"Number 23, how you anger me."
He slapped me harshly across the face and I dropped to the ground.
"I don't care if your mother called you 'April'." He spat in disgust, his words venomous. "You are not a person, you are a number. There will be no sentimental attachments."
He kicked me in the side and I felt a rib crack. I stifled a scream.
"I will not allow you to be human when you have so much potential. You are an assassin. A killing machine. Sentimental attachments such as a name will only hold you back."
I began to crawl away from him, gasping for breath. How could this man, my father, be so cruel to me. How could he so willingly hurt me?
"Don't even bother begging, 23. You know exactly what I did to ten, twelve, six and twenty five."
I began to whimper as he pulled me up by my hair, taking a drag from the cigarette that hung loosely from his mouth.
"Now, what's your name?"
"April." He threw me to the ground and quickly pinned me down, taking the cigarette from his mouth with his spare hand.
I struggled but it was to no avail.
"That's the wrong answer sweetheart, and you know it."
He pressed the cigarette into my shoulder blade and I screamed.
><><><><
"April," I forced out, the name foreign on my tongue. Even now as I said it, I felt like my father would come from a dark corner at any second and attack me.
Even if I knew that he was dead.
Antonia smiled, touching my face. "That is pretty."
Something inside of me snapped and I pulled away from her, feeling ill in my stomach.
"Something doesn't feel right," I whispered. It wasn't the affection, the air felt thick.
It may have only been my second day here, but yet I could sense that something was wrong.
Antonia sighed. "What do you mea-"
Suddenly the kitchen window shattered, glass falling to the floor as two bodies came flying through the frame.
Thought left my mind and instinct kicked in. I rolled behind the island bench, sheltering myself from the sight of the two men. They were most likely a threat, one does not simply smash through a kitchen window without a purpose.
I heard the sound of plates shattering on the floor and my heart dropped. That's when I remembered, I wasn't the only person in this room, there were women and children. Mary's children, Josh and Ben. They could be killed.
Mary was thrown, breaking one of the cupboard doors as she landed over to my right.
One of the men came into view, his back to me as he crouched down in front of her. "Have you seen this woman?" His voice was thick with a Scottish accent as he withdrew a picture from his shirt pocket. I caught a glimpse of it before he turned it around so that Mary could look.
It was me.
Mary's eyes quickly flickered to me, crouched behind the kitchen counter, before she looked back at the picture. "Who is it, I've never seen that girl before."
"We know she's here, you don't think that we can't track her? Tell 23 that her brother wants to talk to her urgently, if she doesn't show up in New York tomorrow morning, we'll be back."
This was my chance. They were with my brother, they could take me. I could leave.
I stood up, ready to speak when the sound of two shots rang through the air.
Both the Scottish man in front of me and the other one -who had been standing in front of Mary's children- fell to the ground, dead, blood pooling on the floor.
Mary quickly ran to her boys, pulling them out of the room and past the smiling figure in the doorway. "Look Domitius, they're human."
Domitius walked in, slapping the man up the back of the head. "Goddammit Luca, you were meant to keep one alive for questioning."
Luca pouted, rubbing the back of his head. "You didn't say that."
Domitius sighed exasperated. "I said that three times Luca. Three goddamn times."
"Oh."
Domitius rushed over to me, enveloping me in a hug. When I tried to pull away his arms only tightened. "I was worried about you," he murmured, his lips pressed into my hair.
I was devastated. That was my one chance to escape. Before I could understand what was happening tears were rolling down my face. It dawned on me that my chances of escape were slowly narrowing as time progressed.
"No, it's okay," he whispered. He turned me away from the bodies and tilted my chin upwards so that I was looking at his face.
I snorted. He must think that I'm traumatised or something.
"See," Luca called out from the door. "I told you that we should have waited to see where they would go. Now we know that there's people after your girl."
Domitius growled. "Can you shut the hell up Luca!"
We were interrupted at the sound of the oven being slammed closed. We all turned to look.
Antonia smiled. "I made crostata Luca, your favourite."
His face lit up revealing a dimple in his left cheek as he ran over to the bench, stepping over the blood, glass and dead bodies in his path without a care in the world.
"You never told me you had a brother," Domitius looked at me, his eyes dark.
I shrugged and Domitius lifted me up so that I was sitting on the kitchen counter. He stepped between my legs and I was quick to turn away from him, my back to him and my legs crossed on the counter. "I have yet to be here for two full days, and in that time we haven't even had a proper conversation. How am I supposed to bring my family randomly into the conversation, you weren't exactly rushing to talk to me about yours."
The room seemed to grow cold and Domitius stepped away from me, leaving me feeling bare.
"Besides, it's not really a family relationship, he's more or less my boss."
Luca seemed to freeze, a piece of crostata falling back onto his plate. "Wait a second, didn't they say that they could track her?"
Domitius rushed around to the other side of the island and paused, looking me over. I opened my mouth to speak but before I could he had reached over, grabbed me by my thighs and pulled me over to him.
His hand reached up to my left ear. "These earrings, they are the only thing that you have come in with that haven't been destroyed."
I froze. "They were a gift from my brother, for graduating."
Before I could comprehend what had happened he had removed my left earing and was going for my right. I slapped his hand away and he looked at me in confusion.
"What is wrong, Amica Mea?"
Realisation flashed through his eyes and they seemed to turn black, and if possible, he appeared to grow taller.
"You want him to save you, don't you?" His accent thickened, turning exotic. It was like nothing I had ever experienced in all of my years of travel. "You will not leave me, you can't. I will not let someone else take what is mine."
Antonia stepped forward. "Domitius, mitescer!"
He scowled, barring his teeth which were suddenly inhumanly long, sharp incisors demonically pointed like something out of a horror movie. "No."
I was my own person. How dare he label me his. Anger flared through my mind as Antonia grabbed me by the arm and started to walk back, pulling me off the kitchen bench.
Luca sighed, pushing his crostata away. "Alpha Cassius, I would highly suggest going for a run to calm down, the last thing that we need is another masacre of your own people, what would your mate think?" Luca turned to me. "I'm sorry, what's your name, I haven't gotten the chance to meet you yet."
I sighed. "Call me April."
"So you'll tell him your real name but just leave me with false IDs?" Domitius snarled, taking a step towards me.
I took a step back which only seemed to anger him further. I paused. Right now, he thought that I was at fault, I had to make him feel like he was in the wrong. "I'm sorry, okay?" I began, a thousand scenarios rushing through my head that could sound convincing. I couldn't let him think I was untrustworthy. I needed a story. For some reason I chose the most realistic one. "Honestly my name has a lot of negative memories attached to it from my past, and I don't like thinking about them, you should respect that about me."
I saw the rage on his face falter and he took a step back, putting his head into his hands.
He looked up at me and for a second I glimpsed the inky depths of the irises that didn't belong to him, but his wolf, before he turned and tore away through the broken kitchen window, fragments of his clothes fluttering through the air, slowly down to Earth as his wolf darted away into the forest.
I slumped to the floor, breathing a sigh of relief as the pieces of fabric settled down around us like confetti. At least he hadn't tied me down, I could still move freely.
"Goddamn it," Luca muttered. "I don't want to organise a new window, I want to sit here, mind my own bloody business, and eat my goddamn crostata."
Antonia turned to Luca. "If you keep talking like a tantrum chucking child there will be no crostata young man."
Luca's eyes teared up and he quickly grabbed his plate before sprinting out of the room.
At least after the pandemonium that had just occurred, he still had his priorities straight.
><><><><><
I am back... Or am I front? *laughs to self because no one appreciates my sense of humour*
So I love you guys if you're still here. Y'all are fabulous and don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Okay?
So yeah, this chapter happened. Leave your thoughts in the comments, or not, I don't care.
But yeah, anyhow, remember to
VOTE
COMMENT
And maybe even SHARE if you want to one day love yourself like Kanye loves Kanye.
I'm out.