HOLDEN: Book Two of The Dark Moon Series

Chapter 20

RAELYNN'S POV

Living in a lycan pack you are faced with death often enough for it not to affect you the way it normally does other people. Regular humans cry at the funerals they go to because it was someone they knew or loved and they're so sad for their loss. But in this pack lycans died in such brutal ways that crying seemed pointless. Instead you acknowledged their death for something that was mighty. You looked at their life for something that was short. You understood that this was how life was and you moved on. That's how I viewed it anyways.

But learning that my father and my baby sister were dead didn't make me want to cry. It made me want to die. I wanted to tear out my heart and let myself bleed out so I could join them in heaven because that's where they are. Without the shadow of a doubt they're in heaven with Jesus and I am stuck here with pain and sorrow and never ending darkness.

Maybe because I'd cried so hard and so long that one morning after Naal and I first connected, maybe that was the reason that I had no tears. Even as the human police questioned me time and time again. Even as Luka pleaded with me to talk to him, to forgive... hell to even say something. Even when Naal pulled me into his arms and sobbed into my hair. Even when my mom collapsed to the floor in Abrielle's room.

There were no tears.

And there still aren't.

I feel pain. I feel numb. I feel alive. I feel dead.

That's the only way to explain this.

"Rae... I know you may not be in the right mind right now but we need to plan a funeral." Luka says taking my hand in his. I can't feel the touch I can merely see the action. It brings me no comfort. Nothing does.

"Father wants to be buried in the woods where he found Gannon when they were children. It's where his life began and where he always wanted his life to end. Abrielle can be buried with him. She was always a daddy's girl. It would make them both happy." I say with a hollow and monotone voice. I can't even recognise myself in that voice. It sounds so dead... but then again maybe it does sound like me.

"Okay that's fine we can do that..." He ends his sentence with a pause as if expecting me to say something or do something more. As if there's anything else. He sighs when he sees I'm finished talking and he leaves my room.

I've heard about people who completely change their rooms when they're faced with a traumatic experience. Sometimes it's better to view that room in a different light because things are different now but I hadn't touched a thing. Everything was in its exact spot as it was three weeks ago when I learned the news.

Sitting here alone leaves me to my thoughts.

If you killed yourself you'd go to hell not heaven...

But if you were killed you could be with your family.

What's the point of living if you can't feel anything anymore?

I should give myself pain... just to feel something...

If I can suffer some pain then maybe it won't hurt so much to think of them.

Why didn't you tell them to stay?

If you told dad the truth about Naal then he would have stayed to scold you...

But then again...

You'd be dead too if you went with them...