*Book 1* Once In A Blue Moon *Completed*

Chapter 1

*Cliche as fuck until chapter 10ish ~ Don't say I didn't warn you*

It was midday. I was standing outside with my gaze fixed on the ground but I wasn't seeing anything. I knew there were people all around me. I knew they were throwing me dirty looks and blaming me. But I didn't care.

I was numb.

Physically.
Emotionally.
Mentally.

The only thing I was feeling was this empty space in my heart that hurt so much I didn't know how to stop it. I wanted to cry, scream, anything. But I couldn't. I felt like I was trapped in my own body, suffocating under my own emotions. It's been a week. A full week since the accident and my whole life changed.

My parents and I were going out Christmas shopping for all our friends and my older brother, Ryan. He was at his friend, Alcide's, house who was also the Alpha's son. The pack lived in a small town so everybody knew pretty much everybody. There wasn't one single person in this town that I didn't like. The majority of the town was like my extended family and all the kids were close, all the teenagers were close and same with the adults. We were on our way back from the shopping centre, the three of us singing along to a CD in the car when it happened. One minute we were laughing, singing 'Reach for the stars' by S Club 7, then the next, there was a loud screech, a scream and then a crash.

Sometimes at night I can still feel the motion of the car rolling over and over and hear my mother screaming. I saw glass and metal everywhere and felt pain all over my body. I blacked out when my head hit the car window whilst it was still rolling.

I woke up two days later in hospital with my brother at my bedside telling me it was all my fault that our parents were dead and that he no longer loved me and that he hated me. Not something an eight-year-old should hear from their brother who's a year and a half older than them. The only other people that came to see me for the next few days that I was in hospital was the Alpha and his wife. They told me what happened, that a car crashed into ours killing my dad instantly and when it finally stopped tumbling down the hill my mother was dead as well.

I was the only survivor.

I'm not sure about the people in the other car, no one ever heard anything about them. No one knew who they were, they just drove off leaving my parents and me to die. The Alpha told me that me and my brother would be moving in with him and some of the other pack members at the pack house. I didn't mind, I loved everyone in the pack. Once I was finally discharged and out of hospital and was at the pack house, the first thing I noticed was how no one spoke to me. I went up to my room and never left till the day of the funeral. Three times a day, every day our Luna (Alphas wife) would come into my room and give me food and ask if I wanted anything. I just shook my head. My father was the beta of the pack so everyone blamed me for his death, but I don't know why.

One week since both my parents died and one week since I've spoken even one word. I heard our Luna say at one point that she was worried about me saying it isn't normal for an eight-year-old to be like this, so depressed and empty, but who can blame me? My parents died and everyone blamed me.

I was stood looking at their gravestones, feeling nothing, doing nothing. After a while I noticed that everybody left and it was just me stood there in my knee length black dress with my blonde hair tied up, holding two white roses. I fell onto my knees in between their graves and read them,

'Caroline Harris
Beloved wife, mother and friend
You will be missed
1972-2002'

'Nicholas Harris
Beloved husband, father and friend
We will never forget you
1970-2002'

I placed a rose on each of their graves and looked down at the floor. I felt something warm drop on my hand and noticed it was a tear drop. I felt my cheeks and they were wet. I was crying. I sat there, shoulders suddenly shaking, tears streaming down my face, sobs wreaking my body for god knows how long, letting my emotions take over. As if mother nature knew my mood it suddenly started spitting and gradually rained heavier. I looked over at my mother's grave and then my fathers and spoke the first words since I last saw them,

"I'm so sorry. I don't understand what's going on. Maybe I'm too young to understand, Daddy you always said I was so young and I was your baby. I'm just a baby I don't understand why you won't come home! I need you guys! Everyone blames me for what happened and I don't even know what did happen! I miss you guys so much. Christmas is in two weeks; how will I get through it without you? You two, me and Ryan. That's how it's meant to be. Ryan and I would come in to your room at six in the morning to wake you up, we'd all go downstairs and open the presents together, have breakfast together, spend the whole day together! How can we do that if you're in here? I don't want to spend the day with anyone else but you guys but I can't because you left me! Why did you leave me? I NEED YOU!" I shouted. 

By now the rain was pouring so heavy it was difficult to see that far ahead of you. I was breaking down. I felt like there was nothing left of me. An eight-year-old shouldn't feel like this. I curled up in a tight ball crying because it was the only thing I knew how to do. The only thing I could cope with. The only thing that made sense to me.

I could feel all the mud, grass and leaves getting in my long blonde hair and dress but I didn't care. The rain was making me even colder than what I was but I was so numb inside I could barely feel it. At some point I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was in Alphas arms. He was carrying me back to the car as it was night time.

The next few weeks were painful. Ryan never spoke to me; nobody ever spoke to me. Jess, who was my best friend ignored me and left the room when I entered. School was the same. People would shoot me dirty looks, call me mean names, trip me up, steal my lunch. One day after school I went home to find someone cut up the majority of my clothes so me and the Luna had to go out and buy some more. I still didn't say a word to anyone except for Luna and Alpha. It was like they were now my parents because I didn't have anyone else.