Unrivaled

Snowball Fight

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
~Herbert Hoover

Anna

It'd been almost four months since graduation. Since that day, Elsa and I snuck out with Finn to see Dom, Spencer, and Rey at least twice a week. It was weird having there be Laroches and Starks in a confined space without any of us trying to kill each other. Rey and I didn't necessarily speak to each other, but we were cordial.

Spencer and Elsa led the conversations with Finn or Rey jumping to join in. Dom and I sat in conservative silence, listening and watching our packs interact. While we didn't speak much if at all, the two of us would share looks whenever we found something amusing or when Spencer or Elsa started explaining a story. Usually, Spencer exaggerated what happened, and Elsa gave us the correct sequence of events.

I would never say this out loud, but I was beginning to like the Starks, at least the three that I was meeting with. I especially liked Spencer. He seemed perfect for my sister, and she seemed perfect for him. I wasn't the only one who noticed either. I prayed that one day, our packs would get along for their sake because there was no going back for those two. Whatever happened with that kiss of theirs a few months ago, it changed them and their relationship.

God help everyone when Callie found out...

It was the middle of September, and Colorado's bizarre weather struck again. It was lightly snowing out, covering the previous snow we'd just had. I had a feeling this would be a long, snowy winter.

We were all bundled up in our coats, Caleb and Hunter leading the pack down the sidewalk. Josie, Elsa and I were in between them. Our parents remained at the compound dealing with business issues, so we were given the day off to have fun. We'd already been to Rocky Mountain National Park, where we shifted into wolves and gave some tourists a show. Riley jumped up on a car and hung his head in front of the windshield, tongue lolling out the side. It was funny until they tried to drive off with him still on top of the hood. He got a reprimanding from Caleb and Hunter, but I knew he had full intentions of doing it again. I knew that look on his face all too well.

We were walking across the small park in the middle of downtown Estes in search of a place to eat dinner when all of a sudden, a well-aimed snowball splattered onto Elsa's face. Stunned, she turned to look in the direction it came from to find Spencer with his hand over his mouth. Jack was a few feet in front of us on his knees, snowball in hand.

"I'm so sorry!" Spencer yelled, genuinely apologetic. "I was aiming for Jack, and he ducked. Please don't kill me!"

Hunter and Caleb both started towards the Stark Alpha, whose pack started gathering protectively around him. But Elsa threw out her hands, stopping her brothers. They looked down at her like she was crazy as she bent down and formed a perfect snowball. Spencer stepped forward and threw his arms out.

"I deserve this," he said. "Hit me with your best shot."

Elsa chucked the snowball at him, hitting him square in the neck. He started laughing as he complained about the coldness from it. But as he stood up, his face was greeted by another snowball.

"Oops?" Elsa said, a mischievous gleam in her eye. She silently challenged him to a snowball duel, and I wasn't letting her go in this by herself, so I stepped up beside her, forming a snowy weapon of my own. Dom sidled next to his brother, his eyes trained on me. But rather than appearing hard and stoic, I recognized the same mirth in his eyes his brother had.

I'm not sure who started it, but in the blink of an eye, an all-out snowball war broke out between our packs. We slowly moved in closer to each other, at least Elsa, Dom, Finn, Rey, Spencer, and I did. We'd broken off into small battle groups. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack, Brian, Lily, and Callie battling Hunter, Caleb, Riley, and Ember. Noah was defending Josilyn from the Wilson siblings, and the rest were lost from the blurs of them dodging snowballs.

For those brief five minutes, it appeared as if our packs had forgotten about the feud between us. In fact, from what I could tell, almost everyone was laughing, if not just having a fun competition and trying not to fall on our asses. But we weren't trying to kill each other, and that was a first.

A scream interrupted our fun, causing all of us to stop what we were doing. The first thing that registered with me was the out of control semi-truck. The second thing that registered with me was that it was careening directly towards Elsa and me. Someone yanked me out of the way while I screamed for my sister to move. In that split second, I lost sight of her as strong arms pulled me down to the ground with them.

My world momentarily went black, but when it cleared, I saw Spencer sitting on the ground across from me, cradling Elsa in his arms. She was alive but hardly unscathed with her mangled legs stretched out. Her eyes were clenched in pain as she tried not to cry.

A few feet away from me, I saw Caleb rolling over to assess the situation and Hunter sitting up in a daze, Josilyn by his side.

"Are you okay?" Dom's voice asked. I swiveled my head around to find it had been him who pulled me out of the way of certain death. All I could do was nod, shaken by the whole experience. My body didn't want to move as I struggled to sit up, but something was pinning me down.

"Dom let me go. I need to get to Elsa," I said, continuing to struggle.

"Anna, I can't move," he replied.

"What do you mean you can't move?"

"My back, I think it's broken. If I move-"

"You could die," I finished. As much as I ached to get to my sister, I knew that firstly, she was in good hands with Spencer, and secondly, I didn't want to kill Dom. I let my head fall onto his shoulder as I waited for someone to come to our aid.

Sirens sounded all around us. I could hear the murmur of conversations from both my pack and the Starks. I began to close my eyes when Dom's voice ordered, "Don't go to sleep. You hit your head pretty badly on a rock and probably have a bad concussion considering you were unconscious for about five minutes. Just stay awake until some medics arrive. Please."

But the urge was too strong, and I had no control as my eyelids fluttered shut.