I Just Want You to Know Who I Am | shiver fanfic

Chapter One

Sam.

My eyes fly open in a rush, my breath choking out of my throat violently as I fight to catch my breath. I run a clammy hand down my sweaty face, relieved that it was only a nightmare that haunted my thoughts.

Although, it wouldn't just be an illusion my mind made up forever.

I shake my head in attempt to clear my thoughts and sit up, having to duck my head to dodge the folded paper cranes above my head. The multi-colored alarm clock on my dresser reads 8:25, so I figure it's as good of time as any to shower.

I rummage through my dresser and find some clothes to wear for the day, my mind still stuck in my nightmare; one of the many duplicate dreams I've been having for a while.

It's always the same. The grinding of my bones as I shift from human to wolf, Sam to beast, and the oblivion that comes along with it. It's like I'm chasing my memories as they float out of my head, so close and yet I can't catch them before they are gone forever. And along with those memories, the people I love fade into nothingness, and Sam is gone. I am no one.

Unable to be left to my thoughts any longer, I leave my room, my paper cranes that hang from my ceiling fluttering against one another as I shut the door, almost desperate to fly away, as if disturbed by my nightmares as well.

"Hey, Ringo." Cole's voice suprises me as I reach the foot of the stairs to go to the upstairs bathroom, calling me by the nickname he came up with the first day we met. I turn halfway around and see Cole lounging on the coach, mug in hand with a steaming liquid inside, jotting something down in a notebook with his free hand.

I glance at the wall clock. "Isn't it a little early?" I raise a questioning eyebrow at him. Cole out of bed in the morning is like an unspoken rule, a boundary that can not and should not be tampered with.

Cole looks at me with his signature sardonic smirk plastered on his face. "Couldn't sleep." he shrugs.

Not really up for a conversation, I head upstairs, leaving Cole to do whatever it is Cole does at eight thirty in the morning with a pad of paper. Knowing Cole, nothing particularly good can come out of it.

Cole is reckless, and downright unpredictable. I can't seem to understand him, and he isn't so eager to reveal himself. He seems to welcome his wolf self, almost never human. When he is, he jumps right back into the cold, unforgiving winter, and loses himself once more. It makes me sick just to look at him.

I'm still a little weary of him. I have no idea who he really is, except for the fact that Beck, our pack leader, thinking the pack was dwindling down to an alarming number, went to Canada and found some people to turn into one of us--wolves. It still baffles me as to how or why Beck chose Cole, along with the other new wolves. More than confused, really. I think angry would be a more appropriate term. No one chooses this life--who would want to? Knowing everything you do will be forgotten in the wolf's mind in the winter, and someday gone completely? Why would Beck want to torture more people--teenagers, at that-- with this curse? It's so unlike him...and it makes me upset. Soon after Beck changed the new wolves, he lost himself into the woods for the season, so I haven't had the chance to ask him. Now that spring has come around, he's due to change back soon, so I will ask him. Surely there is more to it than I'm seeing.

After showering, I go back downstairs, wishing I was working today. The small bookstore located in Mercy Falls always seems to be able to distract me, at least for a little while.

Cole is no longer on the couch when I reach the bottom of the steps. As a matter of fact, the house is silent, except for the droning tick of the clock. No one else is human to the best of my knowledge besides Cole and I, which is strange, given the circumstances of what looks like to be relatively decent weather for springtime in Minnesota. Maybe there are some people out in the shed back in the woods. I would check, but I don't think I can trust myself to stay in this body. A shiver travels through my spine at the thought, a memory of the painful shift, the feeling of losing yourself, unsure of when you will be in the correct state of mind..

But my girl. I remember my girl.

The girl who I can only see in the summer through human eyes, but my wolf eyes watch her as she reads from the wooden swing hanging from her tree in her backyard, paging through a novel. She is the one thing I can remember, the one piece of reality I hold onto for dear life. I don't know her name, or her voice, but I know her face, I know her smell, I have felt her warm blood on my muzzle while I fought to protect her from Salem, the wolf who has long since stopped shifting, who attacked her from that very swing she is probably sitting on today, Salem desperate for a meal. My stomach twists into a uncomfortable knot at the thought.

She didn't even scream.

I remember her brown eyes glazed over, her chest rising and falling harshly with memory of breathing, clinging desperately to the bits of humanity she still had within her.

I wouldn't let my pack kill her. Not when she was my only reason for living.

My lovely summer girl.

"Ringo?" a hand taps me on the shoulder, causing me to intake a large amount of air and to whip around, seeing Cole standing behind me, arms crossed firmly over his chest, his jaw set tightly. He has always had this look of familiarity to him that I can never place.. I can feel it in the back of my mind, hiding from my thoughts, keeping Cole a complete mystery. His bright green eyes, his shaggy brown hair, his face looking sculpted like a guy you would see on the front page of some magazine...irritatingly familar. It's as if I knew him before he turned wolf, which is impossible.

"Don't you ever do anything around here besides mope around like a sad sack?" Cole's eyebrow arches, once again that stupid smirk on his face.

I don't answer him, instead starting to slip on my shoes. I'm sure Karyn, my boss at the Crooked Shelf, can find something for me to do. I can't handle being left to my thoughts--and Cole-- for too long. I'll either lose my patience with him and end up smacking that grin off his face, or go crazy, possibly both.

"Where you off to?"

Of course I can't get away that easily. Cole leans against the threshold of the door, arms linked behind his head. "Don't forget a jacket, its a little chilly outside for a certain werewolf." a mocking tone flows fluently from his mouth, sarcasm obviously being his number one language.

"I'm going to work," I don't look up at him as I lace my sneakers. "Try not to explode the house while I'm gone." my voice comes out a little more sour than I had meant for it to, so I add: "There should be something in the fridge for you to make to eat, I should be home later." I try not to hesitate or think too deeply on the word 'should.' The word means I'm unsure, it's uncertain, and I don't want to think about not being me.

"Okay, thanks mom. I'll get right on it." Cole's voice is thick with sarcasm as he exaggerates a salute at me. I let out a long breath through my nose, fighting to keep my temper. I know Beck chose Cole because he saw something in him, something I obviously don't, and that he would want me to make Cole feel at home within the pack, just as he had with me, and everyone else after him. Beck would expect me to take charge when he's gone, so I need to stay sane.

I add a jacket over my long-sleeved shirt, then a winter coat to help battle off the cold. Cole watches me as I zip up the coat and slide on a pair of gloves. He opens his mouth, about to say something, but I disappear out the door before he can, leaving him and his mysteries behind.

*** ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO MAGGIE STIEFVATER, THIS IS JUST A FANFICTION ***

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