Hidden Essence Book I - The Bloody Moon

Chapter XXIII

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Her voice is caring and gentle as she speaks out the nickname I despise oh so much. It's all an act though. She doesn't care, she's just imposed to pretend like she cares. Like I'm part of this pack. She probably hates me even more than she did when we were only co-workers at Target. 

"Hello? Are you listening?" She shakes my body a little to get me out of my thoughts. I look into her dark brown eyes as they look for something in my blue ones. "Let's sit down for a second, okay? You look like you're going to faint." She says and carefully pushes me down so we are sitting on the grass. There are tears all over my cheeks, but I'm not crying. They're just falling randomly. I honestly have no breath to sob anymore. Becka sits herself down in front of me and tries to get my attention. Surprisingly I start off the conversation. "I killed her." My weak voice brings out. There's no point in telling her, she obviously already knows and despises me for that, but I mostly want to repeat it to myself. So I will never forget how bad I messed up. "No, you didn't. Rufus killed her." She states. "You know him?" I ask astonished. "We've been attacked several times in the past. He was one of those brutes you couldn't really do anything about, except for trying to fight him and dying eventually." She explains and I subconsciously nod. "He killed her, you couldn't do anything about it." She repeats and I shake my head. "He killed her, but it was my fault. If I wasn't in this house, they would've never pre-attacked you guys and she would've been safe. If I had kept a distance from her when I met her, she would've never attached herself to me and she wouldn't have jumped in between him and I. It's my fault Becka..." Everytime I talk about her I see her innocent self, bloody and dead on the ground. Becka sighs. "Raven... You couldn't do anything about it. It was her decision to sacrifice herself. Adelaide's always had balls. The little girl endured a lot during the short nine years of her life and still she had a rockhard heart." She speaks, but her words are vage to my ears. "I broke it. I broke the rockhard heart. I tore it apart and then buried it." My voice cracks all through that sentence. Becka sighs even deeper now. "Look, her courageous act doesn't need to break you down this way. It needs to motivate you, to make you come up for yourself and fight for whatever you think is important." She tries. "Everytime I try to fight for what's important to me, I hurt the important thing. I've always failed. I don't want to fight for what's important anymore. They're better off without me." I sniff as my nose is starting to run. Becka hands me a tissue. She's never been so... nice to me. Where's the venomous witch at? I hestitantly take the tissue and blow my nose in it. "I'll admit it, your life sucks a lot. You've gone through a lot of pain and you're probably going to go through some more. I totally understand why you tried to kill yourself a few months earlier, but Raven... I also need to give you some credit for all the courage and strength you have in you. You don't realize it, but you're still here. On this planet, unscathed and stronger than ever. I don't know if it is because of the essence in you or just because you're amazing at everything, but congrats girl! You have earned so much respect from me and from a lot of people the past months. And... I want to apologize for the way I treated you at work. I knew you had the high essence all along and I was just jealous, because you outplay me in so many things. I thought being a werewolf was one of the things I could best you at. Realizing that was not the case was hard to put up with and that's why I treated you like shit. I know it's not an excuse and you don't have to accept my apologies at all, but I just wanted to put it out there. " She says shyly. She... apologized? She respects me? What? She's lying, she cannot be serious. Becka freaking Durham just apologized to me. What is happening to the world? Is this a sign of the apocalipse? Or is it an effect of the Bloody Moon on her? This is not real, it can't be. I refuse to believe it is. "Are you... Are you serious?" I ask to check. "Yeah. I'm legitimately sorry for acting the way I did. It wasn't nice at all and... Yeah, sorry." She apologizes again and I scare myself by smiling like an idiot. I suddenly catch both of us off guard by jumping on her and hugging her tightly.