Scorched (A Werewolf/Human Imprint Story)

Chapter One ~It's Happening~

I knew it would happen one day. One day my mother would get tired of putting up with my dad’s drunken shit and leave. I just never thought that the reason we’d have to leave was because she killed him, and the cops were after her. I climbed into the front seat of my mom’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and tried to remember what my father had done to deserve this in the first place. I guess once someone’s gone you realize that the good times outweigh their faults.

Good times.

Playing football in the backyard. Walking for an hour just to get to a spot he said had good fishing. Him teaching me how to fight, teaching me everything I know now. I was grateful for what he did for me. And I was truly going to miss him.

I realized I was crying and frowned at myself. I was letting myself get soft. I needed to stop thinking about the past. What’s done is done.

But I couldn’t stop myself from wondering… Was it really the right thing to do?

My mom finally got into the drivers seat and sighed heavily. This whole thing was taking on a toll on her and I knew it.

I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be alright mom. Let’s just get out of here.”

She nodded and smiled at me. “What would I do without you, Ethan?”

I shrugged. “You’d pull all of your hair out an go crazy.”

She laughed and turned the key in the ignition. The car came to life without protest and she put it in drive.

Starting a new life was something totally unknown to me. I was used to my house, my bed, my friends, my town. I wasn’t prepared for a new experience, nor did I want one. I just wanted to be a normal teenage guy and not have to worry about running away like a fugitive. Not to mention I had just started to make a name for myself in Mercy Hills. At least three cheerleaders knew who I was and wanted a piece of me, and now I had to leave it all behind. It took me four years to build myself a rep. I knew that brooding wouldn’t help, and it would only make my mom feel guilty, but my “teen despair” got the best of me and my frown was unbreakable.

“Come on, Ethan. It won’t be so bad! You get to branch out and make new friends. Maybe you’ll even find your mate!” Her cheery voice nauseated me. I loved my mother, but she knew what it took for me to become popular back in Mercy Hills. Now I had to start all over.

“New friends. Yay.” I disregarded the remark about my mate. I knew that when I turned 18 I’d be able to find her, but she hasn’t shown up yet. Besides, if it took me my whole life to make a name for myself in the town I grew up in, it’d most likely take me centuries to find my mate. Luck had never been on my side before, why should it be now?

She rolled her eyes and opened the car door. We were at a gas station for directions to the address my mother procured from the real estate agent online. I honestly didn’t see why we need directions, I was perfectly capable of navigating it by myself, but my mom muttered something about men never asking for directions.

“I think I feel a change in the air.” She sniffed around happily. “Just something about this town.”

I looked out of the window and replied, “That’s probably just the fumes from the gas, mom.”

She chuckled and punched my arm. “I’ll be right back.”

I nodded and put my head back on the head rest. The town we were in was totally deserted. There were country looking farm houses and fields everywhere. They weren’t the flowery, happy kind either. They were the kind that you could go out into at night and dump a body and no one would know. I shuddered at that thought.

My mom came back to the car with words scribbled down on the same piece of paper with the address on it.

She held it up in front of my face as she started the car. “Directions. That’s how a lady does it.”

I rolled my eyes and took the from her. Pass the field. Take a left at the big tree. Yield to the cow crossing sign. “What the hell is this?” These were the vaguest directions I’ve ever seen.

“Language!” She swatted my arm. “The man was busy. I couldn’t keep up with everything he said so I abbreviated!”

I laughed at her idea of “abbreviating”. We rode around for an hour, passing every field, every big ass tree and yielding to every cow crossing sign.

Finally my mom broke down and pulled into another store. The sign above it said, “Good Old Fashioned Store”.

Something pulled inside me. It nagged at my core and my inner wolf stirred. My mom was half out of the car when I grabbed her and pulled her back in. “I’ll go in mom.”

She looked at me suspiciously.

I got out of the car and walked inside. That feeling tugged at me again, and I felt myself eager to see what was waiting inside of the store. It didn’t feel dangerous, just…Different.

I opened the door and looked around. It seemed pretty deserted. My eyes drifted to the counter, and my heart was stopped.

Behind it, a girl leaned on the counter and smiled sweetly at me. “Can I help you with something?”

Her voice. Oh god her voice. It made my hair stand up on end. One thing was being chanted through my mind by my wolf,

My mate. My mate. My mate.