I was awoken to the sound of my sister screetching at me to get up and start my daily chores, which if I were being honest with myself were everyones chores plus having to hunt to keep my large ungreatful pack afloat. I got up and looked in the small cracked mirror beside the mess of blankets I called my bed, though it more closely resembled a nest, and stared at my reflection. I looked like a skeleton or a zombie of some kind, for my skin was sunken in due to years of malnutrition and abuse. I was by no stretch of the imagination pretty but I liked my eyes, it seemed weird how I liked what made me an outcast but they always seemed bright no matter what and they marked me as different. My sister Ashley rapped again on my door griping at me to get up and cook. I sighed and got up not bothering to change from my ratted dress, for I had only one other outfit. I opened the door and plodded out of the closet that I called my room and got to work on the days chores. I did not bother to speak to anyone for I had been told all of my life that no one wanted to hear what I had to say. I had been allowed to go to school for the first few years of my life but when my teachers started to ask questions on why I was bruised I was taken out of it in 3rd grade and never returned. I am 17 now and I am jealous of all of the other kids my age who get to graduate and get on with their lives, while I am forced to stay here until I die and then they will be screwed because I do everything. But I will hardly be missed because no one cares for me, there is no sympathy for the beaten and broken girl who they see daily and never look at, let alone do something encouraging like a whispered word of thanks or a smile. I have tried to kill myself multiple times but at the last moment my wolf begged me not to, and seeing as though she had stayed with me and suffered with me I couldn't swallow the pills or drive the knife into my waiting veins. I owed my life to her, she kept me sane when my brother would beat me or when my father forced me to do things in his alpha manner that took away my will and forced me to be even more of his slave than I was now, a drone forced to do things she didn't want to. My wolf was a odd color, she was red. Red was supposed to be celebrated and usually the red wolf was the Alpha, Luna, or a medicine woman. I was far from special I was reminded as my father kicked me out of his way as I bent to retrieve the spoon I had dropped. I knew one day that he was going to touch me and that I would snap and try to kill him, but I knew the penalty for challenging the alpha. And that was death, immediate and smoothly. He would decapitate you before you could lunge. I turned back to the oats and bacon I was cooking and stirred them before cutting up fruits and serving them. I slid the bacon onto a plate and placed it and the oats, whitch I had poured into a bowl and sprinkledbrown sugar over, on the table in front of my abusers I was forced to call my family. They dug in and I desperately wanted to rip the food from their greedy fingers and devour it, but I knew that if I did so I would be severely beaten and punished, so badly that even with my werewolf speed healing it would take weeks to recover from. I slipped from the room before the promising smell of food could wrap around me even further and make my stomach ache even more. I went through the rest of my daily chores almost robotically. Sweeping floors , mending clothes, washing dishes, and doing usual pack chores that the ungreatful bastards should have to do for themselves.
'Steady now Iris' my wolf whispered, knowing that if I got angry I might pass out from the overexhertion. I took a few deep breaths and steadied myself internally.
'Good girl!' My wolf praised. I smiled to myself causing my cheeks to hurt, I hadn't smiled in a while. I decided to go hunting now and walked to the edge of the woods before disrobeing and shifting. My wolf greeted me as I shared her body, I ran as fast as I could without actually hurting myself. I felt free. I felt right. Till I heard the gunshot.
