TWENTY SEVEN

                                    

                                          
Roxy was awake before daybreak. Nightmares had plagued her sleep. A large black wolf, ragged and bony with one eye had tormented her. She'd been standing in the backyard again. The rogue wolf had charged at her, teeth bared and claws elongated. It'd flown through the air while her feet had been stuck in quicksand. Then the atmosphere had quivered and instead of a rogue launching itself at her, it was Isaac. Blood spurted as his razor claws sliced her shoulder like paper. At first she didn't feel it. Then a burning sensation she'd never felt before ravaged her shoulder as if someone had doused her in petrol and lit a match. Blood had gushed, poured like a waterfall. Deep crimson had pooled around her feet.
'Isaac.' Her voice sounded like she was underwater. Then she'd realised the gargling was coming from the blood pouring from her mouth. 'Isaac, what have you done to me?'
The cool breeze made Roxy shiver from where she sat on the balcony, chilling her skin still damp with sweat. The faces of her amethyst bracelet twinkled beneath the fading moonlight. Not that she was sure why she continued to wear it, she doubted Levi wanted to reconcile their friendship anytime soon. Blueblood. He'd never called her that before, never showed his resentment towards more "privileged" werewolves. Was she really such a horrible friend she hadn't noticed him struggling with life as a lone wolf? 
With the land below asleep, blanketed by the moonlight, Roxy's thoughts continued spiralling. In one of the paddocks the horses grazed in a herd, taking the cooler weather to fill their hungry bellies. In the daytime they would escape the heat by dozing beneath the shades of the trees. Perhaps it was the lack of decent sleep, or feeling like she was the only werewolf in the world. Whatever the reason, the memories of her past which she always tried so hard to repress suddenly roared to the surface, refusing to be ignored any longer. 
After learning of the tragic ways in how Isaac and Kayla had lost their parents, it had made her think of her own parents. If they were alive or dead, she didn't know. The saddest part was she wasn't sure if it would affect her. Both of her parents were strangers of her past – fleeting figures. To this day she could remember awakening and coming downstairs to find total chaos the morning her father had disappeared. Trackers and warriors had ran left, right and centre. There were snippets of conversations of murder and kidnapping. Their mother was nowhere to be seen, instead of staying home to comfort her scared daughters, she'd left them without a word to help the warriors track down their father. Then Susan, the sweet elder who'd be the one to take the two sisters in while their mother joined the pack's search part for weeks, had put a slightly wrinkled and warm hand on their shoulders.
Susan tried her best to distract her and Cleo with baking, games and gardening which would often leave the poor elder snoring loudly in the armchair. But no matter how hard Susan tried, she could never fully distract the girls from wondering where their parents had gone. Then, after fleeting returns, their mother came home permanently. It was only a few days after her mother's return that Roxy missed Susan's cheeriness immensely. Their mother would barely acknowledge them, closed up in her bedroom with the blinds drawn while her daughters scoured bare shelves to fill their rumbling tummies. Roxy was never really sure why their mother returned. Horribly, she thought life would've been easier if she never had.
A surge of anger coursed through her, a flame of heartbroken betrayal. When she had her own children, she would never be selfish like their mother had been. Instead, she would shower them in never-ending love, never allowing them to doubt if they were cared for.
A frown filled her face when she pulled herself from her thoughts to watch one of the horses' heads raise, its ears pricked in alert. Suddenly, it bolted, sweeping up the rest of the herd before they all galloped off into the distance in a sound of thunder. Something had spooked them. When Roxy tore her eyes away from the retreating horses she looked back to the centre of the paddock, gasping at a silhouette.