Thirty

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A/N not entirely edited so please excuse typos for now.

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I stood in the middle of my old compound. The scent of burnt flesh and smoke fumes twisting the knot in my stomach into an anchor. Everything around me was charred. The homes, trees, everything–burnt to nothing but ash and barren ground with an occasional plank of wood poking through.

A gust of wind picked up, whipping my hair from my face to swirl around my shoulders. My feet were planted on a black and gray mound that once was my father's house. I felt my eyes burning hard with my wolf's grays. I should be grieving, but my body had a mind of its own.

My chest hardened a cast around my heart. My blood turned cold. My wolf stretched her claws, trying to surface at the tip of my fingers. She wanted me to release her. Our mind on the Rogues who did this.

Something inside me has snapped.

I've shed my fear, stepped out of my shallow, clueless to the world around me, host. In an instant, I was entirely disparate from the girl I was this morning.

I have begun to see red.

"Malia," James took a tentative step toward me, no doubt sensing the change.

"Don't." Even my voice was hard, slicing through the chilly air, and I didn't look at him. None of this was his fault, but I didn't want to face his pity.

Instead, I closed my eyes and let down the barrier I knew so well to keep up. The barrier that had naturally become my second skin, a shield that protects me. Before I fully understood what I was doing, I emanated my emotions into the air with so much force that James grunted and turned his head in a ferocious scowl in front of me, squeezing his eyes shut briefly.

It was intense, the sorrow and desperation I released from within myself. I turned something that should've been a gentle inclination as to how I was feeling into a signal that would not only call to any wolves nearby but put them in the same desperation to find me. And I didn't even know I could do it. I just...tried.

"Malia," James gasped. I finally looked at him. His eyes were strained, and his jaw was clenched. He shook his head with difficulty. "It's too dangerous, they could still be here, waiting close by, expecting you to be here. Don't do this, please."

"Stop it," I snapped at him, lifting my chin and stepping off the mound, crunching over shards of glass, to saunter in front of him. "This wasn't your compound. This wasn't your family. This wasn't your pack. Of course you wouldn't understand why I need to do this."

His eyes widened. "I do understand. But–"

"But what?" I tilted my head slightly. "I won't cower where there can be survivors. My parents and others can very well still be alive, James."

"Yes, but the Rogues came here for you. What else could they have done this for? And now we're standing right where they expected to find us." He took a few steps toward me. "We can't stay any longer."

"I will not leave until we have given it enough time." I crossed my arms at my chest.

His eyes were a raging bright green. He nearly barked at me. "We're leaving."

The command rushed over me, cool as ice. I glared at him, opened my mouth to say something, when I felt a presence. I whipped around and James stepped around me, immediately shielding me, facing the direction of the oncoming wolf, sensing its presence too.

"James!" I let out a frustrated sigh but his glower at me over his shoulder that included baring sharp teeth this time, kept me from risking another step.

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