Stranger Yet

Chapter 15: Acceptance

To anyone actually reading this piece of my heart and soul here, thank you! I hope you continue to read it, and if you see any mistakes (Changes in tenses and or missing words, etc.) please feel free to comment and let me know. I might not fix it right away, but I do appreciate the help! <3 Feedback is always welcome!

Love, Jaelynn Lyndsy.

Chapter 15

All of Saturday, Ayra tried to ignore the desire to shift. She'd lived 18 years unable to be anything but human (or so she had thought) so why couldn't she handle staying one for even just a few days?

She spent the day lazing around, doing homework, and pining for a run. Her parents had left for work early that day, and were both scheduled to work until after 9pm, leaving the house all to Ayra. Ayra usually loved being home alone, but the fact that she was fighting with the wild creature inside of her made being alone exhausting. She curbed the desire by watching musicals and eating mass amounts of snacks.

However, by 7:30pm she had done all of her homework, cleaned her room, and had taken a long luxurious bubble bath, as well as watched all of the best musicals. She had had to lower her own standards (for the sake of numbing her own mind) to include the Lizzie Mcguire movie, for lack of better options. "HEY NOW, HEY NOW! THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF!" She bellowed out, while laying with her legs over the top of the couch, and her head hanging off the edge of the seat. As the movie came to its corny end, Ayra put her full body back onto the couch cushions and stared up at the ceiling. She had run out of ideas to consume her brain and finally decided to face her own thoughts.

She had (mostly) accepted the truth about her existence. She was a werewolf. More than that, she wasn't just any werewolf. She was now certain that she wasn't possessed by Em. She was instead almost entirely convinced that she herself was  Emmaleine Dire and that she, as a small child, had watched as her whole family was slaughtered. If she was Em, and she was almost completely convinced that she was, then she knew that she had suppressed most of her memories and that only a fragment of them had resurfaced. She knew the only way to truly understand her heritage was to dig into her own memories and her past. She needed to know with absolute certainty that it was true before figuring out what exactly it meant for her.

Mer's journal was a good place to start, but Ayra wasn't quite ready to read the journal of her own, long forgotten, dead sister. It would make it all way too real, too fast, and as much as she wanted to know, she also didn't want to know. Which was why she had decided to give herself a deadline. She would read the journal by Tuesday night. She would give herself two days to prepare before she delved into the painfulness of it all.

She also couldn't stop thinking about the pig that had done so much to insult her in such a short amount of time. The thought of him made her want to run even more. Partly, she wanted to run because he pissed her off so bad, but another part of her wanted to run to him, which only made her more pissed at him, as well as at herself. By 8:00pm she lost the internal battle. She would run, but ONLY for an hour.

She quickly tidied up the living room, scooping up the empty chip bags and candy wrappers, grabbed a bag to put her clothes in, and locked up the house, before walking, as inconspicuously as possible, to the edge of the forest. She went in far enough to hide herself from passerby's, then she stripped down to nothing and put the clothes in the bag. She hung the bag on the tallest branch she could reach, out of sight of the road.

Finally, she was ready to shift. The pain was minimal and as soon as her four paws connected with the forest floor, she was off in a happy sprint, springing through the forest, her heart bursting with cheer. Ayra felt free. She felt happy.

Her wolf agreed wholeheartedly.

Let's go to him!

Ayra felt her spirits lift at the thought, and she started sprinting in the direction of 'him', her wolf thrilled at the idea of his delectable scent and strong aura. Just as quickly as she'd started in the direction, she realized what she was doing and stopped.

Absolutely not! What are you even thinking?! 

Ayra turned and sprinted towards the stream instead. Her wolf was less excited and growled lowly to express her discontent at Ayra's decision. However, it didn't take long for her wolf to get over it, as she lost herself in the pleasant feeling of her muscles stretching and contracting with each leap.

It was the first time since being kidnapped that she had allowed herself to shift and it felt marvelous. She decided that no matter how much she hated being this different, she would never hold herself back from experiencing that kind of joy again. Not for anyone.

An hour passed in no time. Before she knew it, the sun was on the horizon, and she reluctantly headed for the edge of the forest once more. Walking, she was less than 5 minutes away from her bag when she caught wind of something that made her hair stand on end. There was another wolf nearby, and she knew immediately that it wasn't one of Tiernan's packmates.

Not wanting another incident, Ayra began to sprint towards her bag. She hoped the wind wouldn't change direction and alert the intruder to her presence, as she shifted into her human form and dressed herself.

She wasted no time in heading home.

Once she was safely back in her house, she locked the door behind her and sat against the wall panting. Something wasn't right. She shouldn't have ran away, and she knew it, but she couldn't handle any more scuffles. She didn't want to worry her parents again. They'd been through enough already without her making matters worse. But deep in her heart, she knew that she had already made matters worse by leaving such an easy trail behind her.

What if they followed her all the way home? What if she had made her entire family a target to an entirely new set of wolves?

Ayra spent the better part of an hour worrying about her parents. It took them much longer than usual to come home. What if the wolves had followed them instead? What if they were in danger? She knew she was being dramatic, but she couldn't stop until they pulled into the driveway. She watched as her mother stepped out of her car and started pulling bags from the trunk. She opened the door for her mom and tried not to look worried or paranoid as she walked outside to help gather the groceries.

"Where's dad?"

"The train got delayed. He'll be staying in a hotel tonight. Did you already eat dinner?"

Ayra nodded, pulled out the last of the groceries, and waited for her mom to close the trunk and head inside before heading into the house herself.

That night, she kept waking up to check outside of her house.

She wondered what it meant for an outsider, besides herself, to be in the forest. She considered reaching out to Tiernan about it but thought better of it. She didn't want to cause more friction between them by admitting she had come back into the forest.

She spent all of the next day locked indoors. Ashley tried to call her, but Ayra couldn't bring herself to hold a conversation, and redirected all of the calls. Ashley texted, but she had a hard time focusing on her texts, as well. She felt guilty, so after about four hours of ignoring her, she responded to let Ashley know that she wasn't feeling well and would talk to her at school. Ashley responded with a simple "Ok. C U then."  She couldn't focus on anything, especially not when the smell of the intruder was stronger than the night before, like it was right outside of her house. There was a mingling of odors, like more than one wolf had investigated her home.

On Monday, she didn't go out to the bus stop until she could see the bus from the living room window.

As she made the short walk to the bus, she noticed how fresh the scent was- musky, earthy, and dirty- on her doorstep. she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, her skin breaking out in goosebumps.

Something most definitely was not right. Unsure of what else she should do, she considered, once again, reaching out to Tiernan. Friction or no friction, anything was better than her family being put in danger by a rival pack.

On her way to school, Ayra made up her mind.

She needed to tell Tiernan about the trespassers, regardless of the consequences.