Streak of Black

My aunt finally breaks the silence, the only one able to find the words to address the seemingly dangerous boy on her couch who's mated to her niece. "Well you obviously have a very...interesting past," she comments, unsure how to respond politely.

"And you and Louve have really patched things up, haven't you?" Louna chimes in, nodding at our intertwined fingers and causing me to blush. She smiles at my embarrassment, and I choose not to respond.

"Anyways, about a year after Ryder joined the Pack, we met Zeeva. We found her sleeping in the gutter, and we wouldn't have been able to leave her there like that, even if she was human." We all look at her, and she curls further into Eyulf, almost as shy as him.

She bites her lip. "It's really not that interesting of a story." She squirms as everyone stares at her expectantly and sighs. "Fine. I had a pretty good home-life. I can't really complain. We weren't tycoons like Eyulf, but we weren't poor. We were upper-middle class, and I was the oldest to a twelve-year-old brother and nine-year-old sister. My father's office was throwing a Christmas party, and my father offered our home for them to host it in. My mother made sure we all looked our best and were presented properly. She went over appropriate conversation topics with the guests. It was really normal." She begins to choke up a little. "I remember, my sister was very excited—it would be her first big dinner party with all the adults, and she was my little shadow for the night." She sighs and swallows back her sorrow.

"The guests started to arrive. I was in charge of welcoming everyone and anyone who came to the door. They were all so polite, and I returned the gesture, smiling and curtsying in a pretty red dress that my mother had bought for me and surprised me with. My sister mimicked my every move. I noticed one man walk into the kitchen, but I wasn't concerned. I figured that he just wanted to check to see how much longer until dinner. Finally, it appeared as if everyone had arrived. We sat down to dinner. The man who had wandered into the kitchen earlier raised his glass to a Christmas toast before we all began to eat. No one seemed to recognize him, but he was dressed correctly, had been prompt, and had delivered a beautiful speech. The strange man was welcomed with open arms….which made it all the worse when everyone took a sip of their champagne and instantly passed out.

"I realized what was happening. Instinct to take care of the youngest kicked in in my mother’s incapacitation. I grabbed my brother and sister, practically dragging them out of the room as they stared at our parents lifeless bodies. The man smiled at me and then looked at my parents, pulling out a gun. We ran and were very close to the door...when we heard a shot go off. I felt the unbearable pain brought on by my father's death. I refused to allow this man to have my brother and sister. Another shot. More pain. My mother was dead." Tears streak down her cheeks as she recollects the night’s events. I know that she’s reliving that unbearable pain because I've gone through the same memories of my parents' murder. She sniffles and wipes her tears before moving on. "I heard footsteps—he…he was getting closer. But we were so close to the door."

Her eyes seem to glaze over as that night replays in her head, as if she's there, not here. "There was another gunshot—my sister went limp in my hand. Tears raced down my cheeks. I reached the door. My hand was on the knob. Another bang—my brother went limp in my other hand. I fought the pain as I threw the door open and ran down the steps and into the street. The man seemed to realize that he couldn't kill me out in the open like this and I wouldn't come back until he left. He would be accused of drugging everyone if he were to stay in the house until everyone left. Besides, he knew that his point was made—any human could see that I was terrified that night even in the dark. I made my way to my neighbor and friend's house as he growled at me and leaped into his car and fled. I haven't seen him since, and based on Louve's description, he's not the same man who killed your family.

"I went back into my house, feeling the physical and emotional pain that my family's death caused me. I couldn't believe that this had happened. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill that man. I wanted to die. But I had a house full of dinner guests who would eventually wake up and wonder who had given them the drug, so I had to get out of there. I traded my pretty red dress and black high heels for a black sweater, jeans, and sneakers. All I had was my passport, so I took my father's credit card, vowing to use it only to buy my ticket and throwing it out directly after. I wasn't thinking straight, wasn't thinking about the fact that that card could be traced. If I had, I wouldn't have been so careless.

"I got into the car and drove straight to the airport. I bought the next one-way ticket on the next flight to the smallest town I could go to which just so happened to be the one that my friends often shopped at. They found me after I'd scavenged for food for a week. They offered me food, shelter, and a warm bed. I nodded, let them help me up, and allowed them to lead the way."

I pick up right after where she left off. "And after a month or two, we found Rudi."

She leans forward over the couch, always one for theatrics and never really shy. "I'm actually third-generation American, despite being very in touch with my German heritage. I didn't fit in at school. Believe it or not, I was the one being bullied. I could've whooped those bullies' asses…" She trails off, anger filling her features. Nox wraps his arms around her shoulder, and she closes her eyes to calm down. She catches the hand draped over her shoulder and squeezes it. They smile at each other, and Rudi continues. "I couldn't allow myself to react because that would blow our cover. My parents and grandparents had worked so hard to build a life for us there in America. It would be shameful for me to just throw it away. So I bit my tongue and suffered in silence. And then one day, I snapped. Hard.

"Some…" she pauses to come up with the right adjective, "bobble-head wanna be came up to me, pushing my buttons and provoking me. She called me all sorts of things—the usual. All of the same crap that I'd been called for years and years. I didn't usually let it get to me, but that day, my temper was running on a very short fuse. She eventually just went one insult too far, and I turned around and beat the living shit out of that girl.

"I punched her in the face, the impact dislocating her jaw, breaking her nose, and knocking her to the ground. When she fell, I kicked her in the stomach until she rolled over and puked. Then I joined her on the floor and grabbed her ponytail, using it to knock her head against the floor several times. Needless to say, I created quite a scene. I didn't even realize what had come over me. I was just so sick of it all, and she just so happened to be the one to get my control to let loose.

"When it was done, I got up and looked down at the girl. I…I honestly don't know what I expected after all of that. I figured she'd have to go to the hospital, but I didn't realize that she might just go straight to the morgue. It finally dawned on me that I actually killed this girl. I beat her to death because humans aren't werewolves, and their bodies aren't built to stand up to us if we lose control like that. I didn't know what to do. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on her, on me. I looked around. Students crowding the hallway looked at me, then at the girl, and then backed away slowly. I blinked, trying to wake myself up from that nightmare. I realized it was real. It had happened. I ran into the nearest bathroom and hunched over the toilet. I heard teachers coming down the hall. There were a lot of gasps and screams of horror. Demands to know who did it. Students all yelling my name and location. I exited the stall as a crowd of teachers flooded into the bathroom. I didn't want to hurt them—I didn't want anymore death on my hands—so I simply shoved past them.

"Teachers and security guards fell to the floor in heaps as I skidded out of the bathroom. Students cleared a path for me, and I ran straight through, down the stairs, and out the door. I ran home, snuck into my window, changed into something not covered in blood, and left—of course after stealing some money from my parents. I had to. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew that if I stuck around, especially with the measly amount of money I had on me, I'd be hauled off by the cops and thrown in jail after being tried as an adult. I couldn't go through that. I couldn't put my parents through that. I hid out in the mall, buying sunglasses and a wig to keep people from recognizing me in case they put my picture on the news. At night, I explored the streets, stealing from fruit carts left unattended and breaking into mini-marts to get by, stealing only what I needed.

"The Pack knew what I was when they found out what had been happening, what had gone down. They found me and brought me home." She seems to be talking only to my family and briefly pauses. She continues after a wistful sigh. "They became my family." She looks around at us and smiles. It's been a while since we've all sat down and talked like this, and I think that reliving all of this is making us remember what our lives were like and how close we all were before we met Damien. It makes us remember who we used to be and how much it meant to us to have someone who just got us to have our back. This is the first time that Nyx and Nox have heard any of this, too. "After that, we got a new card under Zeeva's name and transferred everything in mine, as well as some of Eyulf's endless funds, into that one so that we'd always have a back-up plan."

"The house by then was getting pretty full," I say, resuming my narrating position. "There were already, what, five or six of us in a four-bedroom house. We all tried to get used to each other, working habits around each other, bonding over little things. It was altogether a pretty calm life. And then, maybe three months after Rudi joined the Pack, we met Cannan."

Cannan pulls himself out of the shadows and gazes down at my family, a dark look on his face and his arms crossed, trying to intimidate his audience. I see it every time he tells his story, and I roll my eyes as I do every time. He seems to be trying to act extra tough, just as he has been since he lost Susanne. "You can say that I was in a very different position than Rudi," he begins in an ominous voice. I realize that this is the first time that I've heard his voice in days, and it actually sounds unnatural and surreal to be hearing it again. "I was the local bully. Me and some of the other werewolves in my neighborhood made it a sport to pick on humans. We felt like they were beneath us, we felt like we should be running things. And we were. Word of us spread, and blinds and windows closed when we passed. Werewolves our age that didn't run with us were pounded as badly as the humans. To us, you were with us, or you were against us.

"It was a good life to my friends and me. We received the best treatment. People cowered before the strange, extremely strong, muscular boys. Girls flirted with us to try to stay on our good side, but we just used them to get what we wanted and thrust them aside when we were bored. Store clerks threw deals and free food and products at our feet so that we wouldn't hurt them. Some of them traded free stuff for protection. Even the police let us get away with what we wanted. We were unstoppable.

"Until some stupid kid finally got tired of us. We were all staying in one of my mate's condos. While we were sleeping, some kid snuck in and cut the owner's head off. We all jolted awake, the unbearable pain making our heads want to explode. But the kid wasn't done. He took advantage of our distraction and chopped off two more of my buddies' heads with his axe. There were two of us left, and we fled.

"I made straight for my place, grabbing my card and passport before hopping on a plane to America. I didn't even know or care where I was going; I just couldn't stand to stay in England any longer. I would walk the streets alone, my buddies dead or gone. I'd be a joke." He spit the word out. "These five found me as I was running out of money."

I shake my head and roll my eyes at Cannan’s arrogant, narcissistic tone and continue with the story. "At the beginning of the next year, we met Susanne, a changed wolf. Lovett accidentally bit her." I look at my brother, but he shakes his head adamantly at me. No one else wants to talk about her, and I don't want to either. I may not hate her like some of my Pack mates, but I'm still furious with her for what she did. Nyx and Nox can't tell because they don't know her story, but I doubt they'd say anything either.

"Oh for the love of— Cannan looks at all of us stormily. "Fine, I will tell her story." He glares at all of us one more time before turning to my family. "Susanne had a good life. Her family had money and a nice house. She was happy where she was. And then one night, Ryder was chasing Louve through the forest with Lovett on their trail because he refused to trust Ryder to be alone with his precious little sister. They somehow ran out into the road just as a car was passing. The car barely had enough time to shift to avoid hitting the wolves. It hit a tree and the two adults, Susanne's mom and dad, were killed on impact. Bruised and injured, Susanne tried to get out of the car.

"Having heard the commotion, the rest of us ran out to find our Pack mates. Susanne was approaching them angrily, yelling at them all. She was a bit hysterical—I doubt that had she been in any proper state of mind, she wouldn've have dared leave the safety of the car until we were gone. Lovett was in front of Ryder and Louve as she approached, and the rest of us watched. Susanne took off her shoe and threw it at them, and Lovett caught it in the air, crushing it with his teeth. Susanne's eyes flashed, and after she took one more step, Lovett attacked, wanting to keep Louve safe from the 'threat.'

"After the night was over, we got Susanne and carried her back to the house, laying her out in the Rudi's room. Lovett and I stayed by her side the whole time. She drifted in and out of consciousness a lot, always either screaming in agony or rage when she awoke. After a couple of weeks, she awoke, refreshed and alert. We explained everything to her, and she sent us away. For a week, she would barely eat and never talked to anyone. Finally, she emerged from the room. She told us, 'I'm not happy about what's happened or what you and I are, but I'm going to try to get through this and accept it.' And that was that.

"We began getting her accustomed to the life style that we lived by. It was hard for her—she’d never worked out before or lived in a place like this. The bugs drove her crazy, but she refused to kill them. She was sweet, innocent, and gentle. We all kind of babied her and were very protective of her. She was just so frail. We hardly let her even leave the house without an escort, and she stayed pretty close to the house even then. I was her closest friend from the start.

"Finally, after a couple of weeks, we needed food. She and Rudi went into town to get some groceries." His voice turns bitter as his face darkens. "There, she met a guy named Damien who fed her a load of crap, telling her that werewolves are evil and unnatural and that two in her Pack, Lovett and Louve, were particularly devious. He told her that if she had even an ounce of humanity left that she would help him bring the Pack down. She fell for it and plotted against us with him. The next time that she went into town, this time with me, they met again and came up with a plan to kidnap all of us. He told her that they could be together once we were all in his clutches. They decided that she'd just stay locked up during the full moon.

"She began to really cozy up to all of us at that point. She made me…I fell in love with her. And then one day, she acted like the pressure of the double life was too much for her." Pain crosses his face as recollects what happened with clarity and tells my family every detail. He didn't see what she had done before because he had blinders on, and now he's finally taking them off.

'Do you want me to finish?' I ask him gently in his head.

"No, I can do it," he replies out loud. The tough bad boy façade is gone, leaving a hollow carcass in its place. He takes a deep, calming breath and looks at my family again. When he begins talking, his voice is devoid of all emotion. "She ran out of the house after we fought and was ‘kidnapped.’ I thought that she was just going to cool off, but when she didn't come back...I didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say. And then Louve said that she'd been taken, and I lost it. I thought for sure that that Damien guy would kill her for telling me. But she hadn't died. I figured that my Pack didn't care about her as much as I did, so I decided to go find her. I went to the road where Lovett and Louve had found an oil trail leading to a dirt road where they lost the scent. I decided to follow it and see if it branched off somewhere. And then the van came.

"It came out of nowhere. Men got out and grabbed me, throwing me inside. Damien looked at me—I knew it was him just by the look in his eyes. I told him, 'You aren't going to get away with this! I will kill you!' I had almost gotten out of his guards' clutches, but they just tightened their grip—they were strong for humans. Damien had laughed at me and patted my cheek, saying how he highly doubted that. He told the men to take me back to the house and come for him when they were done, that he'd meet them by the road. And then they took me away and locked me in a little prison-like room made of steel where I was stuck for about a month." He finally finishes and dissolves back into the shadows.

I turn back to my family, realizing that there will be a few holes in the story if I don’t include the stuff about Monique. I sigh. "Before I continue," I begin, figuring I'll at least warn them, "I have to tell you guys that some of what I say will make absolutely no sense. Let me go through all of this without any interruptions and then I'll take questions. I don't care what you have to do, but please, do not interrupt because this is gonna be painful for all of us."

"What are you talking about?" Louna asks, confused and concerned.

"The very first dream." I sigh, and the whole story comes spilling out. Ryder grips my hand, understanding how hard all of this is for me to talk about. I begin with the dream when I was four, the one that started it all, and continue through to my childhood to the dream of Uncle Rollo. I skip whatever they know and resume at the dream that introduced me to Monique. I walk them through all of the chaos of that month and my dance with insanity and the dreams that plagued me for a month. I explain about Lovett's capture and the drama that was going on back home both because of and without Monique's help. I tell them of the torture Damien and his henchmen put me through and about Andre's pity. I describe the plan I came up with and Ryder getting shot and Lovett's new found ability. I continue through our recapture and what Damien and Susanne revealed. And I conclude with our return home and every nightmare and detail that took place up until when we retrieved Charlette and Gabrielle from Damien's house, skipping Ryder's return home and being shunned by his brother.

My family respects me enough to restrict themselves to gasps and lip-biting to keep from interrupting with every new detail. The whole thing rushes out with barely any breath between sentences, leaving me panting when I'm done. Some of that, even my Pack mates didn't know, and everyone stares at me. I sit up without making eye contact with anyone, awaiting my family's judgment or reaction to any of this, especially this new relation to Nyx and Nox.

And then my aunt loses it. She slams her hand on her armrest and shoots up, beginning to pace and rant in French. "Dammit! I warned him—I told him. He knew this would happen. I wish he was still here so that I could kill your father for doing this to you!"

"Aunt Lunette—" Lovett begins calmly.

"Damn your father!" She stops and sinks back onto the couch, putting her face between her hands. I exchange glances with my worried brother and my befuddled cousins, at an utter loss for words.