- but please be careful around him and his pack. I know you were friends with one of them before they turned, Isaac, but I just wish to warn you that anything to do with them will not turn out good. They are monsters and will hurt you, so keep you heart guarded.
I wish you all the well in the future, and my regrets for not being able to be there myself. I hope you will keep what we could have been close to your heart like I will.
Love,
Victoria.
We burnt the letters in silence, watching the flames slowly devour the words that had shot to our hearts and wrapped them in a chokehold. I stared at flickering lights, feeling tears prickling my eyes at the helpless frustration I felt.
I felt cheated out of having a mother. Victoria said we could have had something, that one day she could have been my mother. I longed for it with every breath I take. To have a relationship like that, feel that love, form that trust.
I wanted a mother. Someone who would hug me and suddenly everything would be alright. Someone who could make me feel safe with the barest touch. Someone I trusted with my life, who would never do anything to hurt me and protect me constantly. Someone who could brush my hair, go shopping with, talk to about anything. Someone I could rely on and lean on when I needed. Someone to fix the gaping hole in my chest where my own mother was supposed to be.
Victoria and our story would end as a question of what if. Of if only. Because of Derek. Because he bit her, and she did the only thing she felt she could in that fucked up situation. He turned her into the thing she'd grown up to hate, been taught and brainwashed to hunt and kill for as long as she could remember, and then forced to choose between turning into the creature she loathed and her own family.
My sorrow turned into rage. I focused on it, honing it until everything else just melted away. It helped ease the pain, give me something to focus on other than desperation, as I seethed. Derek took away my chance for a mother, and used Isaac to trick me.
Victoria was right, I thought, as the rage slowly grew.
It started out as a flicker in the darkness of grief. Nothing more than a whisper, fighting to not be smothered. And then Derek came, adding all the fuel it needed. He'd fucked me over, ruined my chances for a mother, for a boyfriend I trusted.
Gasoline poured over the flicker, making it a flame. A raging flame inside me pushing at the edges. It's fire licking up the sides of me, singing me, burning its way through my grief so all that was left was an all-consuming fury. Getting rid of everything. Every happy memory, sad feeling, confused thought. I was nothing but anger. Nothing but rage. I was not a person, but wrath personified.
And what better way to get rid of this anger than go straight to the source.
I stared at the fire, the last of my letter burning, and felt the rage take over.
Isaac had hurt me. Derek had hurt me. But now I'd swapped sides.
Now it was time for me to hurt them.
A/N:
sorry bout the sad/boring chapter
it needed to happen for the plot
also sorry for leaving u guys in a cliffhanger and then forgetting to update for like two weeks 😬👍 (i forgot, whoops)