CHAPTER ONE
Brown, curly tousled hair pointed in every single direction and sticking to his olive skin. Chocolate eyes that look almost amber in the sun, set well within their sockets. This was the face of Adrian Aquilo, troubled youth and a newly turned werewolf.
There was something enthralling about him, perhaps it's his scars that taunt you to question how he attained them— like the one that trailed from his left eyebrow, past his eye and onto his cheek. Or maybe it was his dark humor and his way of speaking without any filter— if anyone is into that.
Darkness, screams of torture and blood splattered everywhere— Adrian's eyes began to slowly open, wincing at the glare of the sunlight hitting his eyes. He sat up in a couch he had been laying on and took a good look around the room he was in: an office.
Doctor Alaric Saltzman— the headmaster of the school in which's office they were in— who had been watching the boy for the last half hour cleared his throat, making the teen turn and meet his gaze, "Good, you're awake"
The young boy stood up, taking the liberty of looking through the things in the office, "What are you doing?" The older male questioned.
"I'm getting... accustomed" Adrian answered.
"How did you end up here?"
The teenager looked back at Alaric, "If I'm not wrong, you're the one who kidnapped me"
"Alright, why don't we start from the beginning?" Mr. Saltzman asked.
The boy nodded, "Sure, as soon as you tell me what the hell this place is"
"It's a school, now get to the story" Alaric sat down behind his desk. He gestured for the boy to take a seat in one of the chairs and he did, "How did you get yourself in this position?"
Adrian sighed and leaned back in his chair, "Well, it started with the cops..."
✶
A teenage boy ran through the streets and alleys as he tried to hide in the shadows of Brooklyn, NY. The police were after him and he didn't even know why. Well, he knew but they were after the wrong person and—
"Adrian" Alaric called, "How about you start with waking up in bed this morning?"
"Bed?" The brunet chuckled, "I wish. And I thought this was my story, let me tell it like I remember... from the moment I woke up"
The teenage boy jolted awake, the rain pouring down on him. He had been living on the streets for a few days with cardboard boxes, closed food trucks awnings as shelter. He escaped the foster home he had been sent to take residence in only a week or so ago.
"I'm not looking for your life story, I wanna know what happened. You said the police were chasing you?"
"Listen.." The newly turned wolf dragged, squinting his tired eyes as they read the name on the engraved desk plate in front of him, "Aleric? Alaric? Either I tell my story as I remember it or I don't tell you shit"
"Let's start with right before the pigs found me again and started to chase me..."
Adrian walked through the streets with a backpack on his back, tugging on the straps so it wouldn't fall off. He looked around warily for he had just entered the Santos territory— a famous crime family's territory. He didn't know what he was doing there yet but one thing he knew for sure was that he wasn't welcome.
As the boy walked through the neighborhood, he noticed multiple sets of eyes on him— all glaring at him. He stopped in front of a large white mansion at the end of the street, men guarding the gates and any other possible openings into the Santos estate or its official name—Veritas.
The two guards that guarded the gate sighed when their gazes fell on Adrian. One of them removed his sunglasses to address the youngster like he had many times before, "We told you, kid, he doesn't want to see you. Get out of here"
Before the Aquilo teenager had a chance to respond, he saw the man of the house— Gabriel Santos, his grandfather— step out of the mansion with his men as they headed for their car.
Adrian threw himself forward the moment the two of them locked eyes, "Papa!" He pushed past the guards and gripped onto the metal bars of the closed gates, "Please, hear me out" He begged, "I didn't do it, I swear!"
"Quítalo de mi propiedad" Gabriel ordered his men, ordering them to remove his grandson from his property.
The guards grabbed the boy who immediately started to struggle, "Get off me!" Adrian kicked and threw punches as the men began to remove him from the property, "Papa! It wasn't me, I didn't do it! He killed them. It was him. It was Tio B— Papa please!"
"I didn't do it!" The yells from the boy continued to echo throughout the neighborhood as he was dragged down the street. The guards took the boy to a van and drove off. The vehicle came to a screeching halt when it reached downtown Brooklyn and Adrian was throw out on the streets that would come to be his home for days.
✶
Alaric looked up from the notebook he was writing in, dropping his pen when the boy mentioned that he had been thrown out of the car, "What happened? What was it you were so desperate to prove that you didn't do?" The man questioned. He needed more information on the boy to create a file for the school records.
The brunet swallowed, he swore to never speak of it, "My parents had been killed just a week before what I just told you. My mom's dad and everyone else thought that I did it, so you can imagine how the family dinners after that went"
"And why would they think that?" Mr. Saltzman asked.
"Because the cops found me with their blood all over me and the gun in my hand" Adrian answered.
"So did you? Did you kill your parents?" The older male asked, preparing himself to write everything the wolf said down in his notebook.
"Are you kidding?" The boy furrowed his brows, "And— why are you looking at me like that?... Look, I don't know what kind of mental institution you're running here but I did not kill my parents"
"When did you find out you were a wolf?" Alaric asked, staring down at his notebook where he had multiple questions written down. He glanced up at the Brooklyn wolf when he didn't receive a response to his question.
"Who did you kill and when?"
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I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE.
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Adrian choked, his insides welling up for reasons he'd rather ignore. He didn't want to remember the event that caused him to trigger his dormant werewolf gene so he tried his best to suppress the memory, "What makes you think I killed someone?"
Alaric leaned forward, still writing in his little book, "You mentioned a gun. What were you doing with it?"
The boy looked down, eyes avoiding the headmaster, "I shot the son of a bitch who killed my family"
Mr. Saltzman hummed in response, "So you did kill someone?"
The young wolf sighed, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his chair to make himself comfortable, "I was on my way home..."
✶
Adrian walked down the street, the street where the home he had lived in all of his life was located. This neighborhood wasn't like the ones in the city, it wasn't busy at all.
The boy smiled to himself, he was happier than ever since everything in his life seems hadn't gone to hell for once. It was perfect. Meredith Ceasar, a girl from his high school that he had a crush on, had just asked for his number when she ran into the male and his friends. His mother, Claudia, had found out that she was pregnant with yet another child only a few months ago which meant that she'd be a mother of three soon. His father, Marcus, got promoted to a COO position but never in a million years, would the Aquilo boy have thought that things would've turned out like they did this night.
A scream echoed throughout the neighborhood and the brunet's first instinct was to turn to his neighbors' house, the Rollins'. Every now and then Mr. Rollins would come home drunk and he'd head straight to assaulting his wife. The police were familiar with Adrian's neighborhood as they had been called there multiple times but not once had they been called there for something like the event that took place tonight.
Yet another scream followed by a cry of help was heard and this, this caught Adrian's attention. He ran like hell because he'd recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voice of the first person he met when he was born.
The boy struggled to open the door with his keys as the sound of screams and struggles from inside his home distracted him. He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated by the fact that his mother was begging for help and he couldn't help her because a stupid door wouldn't open for him.
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FUCK!
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The door finally opened and Adrian practically flew inside. He took cautious steps into the living room and saw his parents both on their knees, a broad-shouldered male facing them with a gun in his hand.
"Where is he?!" The man yelled
The young boy slowly approached the scene, the pleading screams of his mother helped him stay unnoticed until he met his father's gaze and the intruder turned around to face the boy, leaving him both stunned and scared.
Adrian stood frozen, his feet glued to the floor as he stared at the man in front of him— Ben Santos, his favorite person in the world— stood with a gun aimed at his family. At his own sister and her husband.
"Ben, please... Think about this, you don't wanna do it" The boy spoke, he scanned the room for his younger sister, Olivia. His gaze fell on his mother, he mouthed his sister's name to her and she looked down, facing the floor and shaking her head as more tears streamed down her face. He knew what this meant.
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THE SON OF A BITCH
KILLED HER.
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Understanding that his uncle had killed his little sister, there was nothing that could keep Adrian from stabbing him, well except for the fact that Ben reacted faster. The uncle pulled the trigger, he knew exactly where to aim to make sure the parents wouldn't survive. What the Santos' man didn't think of when he shot his sister was that seeing his mother's lifeless corpse fall back into a pool of blood next to her husband would break something inside Adrian.
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HE KILLED THEM.
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The nephew pushed his uncle and used every single combat move he had learned from his father, punching the gun out of his uncle's grip. The man was quick to shove the boy to get to his gun, pushing him in the puddle of his parents' blood, the substance staining his clothes.
The teenager scrambled to his feet and reached for the first thing he laid his eyes on— a vase. He threw his mother's favorite vase at his uncle, hoping to slow him down if only for just one second and he did. The boy threw himself forward, reaching under the light grey L-shaped couch to get the gun when he felt hands gripped onto his ankles, pulling him out. Adrian kicked as much as he could, his feet hitting his uncle in his face. The man yelled out as he staggered back.
Once again, the young boy reached under the couch for the gun and pushed himself up from the floor. He aimed the gun at his uncle, a finger resting on the trigger for a moment before he pulled it and the man fell back, his head hitting the glass table in front of the couch before he fell dead on the floor.
Adrian stared at the scene, he had saved his own life by killing his uncle but that wasn't enough because his family had lost their lives. He dropped the firearm and immediately fell into a fetal position on the floor, cradling himself as the tears streamed down his face. He rocked back and forth— this was how the NYPD found him when they answered the calls from complaining neighbors, covered in blood.
✶
"So you killed your uncle?" Alaric asked once the boy faced him.
"I got ahold of the gun and I shot him... a few more times than necessary to make sure the fucker was dead but yeah, I did" The chocolate eyed wolf responded.
The headmaster nodded and closed his notebook and clasped his hands together, "I think you'd do well here at the Salvatore school. It would be good for you to get away from New York after everything that has happened to you and you'll learn how to have full control. If you'd accept, we'd l—"
"Love to have me as one of your students" The boy finished, "Not to be rude but what makes you think I have the money to go to a school like this? I just told you, my parents are dead and the only other family I have wants nothing to do with me"
Alaric shook his head, "We just want to help you be th—"
"The best you can be" Adrian finished, he had heard that speech many many times but it was all bullshit which was why he never believed in it. No one actually cared, "So you're a boarding school for supernaturals? Like a real-life Hogwarts?"
Mr. Saltzman nodded, "Well, sort of"
The two males sat in silence for a few moments. Alaric was trying to read the boy's facial expression and Adrian was trying to come up with reasons why he shouldn't go to a school with the people who kidnapped him and brought him to Virginia.
The boy exhaled and leaned forward in his chair. He shrugged, "I have nothing better to do"
"Welcome to the Salvatore school"
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AS I SAT BACK, I COULDN'T HELP
BUT THINK: WHAT IF I JUST
JOINED A FUCKING CULT?
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