Blood

Chapter Fourteen: Past Greif

/// Warning ///
This chapter contains content relating to suicide and drug use. If this is a trigger please skip. In bold and using /// I've marked where the end is.

As the stench of angry wolves approaches, everyone is running about in a panic. The safe house too small for us all, sacrifices will need to be made. As I run behind my mother to a secondary safe house I push her along, making sure she doesn't fall behind, nor fall down. I almost miss it, that he stops behind us. Distracting mother from him I push her into the safe house. Then I turn back. I can't let him die because he's stoped for some reason.

I'm almost to him as I see what I'd feared. My father is still human, and a wolf is stalking him. The moment goes faster than I'd thought possible. As he is shifting the other wolf pounces, making quick work of his neck. The snap of his neck resonating in my ears. Faster than I'd thought possible, I'm shifted. I lunge at the wolf, whose unaware of me. I jump onto his back, and his knees give out. He's by no means a large wolf, much smaller than myself. I bite down on the back of his spine. He doesn't deserve a slow death.

The crunch of his spine is satisfying. Bone chilling, but satisfying. As his hind legs lose their connection to the brain they crumble to the ground, laying limp and useless. Paralyzing a wolf is no easy task. Not something I'd thought myself capable of in fact. The wound is also one that the healing of a wolf cannot overcome. He starts to attempt and crawl away from me, pulling himself by his front paws. I swiftly break his front legs, that would heal in time, but I don't plan on leaving him alive for that long.

I start slowly bleeding the poor wolf out. Maybe he doesn't deserve this torture, but my wolf holds near complete control, and she wants blood. It's only when I hear more wolves approaching that I grab his jugular in my jaws and squeeze the life out of him. His eyes look thankful, like he'd have rather died in that moment then had to slowly bleed to death.

Later my pack questions me. Why did I kill him? Because he deserved it. Why the torture? My wolf was in control. Why weren't you in the safe house? Because my father had not followed. They went on and on, demeaning my choice to kill the wolf. There were 15 casualties today, fewer than I'd thought possible with werewolves and battling. We'd come to a peaceful resolution with the attacker's. But, I was the only one questioned, because I was the only one to have killed one of our attackers.

The funeral is baren, few others caring about an omega's death. Nothing lost to the pack. But those here are the ones who knew him, the ones who cared as a friend or as family. They never connect the dots that I had seen my father's murder. They don't try and console me. That's reserved for his mate, my mother. She's being strong in the face of her mate's death. I was surprised that unlike most she hadn't died from the loss of the bond. How they explained it to me is that because they were both omega's the bond isn't as life threatening.

I wonder in the past months, now many times I've almost lost her. At first she was trying. Trying to keep to old routines. To keep up with old friends. To keep on pulling herself together.  But that didn't last. She let herself fall apart as I stood by helpless to put her back together. Nothing can ever change that she lost her mate. I may be her daughter but I'm only twelve years old, I can't begin to understand her pain.

I hear a chair fall over and in a split second I'm before her. With a note in her hand she has her eyes closed as her neck is left holding her up. I slash the rope, catching her as she falls. I wonder, as I hold her crying form, how would this have ended if this was one of my bad days?

I just hold her scared, as she quietly apologizes. I pry the note out of her hand and I read the scribbled words. The tear stains blurring some out. Sweet and simple, to the point, it is a written apology for how she is leaving the world. But I can't let go. I still need her, even though deep down I know I need to let her fade away. But this is too much, not this way. I can't let my own mother kill herself when I'm only in the other room

That night for the first time I self medicate. I know she knows I did it, but she never speaks on it. How do you condone drug use when you're suicidal and also not speaking out? So we stay silent. I won't let her die and she won't tell me I need to not.

My highs are high, leaving me happy, energetic, and ready to face anything. Then the lows hit, and I'm left drowning in my own self hate. Watching myself from the inside I start to wonder about some of the things I'm doing. And one day, I feel normal. Not on a high, not on a low, not having a strange need or craving. It's blissful.

I use that time of bliss to figure myself out. Through research, and the internet, I decide that I'm probably suffering from manic depression, which is commonly known as bipolar disease. But also there is something else. There are triggers. One second on a high, some things will flip the switch. Suddenly and unexpectedly I'll fall down again. I don't even need the internet to go figure that one out. Many of us wolves have experienced PTSD from battles and wars that are caused by both rouges and other packs. 

I don't know how, but I decide that at least I will address the PTSD. I'll condition myself. And I do. On the high's I escape for a while, but the lows, I medicate and keep to. When all else fails I numb myself though the use of pain killers. I know, somewhere inside of me, that I shouldn't. But I need it, I've craved the feeling from the first time.

A few months after mother's last suicide attempt I click. It just makes sense. I completely stop using whatever random drugs I can get ahold of and I look at my surroundings.

/// End of possibly triggering subjects ///

Mother is falling apart at the seams and I've stoped interacting with my pack mates. Wolves aren't lone creatures for a reason, we need the contact. So the first person I reconnect with is mother. It starts with little touches, hugs here and there, kisses to the cheek. I can see her improve, her wolf welcoming the attention.

But like all things in my life recently, it ends. She gets sick. Her mind is clear now, but her body is destroying itself. As I sit at her bedside I tell her useless little things. What I did, which friends I'm planing to see soon, the mundane of the packs dealings. But my mind isn't improving.

Crying at her bedside I say, "I can't take a mate mother. Watching you fall apart because of a foolish mate isn't something I can ever forget."

"Your mate is made for you Cas," she whispers back.

"He killed you because he thought he could protect you," I cry.

"He didn't kill me, he died protecting you. His daughter and most precious," she reasons with me. "And you'll be different Cas. Your wolf, it's not like that of your father's nor mine. Alpha Jeremiah has made sure that you've been properly nourished as the wolf you are. You may think it preposterous now but you aren't an omega, you aren't just any pack wolf, you're so much more than that."

"Blood is everything to wolves," I cry, my tears slowing finally. "All they will ever see is the daughter of omegas."

"Then you will just have to push that much harder. Cas, my dear white wolf, don't deny yourself your future," she insists.

"I can't," I say, whipping away my tears. "I can't sit by and be protected by a mate who's just going to die."

"Then it is up to you Cas," she pauses. "Casmoke, it is up to you to protect your mate."

My eyes snap open. The covers are thrown away from me and I'm drenched head to toe in sweat. My wolf reaches out for Zev, but I can't feel him. The calm lasts only a moment before my vision goes red and I'm throwing blood up all over the floor. As I struggle to breath the red fades out to black and I lose consciousness.

/// AN ///
This was a decent portion of Cas' past. As a note, I don't currently plan on going into more depth of this time period of her life, after this the "episodes" of the past will be either conversations with her mother as she's sick (which may or may not happen, haven't decided yet) or after her mother's death.

Edited. 1482 words.