Stronger than Diamonds

Chapter 2

I wiped away the tears on my cheeks hastily. I was breathing heavily. God, that was one hell of a flashback. Calm down, Shailene, you’re in the now. Not seven years ago. I rolled my eyes, it was just a nightmare. I looked over to the bed next to mine and saw the blonde strike of hair on the white pillow. Kate was still asleep.

I jumped out of bed, hoping to get rid of the memories of my nightmare. I walked over to the window that looked out into the street of the suburb we lived in. It was a quiet, little street with exactly the same house repeating itself over and over and over. It was nice to know that everything was safe here and we wouldn’t get any surprises. We came looking for a place like this over the years for one reason. Kate had wanted to live a normal life after our families’ murder. Although, every time I have that nightmare it makes me question myself. Should we go back or keep running?

Back then, the next day after eating and spending the day at that human’s house we realized we had nowhere to go. Kate had no more family and neither did I, well not that I know of. But that woman had been too nice for her own good and had let us stay with them for almost three years. Then came that one time in the super market we realized someone was following us, so it made it pretty clear our cover had failed and we needed to leave them before they got hurt. You know what’s worse? The woman, Jenny, hadn’t been only kind she’d also been clever. She had discovered us, too. When she entered our room after the little stunt I pulled at the super market--I say stunt because I knocked the guy unconscious with a pan—and found us packing, we froze, but she said:

“It’s okay, I know you’ve been hiding something this whole time and you ought to be special and important if they’re after you, but I’m glad we could help”

She let us go, just like that. I smiled to myself as I remembered our time spent in that little house in Athens, Georgia. I was still looking out my window, when I heard a twig snap outside. The sky was turning slightly yellow-ish, the sun would be up in a couple of hours.

Adrenaline kicked in and I immediately crouched down and tensed for a fight. Before my mom died she had shown me basic self-defense and other stuff, I still practiced just in case. I took classes here and there of whatever I could use to defend Kate or me. I hissed as I heard the faint sound of steps on the grass on the front lawn.

“What’s going on?” I heard Kate’s sleepy grumble coming from her bed behind me.

“Shhhh…” I waved her off, but decided it was better if she was prepared if we needed to run or something. “There’s someone outside, watching us. Keep your voice down, he might be able to listen”

“What?” she asked alarmed and immediately threw the covers off her and crawled to my side.

I kept observing the front lawn like a hawk. There was tree near my window and a big, thick bush right by it, that’s where the noise came from. I looked at the bush intently, as if by the stronger I stared the visible the thing behind it would be.

Suddenly, there was a black blur and in a flash there was man standing in the middle of the lawn, staring at me. With red eyes.

“Shit” I swore under my breath. “Werewolf” I grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her up from the kneeling position we both had been by the window. I pulled her back from the window, then in a flash I threw a sweatshirt and a pair of Converse her way. After all these years we had already discovered the group of wolf Shifters that murdered our families were working with Werewolves. They had always had an upper hand in this.

“We’re leaving, now” I moved over to the closet and put on a sweatshirt of my own and pair of the first running shoes I saw. I started pulling them on as I made my way to the hall and down the stairs.