Streak of Black

Lovett and I trekked to town where we called for a cab. In the cab, we sat side by side, silent. We were and still are annoyed with each other.

Now, in the airport, I finally look down at the piece of paper that Louna gave to me. It's just a piece off of the pad on the fridge with little flowers adorning the corners. On top, in Lunette's perfect cursive, the word MICHIGAN is carefully written. Below it are coordinates. I ignore those for now and ask the lady at the counter for tickets to the next flight to Michigan, U.S.A. We have to wait in the airport for a day.

In the uncomfortable plastic seat in the airport, I allow my eyes to drift closed for the sleep I need so desperately. When I open my eyes, I'm in a large cavern, looking up into the green eyes of my body double.

"Hello, Louve," Monique says pleasantly.

I groan. "Why must you bother me in my sleep too? It's bad enough that you mess with me in waking hours. And I really don't feel like dealing with the snarky remarks right now. I just want to get a plain, uninterrupted, eight hours of blissful darkness."

"Well, look whose crabby now." She tsks at me, and I have half a mind to strangle her right here and now. "Look," she says, now back to her usual air of superiority. "I don't want to be here either, but you called."

"No, I didn't."

She sighs and looks at me like I'm the biggest idiot she's ever met—inhabited the head of—whatever. Behind her, the archway begins to glow with sunlight. "Look, you may not have wittingly called me, but your subconscious did, meaning that you have something that you want to know and/or see. And I think we both know what that thing is."

I look away. She's right.

"Of course I'm right; I always am. Now, just say the magic words—adding please at the end, of course—and whatever you want will just be an archway away."

I glare at her, and she rolls her eyes, gesturing for me to just spit it out. "I want to see my friends," I mutter through clenched teeth. "Please."

She smiles mischievously at me, and she ushers me through the archway. I step through it and am behind my aunt's house by where I left Ryder. I look up at the sky, and the sun has already begun to set. It's been hours since we left, and Ryder still kneels on the ground where I left him. He isn't crying anymore, but his eyes are bloodshot, his face is flushed, and the pain is written clear across his face.

"Ryder, I'm so sorry," I say as I reach out to wipe dried tears off of his cheek. My hand goes right through, but I'm not really all that surprised by that. Ryder sighs, and his chest heaves a little. I bite my lip to hold back tears of my own, hating to see him like that. I caused him to feel that much pain. I caused him to cry. I almost wake myself up with the desire to run back to him, but I know that I left him here for a reason, and I have to live with this decision.

He looks up, seeming to realize how long he's been here, and rises, turning back to the house with his head hung in defeat. I follow him into the house alone, Monique having disappeared as soon as we were through the archway. Inside, everyone is still lingering in the family room except Louna, who shut herself into her room after saying goodbye to me. I notice that Charlette and Gabrielle are gone, too. So does Ryder.

"Where's the girl?" Ryder asks.

Everyone looks up at him, not noticing his arrival in their grief. They're taken aback by the dried tears on his cheeks, and I distantly feel another pang of guilt at being their cause, but it's already faded. I wonder how I could already feel so little guilt at having caused him to cry in I don't even know how many years. I distantly tell myself that something is seriously going on with me, but I ignore that annoying voice.

"She left with her brother," Zeeva says, holding out a piece of paper.

Ryder hurries over to her and takes it. I read it over his shoulder.

'I wanted to thank you guys, all of you, for taking such good care of me in my time of need. You all saved me from what would have been a horrible life for my daughter and I. Andre—my brother—came back for me, and he and I have been reunited thanks to you all. You proved Damien wrong—werewolves aren't evil. Thank you so much, and I wish you all a long, happy, undisturbed life.
'-Charlette'

That explains so much—why he came back, why he wanted them dead so bad. They were holding his sister and niece.

Ryder crumples the paper and puts it in his pocket. "Okay. That solves one problem. So what are we doing next? Where do you guys want to go?"

Everyone looks up at him, shocked that he can be so upset but so ready to leave so soon. "You guys are leaving so soon?" Kenley asks is a little taken aback. I think he was looking forward to the extra support after having lost his mom and his cousins.

"Yes, they are," Louna says popping up behind Ryder.

Everyone's attention snaps to my older cousin. Fresh tears are on her face, and her eyes are even redder than Ryder's. "I want them out!"

"Why, Louna?" Kenley asks, wanting my friends to stay desperately.

"I want them gone. Things were fine before they got here. They show up, and Mama's dead! I want them to leave. NOW!"

Kenley approaches his sister. "Louna, things were not fine before they came. Mama was miserable before they arrived. And look what happened. We may have lost Mama, but at least she was happy after they got here. And now look! Papa's killer is gone. We wouldn't have had that without them!"

"It wasn't worth it!" Louna screams in a shrill voice, trembling with unshed tears and anger. "It wasn't worth having closure for Papa's death to lose Mama, too. It's their fault, and I want them to leave! They can have Papa's old car for all I care! Just make them leave!" She runs back upstairs crying, and Kenley sighs, head hanging with defeat.

Ryder walks up to Kenley and places a gentle hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "We'll help you bury your mom, and we'll be out of your hair for good."

Kenley nods, and Ryder picks her up, leading the group out of the house. Kenley leads them to the shed where he grabs their three old shovels before taking them around back to the corner of the lot where my uncle is buried, the only sign of his perpetual resting spot being a single, large stone in which a crude heart is engraved. Ryder places her gently on the ground as the boys all grab shovels and begin digging a grave beside my uncle. The girls find another big stone while they dig, and Eyulf finds a blade in the shed that he uses to carve RIP into the rock. I look up at the sky, thinking how cruel it is that on such a depressing, dark day, the sun is shining so brightly. I look up at the house, and see a weeping Louna looking out on the scene.

Once the grave is dug, Kenley climbs into it and takes his mother from Ryder, laying her down gently, a single tear dripping from his cheek and onto hers. I almost expect that it'll be like the fairy tales that I used to read where the tear dripping awakens you from a deep state of sleep where you appear dead. But that gash is still on her stomach, covered with blood, and we all know that that won't happen.

Kenley kneels down beside Lunette, pressing a single, quick kiss to her forehead. "I love you, Mama. You will be truly missed." He takes Eyulf's outstretched hand and allows the older boy to haul him out. They then begin to recover her until she disappears under several layers of dirt. Louna doesn't bother leaving her room.

"Wait here," Kenley tells the Pack. He disappears into the house and reappears a few minutes later with car keys, my uncle's car keys. They follow him to the little used garage—the door creaks more than it used to—and hands them the keys, gesturing to my uncle's old minivan. "I'm sorry that the driver's side is on the right—I know that you guys are probably used to the left...well, some of you. But anyway, do with it what you want—Louna doesn't even want it anymore. I'm sorry, but you guys can't stay anymore."

"Can we at least get our stuff from upstairs?" Ryder asks, resuming the role of Alpha.

"Of course, but please hurry. For Louna's sake."

Ryder nods at my cousin and begins to leave, but before I can follow him, the scene dissolves. Monique has pulled me back into my head. I'm dizzy and short of breath, but it's not like the last time I stopped watching something that was going on somewhere else. Last time, it was like I was falling into an endless abyss. This time, it was like an invisible force shoved me backward as the image slowly faded to the cave again. I lean against the archway as my breath steadies.

"If you're done tormenting yourself, there's something you should see," Monique says coolly from across the cavern.

I glare at her. "What is it this time?" The archway behind me begins to glow again, and Monique approaches me, grabs my arm in hers, and strolls through her portal arm in arm with me. We appear on a train. I glance around me. It's full of vacationers and business men. She and I occupy a bench, and a few rows ahead of us is Cannan.

"He left you guys," she tells me. "You couldn't tell, but he severed the Bond between himself and all of you. It was the only way that he would live."

"He would have died if he'd stayed?" I look over, thinking that it should have been him, not Lunette who died.

"There were several outcomes that could have happened to him, but three seemed most likely. In the first, he would have stayed with you guys, and yes, he would have died in Lunette's place."

"But I thought you said that one in my family would die!" I say accusatorialy.

"Oh, I never lied. To you, your family is your Pack. That's the way it is with most werewolves. A family isn't restricted to bloodlines, as Damien's family proved. They didn't just kill those in your family; they killed the entire Pack, because it is common knowledge that that's the true family of a wolf—any wolf."

"Okay, so what are the other two outcomes?"

"Another one would be that he turned on you guys. In that outcome, it would have been Ryder that he killed. In order to weaken the Pack and hurt you most, Cannan would take away your life by taking away your mate. He wants for all of you to suffer, and you, being the only one who tried to understand and then turning on him later as you did, to him, are the worst. He feels like you all try to understand, but no one, especially not you, would know what he's truly feeling unless you were put in his shoes."

I shudder at the thought of losing Ryder. Even with this gloom setting in, I couldn't bear to lose Ryder. That alone might have been enough to push me over the edge.

"It would have."

"What?"

"Ryder's death would have made you forget your mission and changed your destiny. You would have become a true slave to Death, doing his bidding willingly. You wouldn't be the same person anymore."

I shudder again at the thought of willingly giving in to all of this darkness growing inside of me. "What was the last outcome?"

"There are two, as of now. At least there are for him."

I glance over at her, a questioning look in my eyes.

She doesn't look at me—her eyes stay focused on Cannan—but a wicked smile begins to spread across her face. "Back during the battle is when he tried to escape. He was about to go into the house through the back door and disappear through the front. Right as he was about to, he saw the man who killed your aunt going for her from behind. There was plenty of time for him to shove the man aside—he could have saved Lunette, if at the cost of his own life. He would have died honorably and with the respect of the whole Pack. But he shrugged and carried on with his plan." My eyes widen and I glare at my ex-Pack mate.

"If we let him continue on this train, he'll travel though Europe, go back to England, and disappear for good. He'll start a new life with a new name. He'll grow old alone and that will be the end. He'll live a long but miserable life."

"What's my other option?" My hands are clenched into fists.

"I go over there and suck the life out of him."

For a minute, the train is silent and frozen. Everything around me blurs. He's responsible for Lunette's death. It's only right. It's revenge. He's bringing it on himself. I hear it in my head again: 'An eye for an eye—a life for a life.' And yet…

"In which case will he suffer more?" I ask, my voice menacing and unrecognizable.

"Both will cause him the same amount of suffering, one physical and the other mental."

I don't hesitate. "Do it."

Life on the train begins again. The world clears, and the gentle hum of people talking and laughing and clicking away on laptops fills my ears. The only difference is that Monique is no longer next to me.

I don't look at Cannan. My eyes focus on the head of the seat in front of me. But I hear him screaming. I glance up. People pause and look over at Cannan. Women shriek, and men leap up to help the young man who screams between gasps for air that won't come. Monique sits beside him, clutching his cheeks in her petite hands and whispering something unintelligible. Cannan is staring through her but unable to look away, still screaming. As his mouth gapes, a white mist that only Monique and I see floats out of Cannan and into Monique's chest. She tilts her head back in ecstasy as she drinks in his life force. Cannan's face soon pales, and Monique appears beside me once again.

She practically seems to be glowing. "Well that's not how that usually goes, but I fed nonetheless."

It takes a few moments for her words to register—I have to go over them several times in my head. "You've done that before?" I ask hesitantly.

"Of course. Whenever I go into someone else's mind, it's usually because I need to eat. It helps me to stay on board as the navigator of the crazy train that is your mind. I just let their mind deteriorate over a few days as their life force floats into me. It's usually more gradual than that was, and it hurts them less until the last few hours. Even then they aren't in as much pain as Cannan was. For him, it was as if his body was fighting for complete dominance to stay in control. It's a complicated and unpleasant process. The bottom line is that it's done, he's dead, and you’ve more than satisfied your quota to Death for the next few weeks. Those around you should be fairly safe."

I don't even want to know any more. I really feel no emotion at what she said—I'm simply exhausted. But there's something else there...maybe...pleasure? "Send me back, please."

"As you wish. See you soon, gorgeous."

I close my eyes as Monique's hand presses to my forehead, and I fall backward, this time accepting it rather than screaming.