Alpha

I toss and turn all night, unable to sleep. I'm kind of glad that Zeeva decided to sleep in Cannan and Susanne's room so that I didn't wake her up with my restlessness. I lay awake, staring at the blank ceiling. As exhausted as this whole day has made me, I can’t sleep, knowing that my brother, who has been the only solid I’ve had my whole life, who raised me when our parents died and took care of me when we left our family behind, is just gone. A whole new roll of sobs overtakes me and I can’t hold them off.

'Lovett is gone, bitch,' that Voice whispers, back in my head. 'You are all alone.'

"Shut up!" I yell at it. I hardly realize that I said it out loud. I swallow back more tears, stand up, and begin pacing, my dark blue pajama pants trailing on the floor just behind my heels.

"Hey, little wolf, you okay?" I glance over to see Ryder in the doorway, watching me. I don't bother trying to muster up a smile that we both know would be fake at the use of the playful nickname he took to calling me after we became closer.

I wipe the tears from my face. "I’m fine," I say in a raspy voice. "How are the others?" I sniffle.

"They’re fine, Louve. But I know that you are not."

I shake my head as more tears trail down my face, and he quickly closes the distance between us and grabbing me tightly in a hug. "Ryder, I don’t know what to do! Please tell me what to do." My voice is thick with restrained tears and is even further muffled by his chest.

He pulls slightly away and tilts my chin up to look at him. "I’m sorry, but there isn’t much we can do. We all want to get Lovett back—even I do—but we’re a little hopeless until the Full Moon."

"Don’t say that!" I yell, stepping away from him. "We are not hopeless—all hope is only lost when everyone refuses to feel it. But I’ve still got hope. I wipe my tears away. If you think we’re hopeless, then that’s your problem. But tomorrow is going to be dedicated to strategizing, with or without you no matter how much I value your opinion. Now are you in or out?"

He shakes his head. "You are the most stubborn person I know." I continue staring at him, and he sighs dramatically, winking at me. "Well since there is no deterring you, fine."

I smile up at him weakly. "There’s something else, Ryder."

His eyebrows merge in confusion. He pulls me over to the bed, and we sit down. "What is it? Tell me."

I bite my lip. "This is about more than just Lovett or the Pack." I swallow. "I need to get back at that boy. I need to make him feel pain. Not just for what he’s done to me—" I involuntarily touch my cheek with my bad hand and flinch slightly "—or to the others."

"Louve, what’s going on?"

"His father killed my parents, okay!" I leap up and start pacing, unable to sit still any longer. "He killed them, and I don’t know why. I was four years old and I watched my mother’s skull get crushed like an egg. I heard a bullet shoot my father. I ran for my life, and I was four. And it was because of that boy’s father. And now, his son’s got my brother. And I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to just let him go and hope for the best with a steel-bullet gun to his head! But I swear that I will get him back and figure out what the hell is going on."

Ryder is quiet for a moment. "You know what?" he finally says. "I think you’re gonna get your brother back. I think you’re gonna get Susanne and Cannan back, too. Do you want to know why I think, no, how I know this?" He tries making his voice playfully scholarly to amuse me, but I'm not in the mood.

I sniffle. "How?"

"Because of your passion. Because of your strength. Because you actually give a damn about every member of this Pack. Because you refuse to be weakened when a guy burns your hand and cheek with a necklace and a gun. You don’t let anything get you down. All day today, you have been exhausted and scared, but every second of the day, you were there for everyone but yourself."

"Ryder, the only reason I knew about Susanne was—"

He cuts me off, looking vaguely annoyed and standing to block my path so that I can't pace. I’m stuck between him and the wall, and he tilts my chin up so that I’m forced to look at him. "Yeah, I know, because you were running away. You know what, that is the one thing about you that I really don’t like. You always put yourself down. Why, Louve, why do you do that? I get it, you’ve had a tough life, tougher than most—believe me when I say I know about having it rough—but that gives you no right to put yourself down the way you do."

"Who are you to tell me how to talk or feel about myself?" I turn my harshest voice and glare on him, annoyed that he feels the right to talk to me this way. "If I feel like I can do better, then let me do better! I know how far I can reach, and I know that I haven’t gotten there yet! When I get there, I’ll relax, but right now, there’s still so much that I can do for this Pack. Or at least I believe there's still more I can do. But I won't let you or anyone else stand in my way!" I can barely tell if my anger is with him or my own failure and hopelessness in the situation that we're in. Either way, at this moment, he deserves it more than anyone in my mind. I barely realize how pointless this argument is. We're both just so angry and stressed. But he keeps pushing me, with his words and irate expression.

"But you don’t commend yourself when you do well! You set these standards, but what happens when you don’t achieve them? What happens if you fall behind where you want to be? Huh?"

"Ugh! My God, you are one of the most frustrating people I know, Ryder! Do you know that? Just let me do what I’ve always done! I’ve always been this way and you’ll never be able to fix that! So why don’t you just stop trying? Because you’ll never accomplish anything!" I know that I'm getting very loud, but I don't care. It just annoys me that I know that the tears are clearly visible on my face and audible in my voice.

"You want to know why I’ll never give up, no matter how stubborn you are?" Now he doesn't just look frustrated. There's something else there in his eyes and an unrecognizable emotion through the Bond.

"Go on, tell me!"

"Because I love you!"

I’m about to yell back, and then his words register. "Wait, what?" I mentally kick myself for sounding so stupid.

He’s standing even closer to me now, a monument next to my 5'6", and I’m forced to back against the wall to avoid touching him. His voice goes quiet but picks up intensity as he leans closer to me. "You heard me. Okay, Louve. I love you. I have since the first time we ran together, since that first time I realized how it feels to run like that, how it feels to run like that with you. Oh I’ve wanted to tell you so many times since then, but I’ve always known you weren’t ready, so I didn’t. But you know what, I can’t keep picking you up like I did this morning and act like we’re just friends. I can’t come in here and hug you the way that I did, and pretend that there is nothing there. I can’t—" He cuts himself off, grabs me around the neck, and crushes my lips with his.

For a moment, I allow myself to be lost in his arms as he wraps them around me and I return the gesture. And then reality dawns on me.

"Ryder, just stop!" I shout, jerking away. I close my eyes and cover them with my hands. "Look, I don’t know about love, okay. Lovett and I left civilization and came to America when I was 10. I haven’t had much experience in the whole ‘love’ department, so just stop!" I open my eyes and look back up at him. The look he gives me is one of a combination of hurt and fury, and I can feel it through the Bond.

"Then why did you kiss me back?" Without even waiting for me to respond, he storms out and I fall back on the bed.

'Now look what you and your stupid words have done!' That intolerable Voice. 'You drove away your best ally. It would really suck to be you right about now!'

"Oh, leave me alone!" I yell. The Voice shuts up after a bit of laughing at my expense, and after a while, my muddled thoughts finally evaporate from my brain and allow me to fall asleep.
* * * * *
I’m in a strange room.

No longer in the little brick house that I share with the Pack, I’m now in a room with a roughly carpeted floor and solid steel walls. The door is oak, but the handle and series of locks and latches are made of steel. There’s one window with bars covering it on both sides and a latch and lock securing it on the wall. A small porcelain toilet and sink sit one corner. On the floor opposite that is a twin-sized, spring mattress with one un-plushy pillow and an ultra-thin blanket. The wardrobe next to the toilet and sink is tall and once contained only one light green sundress that compliments my eyes. Blood coats the walls and soaks the floor in puddles with smear-marks as if someone was dragged out of here. I’m wearing a black, form-fitting, long-sleeved t-shirt, black leather gloves, black jeans, and black sneakers. My long, auburn hair is tied back in a tight bun, a style I never use.

And I have no clue how I know all of this without even opening my eyes.

'It is because I’m here, as always, hinting at the obvious and giving you a broad spectrum to that which you can’t possibly know.' I hear the Voice cackling, and it irks me. 'Plus, you were here earlier.'

'Well where am I? I've never seen this place before.' I'm slightly confused as to why I'm unable to talk through my mouth or move my head voluntarily, but I try focusing more on the room itself as I memorize every detail.

'You really are a stupid child if you can’t figure that out.'

'Shut up!'

'You will all end up here. One by one. Slowly and steadily. By the next Full Moon! You will all be in his clutches. And you will be the last to go. On the first night of the Full Moon.'

'Well then, who’s next?'

'Uh-uh-uh. That would be telling.' If the Voice in my head were a person, they’d be shining some kind of cynical smile at me right about now.

'Well what can you tell me?'

'I will tell you that one in the Pack is a traitor. Trust no one but everyone at the same time. Although, they won't be doing any harm for a while. They have already helped the enemy, and now the plan is set in motion. It is too late to derail this train. You just have to face it head on.'

'Do any of us die?'

'As I said earlier, one of you will die at his hand. However, I may not reveal who quite yet. It’s up to you to figure that out.' She begins that annoying, high-pitched cackle, and my face scrunches up in pain at the sound that echoes through my head.

'You frustrate me!'

'I know.'

The smug Voice shuts up after that and lets me assess the room. If this really is a premonition—which by the murky appearance of the room, it is—then maybe it’s actually a prediction into the future of something that’s really going to happen. The only explanation is that this is where I'll be when I'm taken by Damien, and it's a small comfort that I know where I'll be. At least I have that.

This room is rendered useless, and the dream begins to fade away as I turn away. As I take one last look around, I see that outside the window, a Third Quarter Moon shines proudly in the sky, smiling through the dirty window at me.

That’s when it comes to me. A plan begins to take shape in my head, I know what I’m going to do. I just need to figure out when...

I allow myself to return to my conscious body, happy to at least have some direction in mind. Satisfied with my plot, as easy to fall through as it may be, I allow my eyes to close and hope to have the dreamless, premonitionless sleep that I so desperately need. Of course, with my life, that's never the case.
* * * * *
I'm having a flashback.

I know it's not a premonition like the dream before based on the fact that, unlike the other dream, it's crystal clear without any image flickering or murkiness. Nope, this is a flashback.

I've been thrust back to France, back to when I was 10—two weeks to the 11th Full Moon of 2006—and feeling of dread begins to make me feel sick. I'm back in my 10-year-old body. I watch through my younger self's eyes as I pace the big room Lovett and I share with our 11-year-old and 9-year-old cousins. I bite my lip and twirl my fingers nervously around each other. My younger cousin, Kenley, naps on his bed.

I feel my younger self's thoughts: 'Oh gosh, today is the day—I know it's the day. Why won't he listen? I tried to get him to not fix the roof. Of all days to deny taking us to the ice-cream parlor, he had to choose today. Curse you, you stupid dreams!'

I throw myself onto my bed, causing Kenley to stir in his own but not to awaken.

I hate you.

'The feeling is mutual.'

That Voice—it's not the Voice. No, it's a kid's voice. Like the type of kid that they have talking creepily like they did in the movies Lovett and I would sneak onto the stairs and watch when we were younger. But it is like the Voice in one way—it's eerie, creepy, and makes my skin crawl.

I don't remember it.

My younger self seems to hear the Voice, but distantly, vaguely. She ignores it, blaming it on stress and fear, and she jumps off of the bed, too restless to lay down—much like the current me. She goes to the window as the sun shines down on the sleepy little town that I grew up in. The next house isn't for a few miles—my family is rich and owns a lot of land. I only share a room with my cousins because it was their room before Lovett and I moved in, but the room is huge. It has a translucent divider halfway through, with one closet on one side and the door and another closet on the other side. A window is on each side. The boy's beds are on the half of the room with the door, and Louna and I sleep on the other side.

I watch my uncle as he climbs the ladder up to the two story house with his hose in his hand, and I am terrified. A car drives down the road and stops a bit away from the house, and a man gets out. Uncle Rollo glances over curiously before beginning to hose down the shingles. I gasp suddenly as the man pulls a gun out of his pants, cocking his head to consider how he'll go about this.

I don't even look at the man's face as I throw open the window and pop my head out. "Uncle Rollo!" I say, trying to warn him. "Watch out!"

He looks behind him as the man cocks the gun and aims it up. "Louve, get inside!" he hollers back. I immediately obey, ducking under the sill. The gun goes off, and I scream in terror.

Kenley jolts up in shock and pain, and I distantly hear screaming somewhere else in the house. Aunt Lunette and Louna's shrieks of physical pain and mental grief echo in my head, and I feel so guilty. I look out the window to see my uncle collapsed and contorted on the floor, oozing blood from his head and chest. The assailant laughs evilly and psychopathically as he turns and shoots back into his car, slamming the door behind him. Before he did, he looked up directly at me, and I got a good look at him.

Lovett skids into the room and grabs me, examining me to make sure I'm okay. I shrug him off and race out of the house, Kenley and Lovett in tow. My aunt has her arm around Louna, comfortingly stroking her daughter's hair as they kneel by my uncle's side when we get outside. I look him over and turn to Lovett. He nods, and I know he's thinking the same thing.

Having never actually Bonded to our family's Pack, we feel no physical pain at our uncle's death, nor at the separation from the rest of our family. Lovett just takes my hand, and we turn from the little family, beginning to walk down the road as an evil young laugh reverberates around in my mind.
* * * * *
I feel a pang at the memory of my uncle, and my skin is covered in a cold sweat at the dream. I'm especially confused and freaked from that Voice. What the hell was that?

"Care to explain?" I ask the empty, quiet, dark room venomously.

'That was simply another version of myself breaking even deeper into your subconscious,' the Voice replies, back to the shrill, blood-curdling pitch. 'See how easy it is to change?' it asks, now the creepy little kid again.

"Quit that!" I whisper to the dark, shoving off the covers and pacing my room as I did in the dream.

The Voice settles back to its usual tone. 'If I did that, how would I have any fun?' The Voice begins to laugh and I ignore it, turning to my dresser to find something to wear that isn’t drenched with sweat. I opt for a tank top and sweat pants similar to those I'm wearing. I then sit in bed and watch the rising sun, wondering what the fates have in store for myself and the rest of my Pack.

The Voice in my head laughs at me, and I know that it knows something that I don't. I just don't know what.