The last thing James "Jay" Hale ever imagined was to begrudgingly return to Beacon Hills, find out his older sister was murdered, and then be forced to go on a wild goose chase after an enigmatic Alpha that seemed to have a particular interest in ru...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ACT 1: What is Grief?
The Prologue
✧✧✧✧
The fire was blazing out of control, a wild and merciless force that consumed everything it touched. It devoured the trees, shattered the windows, crawled up the sides of the walls, and even licked across the floorboards. The heat alone was enough to make him jump, his bare feet scalding against the scorching kitchen floor.
"Mom!" He cried through the chaos, his little feet dashing across the kitchen and to the thick reinforced door leading to the basement and cellar where he knew most, if not all, of his family were stuck in. The stupid door separating them was something his parents had recently put in as a measure to stop the kids from peaking and listening in during important pack meetings. Only the adults could open it, and all of the ones that could were incapacitated.
Now it stood as a cruel barrier between him and his loved ones.
When his hand went to touch the door handle to try anyway, he ended up recoiling, the metal was scorching hot and unforgiving to the touch. He cried even louder and more desperate. "Mom! Dad!"
He stood there trembling, panic spreading through his bones and twisting inside his chest, wrapping around his thin ribs and strangling his lungs. Tears streaked down his face, his eyes red and puffy from the smoke that filled the air.
The fire was growing bigger around him but he couldn't leave. He would heal anyway. All he had to do was get them out and they'll all be fine. Everything would be fine.
Although unknown to the boy at the time, the real reason all of his family members were rendered helpless and trapped was because of a more lethal poison clouding the air. The only reason he was safe was that he was on the side of the house that wasn't targeted. The thick door separating them was both a curse and a blessing in a way.
But that air would soon spread if he wasn't careful, the flames would encroach upon him the same furious way they seemed to eat away at the furniture and the structure of the house.
He tried to remember what Laura had been trying to show him for the past couple of weeks, how to be strong like her, but when his shoulder hit the door with the intention of breaking it down, it didn't budge and it just left him reeling back. And even if he hadn't yet gotten control of his strength like his older sibling, his hearing was always the keenest. But while before it felt like a blessing, now it felt like a horrifying curse. He could hear the screams of pain and terror coming from his family trapped inside. Of his grandpa and grandma, of his uncle Peter and his other uncle Tyler whose human wife and babies were with him, of his sister Cora whining softly near the back of the house, of his mom and dad trying to reassure him through the door and through weak and pained raspy voices.
