The Ripple Effect

“Thanks again. Really, I think I’d be dead if not for you two,” I said, wearing a crooked smile.

“It’s like we’re saying goodbye to you again,” Talia murmured, a sad smile on her face. “Be careful. And remember that you can come to visit more than once in a blue moon.”

“And next time, Zeya better start crying only if it’s from laughing so hard,” Mark warned.

I grinned even more.

“We’ll be back. We’ve just got to establish ourselves, don’t we, Zeya?”

“I’m going to be an Alpha someday, too, Mr. Luca,” she told me, grinning cheekily.

I didn’t doubt that at all.

I hugged Talia goodbye and gave Mark a parting handshake, and Zeya just wrapped both of them in her arms at once before shouting her departure. Then we were off. To where? I wish I knew.

Zeya was skipping beside me, grabbing the skirt of her new dress as she hopped and scattered about the forest. Though she had complained about the nature of some of the clothes that Talia had gifted to her, I did notice the way her eyes bulged out of her head in wonderment as she twirled and the material complied fully. She had received a couple pants and shirts as well, but she looked so beautiful in her sundress. My hand tightened around the bag of clothes. How I hoped that one day she wouldn’t feel the need to dress like a street rat with wrapped knuckles.

And that was another thing: she had refused to have the bandages taken from her hands completely, so Talia had begrudgingly accepted the compromise of exchanging them for new bandages... Perhaps it was best that Zeya hadn’t stayed with them: she certainly wasn’t the little girl they had expected her to be!

“Are you feeling much better now?” I asked her, smiling as she continued to bounce around.

She nodded fervently, giggling as her ponytail bobbed quickly in an effort to keep up with her.

“I like not being covered in dirt, and now my hair isn’t stuck in my face. I can see!” she sang, twirling around me once more. She miscalculated her steps and tripped over my foot.

I burst out laughing when she glowered up at me whilst dragged herself back onto her feet. But I couldn’t help myself: her cheeks puffed out when she was mad, and they nearly covered her eyes! She was too adorable to be taken seriously like that.

“I didn’t do it!” I protested as she started hitting my arm her tiny fists.

“You did, too!” she shouted, continuing to beat me mercilessly.

By God, it was actually starting to hurt! So I grabbed her hand and pulled her swiftly into my arms. She wriggled in a futile attempt to break free, but she was not going anywhere.

“That’s not nice, Zeya,” I teased, tapping her on the nose. She snapped at me, and I just barely had enough time to escape those chompers. “Neither is that!”

Instead of truly dignifying me with a response, she loud out a loud “Hmph!” and crossed her arms over her chest before sticking her nose up at me.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I muttered quickly before putting her on her feet.

She wasn’t saying anything, and her eyes stayed on the ground as we walked. I groaned loudly. Was she really upset over this?

“Zeya, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I promised, staring at her out of the corner of my eye. “I didn’t mean to trip you, love.”

“I’m not mad about that,” she mumbled, suddenly stopping dead in her tracks. “I’m thinking.”

“What about?”

She didn’t seem to be sure if she wanted to answer that, but she turned to me with that uncomfortable look on her face. To try and coax her into talking, I carefully lowered myself to sit on the dirt. She slowly followed suit, but she was eyeballing me the whole time.

“You didn’t leave me, Mr. Luca.” I smiled in reassurance, and she bit her lip. “You could have left me, and I wouldn’t be your problem anymore. But you didn’t leave me. So... I want to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“About...” She looked down at the ground, plucking nervously at the grass. “About everything.”

My heart stopped for a solid minute, I was sure. She was going to tell me? While I was touched that she clearly trusted me, my heart was also guarded. She was going to tell me some horrible things, things that would hurt to hear. But I needed to know what we had gotten into, what would be coming on the horizon. My life had been nothing but trial after trial, so I had a feeling that her past would come to haunt me as well. But what could a little girl have done to make her deserve being thrown out and beaten by her own pack?

“Why did those men want to hurt you?” I finally asked after two minutes of silence passed.

"Look at me," she whimpered.

But I only saw a golden girl. A little scuffed up from living on her own, but an angel nonetheless.

"Zeya, you're perfect."

She shook her head, and then she lifted her chin to look me right in the eyes.

"They don't like Misa."

I started to question her, but then I frowned.

"Is Misa your wolf?" She nodded sadly. "What is wrong with Misa?"

She wiggled around for a bit before standing carefully. Only then did I notice a very slight limp, which caused her to favour her right foot. Other than that, she seemed fine. It was hardly even noticeable, and it was something that could be healed by a pack doctor with the right knowledge.

"It doesn’t really affect me anymore, not like it used to. But Misa... She can't run very fast," she whispered, looking down at her left leg.

Her knee was angled strangely, but it wasn't a kind of "strange" that made one jump and scream in horror. It was a subtle strange. Clearly the bone had not been set right after being broken.

Then I felt ill to my stomach. The Shadow Pack... They were a famous group of assassins, known for their speed and agility. And their heartlessness. When you wanted someone "taken care of," these were the bastards you called. If a hit was put on your head, your only chance was to bribe them with an exorbitant amount of money. Even then, they might just kill you solely because they wanted to.

When I had been an Alpha-in-waiting, my father had been conspiring with some local packs to run in and free the wolves who wanted to leave—which would be women and children. The men were celebrated, after all, but the women were all but slaves unless they were seductresses who could use sexuality as a lethal weapon.

"My mama tried to save me," Zeya whimpered, suddenly curling up beside me. “She told me to hide it from my father, to hide it from my brothers and everyone else. But I had been starting to make my father proud, by challenging my brothers to races and sparring with them. Sparring with Salek was how I got hurt in the first place—I fell out of a tree trying to keep up with him.” Her face soured. “I hate Salek.”

"And... Your mother?" I whispered, afraid of the answer. She had skipped over her mother so quickly, so it led me to believe...

She broke into more sobs then, and my heart broke into pieces for this poor girl. I tried to hold her more tightly, but at the same time I was afraid that she might shatter like porcelain.

"What about your father? Didn't he try to—?"

Her lip started wobbling more, and that said it all: he had hurt her.