Chained

Chapter 12 - Hunter

Over the next two weeks, Vivian visited me every afternoon.

Some days she would stay for hours talking about things, and other days she would she barely had the chance to open her mouth before her father 'mind linked' her.

whatever that meant.

I wasn't even sure if it was a real thing or something she had just made up like her other stories. Not that I minded. It wasn't like the fanatical stories Markus fed me until they turned into nightmares. These were more...fun.

As the days passed, the air that whisked in from my window became colder and rain more common.

Winter has finally arrived.

I had found a sense of peace in listening to Vivian talk as I remained quiet. Children had so much to say when given the freedom to do so. Although I won't lie, sometimes I had to pretend I wasn't bored as she raved on about some things. But I wouldn't dare complain. I liked the company.

If I had been counting right, it was on the sixteenth day of my arrival at Zayn's pack that Vivian introduced me to her brother.

He seemed barely older than her but carried himself in a way that was rare in children. I occasionally saw it in Vivian herself, but it seemed no one else noticed enough to encourage it.
Just like his sister, the boy had curly hair that reached his shoulders and freckles that dusted his skin. That was where the resemblance stopped. His curled hair was pitch black and his eyes were so dark they were almost resembled pits. But there was a certain darkness around him that seemed to fuse to her light. It wasn't a bad darkness, in fact it was almost comforting.
It reminded me of a clear night sky where the the new moon left almost no light. A strange way to think about a werewolf.

As they entered, he was the shadow of Vivian who guided him. Through the grey lifeless chamber her bare hands held him by his gloved ones through the cement corridor towards my cell.

When he saw me, the boy gasped and took a small step back before remembering his courage and frowned.

Vivian just grinned. "This is my brother Hunter, he likes to think he's better than everyone else."
If I had been in my human form I would have laughed until my stomach hurt at the boy's look of surprise.

"Vivian!" he said astounded.

She just shrugged. "What? It's true!"

The boy rolled his eyes and Vivian smiled at her victory in their meaningless argument. An argument like what i would have with Dylan.

I slowly stood from where I was lying, my shoulder groaning slightly, and walked towards the bars of the cell. Hunter immediately stepped in front of his sister. His eyes widened slightly, but he almost managed to look fierce.

The girl laughed and stepped around him before squeezing through the bars.

"Vivian!" he shouted and raced to the door of the cell.

The sudden movement made me flinch, my eyes watched as guards charged towards my cell, baton in hand to testing to see if it was long enough to beat me with through the bars. It was.

I forced myself to remain calm. I would not make the same mistake twice.

"Relax Hunter, she won't hurt me." The girl slowly approached me with her hand out. Although she barely made it up to my shoulder, I lowered my head allowing her to pat it gently.

I flicked my gaze towards Hunter, whose jaw was hanging loose from his skull and seemed to be unable to talk.

After a few moments he managed to knock himself out of the daze. "Vivian what are you doing!? If dad catches you-"

She didn't let him finish. "He's not going to catch me and you know it

"He's going to see the marks on your hands."

My eyes widened and I raised my head to see her shove her tiny hands into the pockets of her grey winter coat.

"The silver bars are hurting you Viv," the boy said stepping closer.

There was a look of genuine worry that made my stomach seize. 

She had barely touched the bars, only when she had slid through them each day. Yet they still hurt her. Lowering my head, I nudged her arms with my nose but she kept her hands firmly in her pockets.

I hadn't even noticed. No one had.

"It's fine Hunter," she said still refusing to remove her hands from the furred pockets.

The boy scowled. "You can't keep doing this!"

"You can't tell me what to do!" she demanded.

Her voice shot like a s missile towards her brother and made my eyes widen at how determined she sounded. Not at all like the child who shared fantasy stories with me in her afternoons.
Hunter seemed just as surprised.

For a moment there was a tense silence between the siblings as they silently argued. Confusion washed over me as they communicated without muttering a word, but I knew better than to intrude on family arguments so I stayed silently seated until Hunter's eyes softened into a guilty sadness and Vivian eased the tension in her tiny body.

She sighed loudly and turned to face me. "I'll see you later," she said rolling her eyes before turning back to her brother and sliding through the bars.

I couldn't say anything as the two children left the building without another word.

As the door squealed behind them I smiled internally. I didn't need to understand, they had each other, thats all they would need.

My smile faded.

That wasn't true and I knew it. Dylan proved that years ago.

I proved it.

The wolf pups have each other, for now. But how long until one is killed at the neglect of the other?

I wouldn't be able to help. At least not from this cell.

That doesn't matter because as soon as I escape I'm out here.

It wasn't up to me to help them, they were wolves for gods sake, I shouldn't even be letting them near me. But I was.

They're just kids. They wouldn't even comprehend the things done to me.

But one day they would grow up, even Markus was once a wide-eyed child without a drop of malice within him. My mind swirled with confusion.

I stayed in the far corner of the cage like I always did as the guard opened the silver door with a gloved hand to give me my dinner. It was hours after the siblings had left but my mind was still attached to them like a virus. A part of me knew was it was.

Jealousy.

Pure green envy that made me hate myself for hating them.

But I still had my parents. They probably thought I was dead ,but they were still alive. They had to be.

I would get out and find them.

It had gotten to the point where their faces had become blurry. You'd think it would take more than a year for that to happen but in truth even Dylan's face seemed more and more distant each time I remembered him.

I had no photos to correct my minds mistakes a no one who knew him to remember them with me. Markus hadn't just scarred my body, when he whipped me it felt as though each mark on my body was a cut to my mind. I would live, breathe and eat torture until eventually all I could remember was pain, until it consumed me into nothing but a walking collection suffering. 

I'll get home and I'll see them again.

I just needed to get home.