No Matter What You Do, Stick With The Pack

Chapter 8

A/N~ Okay, real quick. Thank you, whoever you are, for reading No Matter What You Do, Stick with the Pack. You are a huge help in my effort to to get published someday. After this goes through some Beta readers and editing, I am going to offer it as a free ebook on Smashwords, so if it's not to much trouble please give me your honest feedback, tell me what you want in this story. After you're done, visit http://beccalathorn.weebly.com/thank-you-with-your-help-with-stick-with-the-pack.html to get a treat from yours truly! Again, thank you for your help! 

~Becca.

            After that day, it took me a while to get out of bed again. I can’t remember for the life of me how many days I spent in bed, it all seemed to blur together. I think I remember once someone telling me it was around a week. And it could have been a number of things, the shock of almost being killed, the shock of what Maxie said, the increasing amount of notes and phone calls I’d been getting from Northern. I honest to God couldn’t close my eyes anymore. Every time I did, I saw myself falling, being dragged down by Felix and Northern, and there at the top Nathan and Maxie stood, watching, my family yelling at me about how I should be able to get back up, and Hector’s and Scuff’s backs turned.

            In those few days, my family gave me a wide range of reactions. Jack would sometimes hover at the edge of my door frame, peeking in just to see if the rabid beast was still alive. Mom would come in and act all loving but she would try to coax answers out of me. Jeff would come in and pour out his heart, saying about how he was at his rope’s end and about how he missed the good old days, how I could easily fix that. Dad would just come in and yell at me, saying that my “acting out for attention” was getting old and that I needed to grow up. And Derek, well, he did what any loving family member would have done, he took care of me. He made me breakfast, lunch and dinner, he’d come up and check on me once in a while. If Jeff Mom or Dad were spending too much time in my room, he’d shoo them away. He’d even muster up a hug, a squeeze on the shoulder, a few words of encouragement.

            I didn’t say a word to them the entire time, but sometimes I could manage to smile for Derek.

            At night, it wasn’t much different. Same song, different verse. Hector would come, being so apologetic about Felix. Nathan would come, being so apologetic about Maxie. Maxie never came. And I didn’t really care about anything that Hector and Nathan had to say. They both had all the chance in the world to stop this, they didn’t. If they cared, they wouldn’t just stand by while someone was hurting me. One night, though, Scuff snuck away from the pack, came up to my room, and snuggled with me. He told me that I was a good girl, that I was the best big sister in the world, that he loved me. And when he did that, I held him close and made him promises I couldn’t keep. I told him that I’d protect him, that I’d take him away from here, that I’d provide for him. I told him that I loved him enough for a family of ten, and that someday he’d have a real life.

            Day by day, more and more I’d regain my will. The first night, I looked in a mirror and saw someone who wasn’t even alive, completely hollow inside. Sometime had passed and progressively I’d see myself coming back to life, a spark returning to my lifeless eyes. And I saw something growing, something powerful, something feral. I realized I didn’t need to lean on Maxie, I didn’t need to lean on anyone. I was a Lycan’s Bride damnit, more powerful than any other werewolf on the planet. And if anyone thought they could fuck with me, they had another thing coming.

            After spending that week in bed (which somehow felt a lot longer and shorter at the same time…) I went back to my general piss off attitude. With the exception of Derek and Scuff, I pretty much blew off and ignored them. I spent my days in the music room with Mr. C and James, at home I would lock myself in my room, drawing deeper and deeper into an isolation that I could feel was shaping me into someone less then nice.