I Am A Monster

I Am A Monster : Chapter 62

Chapter 62

I stare after her, numb again, disbelieving.

We're all going to die, I think hopelessly.

No, says Alexa fiercely, her voice thick with tears. Not--not yet...

Alexa, I think to myself. I love you like a sister.

It's not the end! she chokes.

It is.

She pauses. I never thought I'd have to--but you don't seem to need me anymore, so I might as well--you know, go...

"Alexa!" I scream aloud, sinking to my knees, ignoring the mud splashing onto my jeans as it begins to rain again. My scream is desperate, high-pitched, full of misery and pain and hopelessness.

Hopelessness. I've never known hopelessness before--where I don't care about anything anymore. I thought I knew it, but I was wrong. I know I'm going to die. I'm never, ever going to regain hope....

I scream. My head feels like it's going to burst; all of the colors I see are woven into a murky brown. I clutch my head, shrieking in pain, wanting it all to end--

And it does. I open my eyes and see a form shimmer in front of me. It's a girl, with vaguely familiar strawberry blond hair, a tan face, plush lips, and hazel, almond-shaped eyes. She's wearing a leather jacket, dark, ripped jeans, and combat boots.

"Bree," she says, acknowledging me, the corners of her mouth twisting upwards into a weak half-smile.

"Alexa?" I breathe. "You're really--how are you here...?"

"I came to comfort you. We're two separate people now, Bree."

"What?" I gasp.

At the worst moment, the reality all comes crashing down, and I realize that Alexa was helping me with some of the burden.

It's too much. My eyes fill with tears, but they don't spill over. I sob, and the sound is like a wounded animal, hurt and desperate and lonely. The only difference is that the animal would be hurt on the outside, but I'm hurt on the inside, the pain stabbing me in the heart with short, jerky thrusts, digging so deeply into me that the sound that comes out of my mouth expresses the deepest kind of pain: internal pain.

"Bree!" Alexa rushes forward, her hands on my heart, thinking I'm dying.

Maybe I am. I don't know.

I don't care.

The tears spill over. I let them fall onto the sleeves of Alexa's fashionable leather jacket, burying my head into her shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. I know my eyes are red and puffy, I know my hair is all over the place, I know that I look a complete mess....

I don't care.

I don't care, I don't care, I don't care.

"I don't care!" I scream, wrenching myself from Alexa's arms. "I don't care if I die, I don't care..." I leap to my feet, brushing my tears away furiously. "I'M GOING AFTER DANIELLE!"

"BREE--NO!" Alexa roars, but too late--I've already snapped.

In my wolf form, my emotions are sort of muffled. Finally. When I'm--eighteen--yes--my wolf self is finally becoming more wolfish. It's normally supposed to happen at sixteen, but there's supposed to be a ritual or something like that so that it doesn't disappear. If the ritual fails to pass by the time I'm seventeen, the wolf senses will fade and reappear halfway into the seventeenth year or later--the latest recorded is nineteen.

My instincts take over. My human mind is still there, but muddled and diluted and already numb with pain and suffering, too weak to put up a fight as my wolf self attacks a wolf on the way to find Danielle. I'm a brown wolf this time; for once, my wolf self chose.

My heartbeat pounds against my chest in a frantic tap dance as my paws thrum against the cold, soft soil. My paws seem to make a beat against the earth: I-don't-care, I-don't-care, I-don't-care.

I don't care. I don't care anymore. Caring is for people who like to have emotions.

I don't think I want to have anything anymore.

It all leads to pain. To suffering. To the only things I've known for two years.

The thoughts enter, and then my wolf self is the one being pushed into the dusty, cobwebbed corner of my brain, in the "save for later" file. I trip over a tree root, do a three sixty, and land on my side, unwilling to get up, to move, to live.

These strange episodes of no hope are going to kill me, I think grumpily.

"BREE!" I hear Alexa scream. "Come back! Bree!"

She's shouting herself hoarse over me, and I'm lying on my side, basking in the warm sunlight, ignoring my ribs pressed up against the cold, soft sand.

I don't care.

In the distance, I hear the sound of hundreds of vampires charging. I look up, my lids lifting, and see Danielle in the lead. Her expression is filled with four expressions: Indecision, pain, regret, and sorrow.

I don't care anymore.

Danielle sees me lying on the ground. In that half second, I morph, and her eyes widen with realization as it hits her who the wolf was lying unmoving in the snow. I roll over on my back, not looking at her anymore, just at the gray sky.

I don't care.

She swerves towards me, an entire army of vampires behind her, and unsheathes her dry ice blade, dismounting off of the white stallion she's riding, walking slowly forwards, the blade extended, her hand shaking slightly.

I close my eyes. I don't care.

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