After eating a large dinner, I washed my plates and put them away where I thought I had seen Linda get them from earlier. I stood on my toes as I slid my white plate into a wooden cabinet on top of the others. After dusting off my hands, I turned around and smiled as John stood in the doorway watching me.
"Well who knew. The Great One knows her way into this old man's heart quickly." He smiled and I followed him into the cozy living room where Linda sat in a red rocking chair.
I smiled at her and sat next to John on a brown leather couch that occupied space next to her rocking chair.
"All we know is the basic trials you've been through, tell us about yourself." Said John.
I looked at him quizzically, wondering how they could possibly know what I've been through. I sighed as I looked down at my splayed hands in my lap. I began to tell them about my life: my younger years, memories of a little girl giggling in the night as her father carried her in the air, making her feel like the eagle who soars above all her problems of being a nobody. More memories of Logan, my brother, and I playing in our little pool in the hot summer while mother and father planted flowers in the backyard of our home, splashing the chlorine filled water at each other. Then onto my more recent years after the rouge attack, when I was harassed and harmed for no reason while my parents were gone on beta business all the time and my brother silently living his life far from me. Linda herself looked hurt, her face a mask of horror as I told them the story of the rouge attack and my pack problems since.
"My pack had been attacked by rouges one late night. I still remember the humid, sticky summer air as I stepped outside. I had heard the growls and screams of our pack and the attackers." I paused, looking down.
Linda touched my wrist sweetly, her soft hand bringing me a little comfort as I mentally stepped back into the hellscape I had long tried to forget.
I smiled at her and continued, "the warm air reeked of blood this night, instead of hibiscus and rain water. I was around eight at the time. I snuck around my house against my parents' consent, as they had told me to stay inside when they'd called to check on me that night. As I rounded the corner of the house, I saw bodies littering the grass, blood pooling around the figures of my pack members. My friends, so many people I knew and many I didn't laid with their throats slashed open and their empty eyes staring up at the sky. I, being the eight year old child I was, screamed in terror." I gulped, closing my eyes tightly, remembering every gruesome detail: my blood curdling scream, and the hungry wolves.
"As soon as I screamed, the rouges saw me. I knew I was going to die. I welcomed death. Instead of trying to help my pack, instead of trying to fight back. I just stood there and screamed. The rouges descended toward me. Suddenly, before they could get to me, a few of the hidden adult pack members leaped from the shadows and fought off the rouges. They saved me, but later I found out there were no survivors. Apparently the rouges found out half the pack was off at a peace meeting. Only half the pack, elderly and children and a few teens had stayed home that night. They all died because of me." I whispered the end of my story quietly, more to myself than to the elderly couple seated around me.
Linda gasped quietly and stared at me in surprise, "we knew your pack did something heroic for you. Saved you. It's in the prophecy. But the prophecy didn't say mass murder." She mumbled numbly, looking at John.
John nodded, "Katherine we're going to have to train you, tell you what the prophecy is of course, but train you. Prepare you for your destiny; you have a lot of evil to conquer." He said firmly but, sweetly.
I nodded and prepared myself for this "prophecy," whatever it was.
He chuckled, "Katherine go get some sleep, that's enough for today."
I internally groaned, I really just wanted to get whatever this was over with. I'm ready for a quiet day to myself and maybe some time to cope with everything that has happened. I nodded, saying my good nights to the couple, and headed off to the guest bedroom before flicking off the light and flopping onto the small bed. The bed had a light purple and yellow quilt on it, it was heavy as I curled up under the cool blanket. In the middle of the night, after getting hot, I ended up tossing the blanket to the floor decisively and curling up, eventually falling asleep. Dreams of Sergio and Payton haunted my dreams, causing me to cry out in the night and coat my sheets in sweat.
Why did Michael have to reject me? I could love him so much better than any hoe he gets with in bed. I've read of other wolves who have been rejected, and they say that when your mate cheats you feel fire spreading through your veins and just pain everywhere. Which, oddly, I hadn't felt once since he rejected me. Maybe it has something to do with the whole prophecy thing.
I wonder if he misses me, or if he wishes he could have me back... I wonder if he is looking for me. Poor Rowan, Emily. I wondered how he had been dealing with my disappearance, how had everyone been dealing with it. I closed my watering eyes tighter. They're looking. They have to be looking.