The Broken Wolf

Chapter One

Natalie

Chapter One

School was finished, I stared at the clock and regretted not going today, but Kathy needed someone to come home to. Even if it was a grungy teenage girl with uncombed hair who stank of old food and hadn’t even dressed out of her pyjamas.
I looked at the bowl of cereal that I hadn’t touched, I had cleaned the lounge and my sisters room, mopped the floors, washed dishes. I knew it was for nothing because tomorrow when Kathy wakes up she will remember what happened the day before, she will take her pills or drugs or whatever gives her a high and trash the house we live in, the house of our parents.
There was a knock on the door, I got up and slowly went to open it.
I screamed as I saw my sister.
‘Kathy!’ I yelled, looking horrified at the blood spewed across her face.
‘I’m fine.’ She lied, there was ruby drips inside her yellow hair and her lips were split and bruised, she limped to one of the couches and threw herself down, I ran to the sink to get a cloth with some water.
‘Natalie… you don’t have to do anything…’
‘Katherine White, you may the lousiest bitch on this planet with no self-confidence or regrets but you are still my sister and I love you, and I don’t want you to die.’
I sat down next to her and started to wipe the blood from her forehead.
‘Who was it?’ I asked.
‘Natalie, you mustn’t…’
‘Was it from the other pack? Again? What are they doing to you? Oh, Kathy, please talk to me!’
‘Natalie… I was just, nothing happened… I fell. Down.’
‘Stop lying to me!’ I yelled at her, trying to block the blood flow from one of her wounds.
‘Nat, go to sleep, tell me why you aren’t at school…’ She winced in pain as I started to wipe off more blood.
‘We have to get to the pack doctor.’ I told her, taking her hand.
She grudgingly went with me down the road to the wooden packhouse. I knocked on the door as hard as I could, Nathan, the Alpha’s son opened up.
‘Natalie, what happened here?’ He asked, looking my sister up and down.
‘I’ve been trying to ask her, she won’t open up.’
Nathan looked behind him to a boy on a couch, ‘Larry, take Katherine to the doctor.’
The boy took Kathy from my arms and I watched in sadness as she struggled up the stairs.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I started to cry, ‘she refuses to live here and I have to stay by my sister, Nathan, she’s going to be killed, they’re going to murder her one day, Nathan and I’m going to be all alone and…’
Nathan pulled me into his arms and rubbed my back while I cried on his shoulder.
‘You’ll never be alone, Natalie.’
‘I will and it’s her fault, she split herself from the pack, she’s dying, Nathan, she needs peace and she’s not getting it by doing this to herself every day!’
‘Come inside, Natalie, have some dinner, you look starved.’
‘I feel starved.’

I sat in the kitchen and drank a cup of black coffee while Nathan microwaved some chicken.
‘You weren’t at school today, Nat.’ He said to me.
‘Someone has to make sure she doesn’t bleed to death when she falls onto the doorstep, and, I haven’t really been enjoying school lately.’
‘When was the last time you did something for yourself, Natalie?’ He asked.
I shrugged, ‘It isn’t about me.’
‘You need to start living again, Natalie, you’re sixteen, have you even shifted yet?’
I breathed. ‘No, Nathan, I have not shifted into a wolf, I’m not even in a wolf pack.’
Nathan sighed, walking up to me, ‘my father says your parents were trustworthy members of this pack.’
‘Were.’
‘The minute you turn seventeen, you’re in, Natalie, you will be part of this pack, I will be alpha then and you and your sister will be safe.’
‘Katherine will never come back to this pack, not after what Alyssa did.’
‘She loves you, Natalie, no matter how much she hurts you, she does, really. She would never deny you the freedom you deserve.’
‘Will things ever go back to normal, Nathan, when my parents were alive, Katherine was sober?’
‘They will be normal again, Katherine, I promise.’
He came and sat next to me, I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to remember the days when I was in the pack and I was happy, Nathan and I would play in the field outside the packhouse, eat lunch together, talk about the days we would take our parents places in the pack, I was to become Second Beta and he Alpha, it would’ve been perfect.

We sat there together for fifteen minutes before I heard my sister calling my name, I could tell she wanted to get out of the house as fast as possible.

I hugged Nathan goodbye.
‘You will be at school tomorrow, Natalie, or I will send someone to get you.’
He leant closer to my ear, ‘I’ll ask my father to send a watcher to see after your sister.’
I breathed in relief, ‘Thank you.’
‘Natalie! Come!’ I heard my sister.
‘Goodbye, Nathan.’

Katherine and I sat together inside the lounge.
‘You will be at school tomorrow, right, Natalie?’
I nodded.
‘Best you shower and make your hair pretty then, maybe do your homework.’
‘I did my homework, Kathy, I always do my homework.’
‘Sorry.’
I looked at her, our conversations usually went something like this, awkward pauses between every question.
‘I’m sorry about today, Natalie, I really am, but please, don’t take me back to that place, never again, please.’
‘I had to, Kathy.’
She wrung her hands together anxiously, ‘I have to go now, to sleep.’
‘You’re going to them again, tomorrow? Aren’t you, Kathy?’
She hung her head, ‘I’m so, so, sorry. Natalie, I am.’
‘If you were sorry you would stop hurting me like this!’ I screamed, standing up.
She shook her head, ‘I don’t ever want to hurt you, I would never hurt you like Alyson hurt us.’
‘Get over Alyson! Alyson is dead! She’s gone! Let her die, Katherine! Forget her!’
‘I will never forget.’