Wolf #2: The Beast Within [COMPLETED]

Chapter 8

Media Credit: Violin Concerto II by Philip Glass, Adele Anthony, and Takua Yuasa

Chapter 8

Amelia.

Amelia.

Amelia.

It's all I can hear—the whispers of the ghosts and the visions—as I press my cheek against the cold, tile floor. My mind is drowning, my soul is being hung by a rope of grief and disbelief and turmoil. Death.

Death.

Amelia.

"Amelia." Rachel knocks on the bathroom door again, "Please unlock the door."

There's no movement, no sound, that comes from me. My body is a corpse. I lie curled up in their cabin bathroom. It's been hours since I left. The day has come and gone but I remain in my position. The shock is still processing—the idea that I have no family left is still wrapping around my mind. The last thing I can do is unlock a fucking door.

The last thing I want is to face anyone. Facing them will mean that I'll have to accept this strange, new reality. I'm an orphan.

Sobs wrench my lungs from my chest, constricting them so tightly like balls of crunched up paper. I can't breathe. I can only exist in a world of pain. A world of death.

The Wolf inside me is folded up in a tight ball, whimpering and whining to herself. With the imminent danger gone, she's trying her best to nurse the agony and grief—I can hear her thoughts. Losing yet another one, just like the others that have died because of her in the past centuries. I feel her despair just as much as she feels mine.

I bring my hands up to my face. It's the kind of face you make when there is so much pain leaving your body simultaneously that you can't produce any sound. All you want to do is scream until the hurt goes away—somehow believing that if you use all your willpower...that time will go back.

Instead, all I do is scream in silence.

Amelia.

They are all around me—Steph and the ghosts that follow me. I can feel the Guides of the Wolves in the living room...they all quietly surround me and not their human counterparts. After all, they are all spirits. And I'm their Prophet.

I'm their center—the point of gravity. They all whine and whisper my name. Amelia. Amelia. Amelia.

This is all my fault.

"Amelia," Steph touches my shoulder, "It's not your fault—"

"It is," I crumble. I can taste blood as my lips splits open again. "I'm the fucking reason why everyone is miserable or dead. It's my fault."

"Amelia—"

They all stop as I bite down as hard as I can on my hand. Teeth pierce through flesh and muscle, and a white, hot pain consumes my mind. The grief doesn't disappear, but the voices do. I clamp my jaw down harder on my hand, screams muffle as I taste my own blood.

I see no one when I look up in the mirror, washing away the red stains from my mouth and chin. Only a statue—an empty, useless conduit.

Dozens of Wolves are gathered in Jace's living room, all deep in their conversation. They are all battered and bruised, torn up and bloodied from the fight. Camilla's mother, Nicole, looks to be particularly in bad shape. The one side of her face and neck is a bloody mess, her ear torn clean from her skull. Still, no one seems to pay mind as they grimly speak.

"I just...don't understand how," One of the males clench his hands together, "How is Leon alive?"

"It was confirmed by the Diurnal that their new Alpha had killed him," Darya, a sentry on the eastern border, looks at Ilya and Mira, "I still remember the day like it was yesterday. They were all parading Alpha Adrian around the entire western seaboard..."