Wolf #2: The Beast Within [COMPLETED]

Chapter 7

Orion is in my house.

Past the guards. Past the Breccian patrols. He even slipped past me. How had I not sensed him until now?

The house is silent.

Dread fills me as I walk through my bedroom door. Deep down, I know what to expect—what I'm about to see. But still...I tiptoe around the house...like a mouse...checking each room.

He isn't anywhere upstairs. Steph's room has been left untouched.

The air smells stale.

The stairs crackle with every step I take. No one is in sight. It's as if he has evaporated into the shadows. I jerk away from every small, white sound. The fridge rumbles loudly. The wildlife outside coo and sound alarms. My heartbeat is deafening.

...I go downstairs and towards my parents' bedroom. My deafening heartbeat slows. The rumblings of the outside and kitchen fade away. A surprising calm washes over me...I should be terrified. I am terrified.

I brace myself for what is behind this door.

It creaks a hollow scream as I push it open with my foot. In the darkness, I see the outline of their bed. They lie across the mattress but there is no sound to them. I stand at the doorway. I take in their stillness.

They are dead.

The revelation passes through my mind and yet I race into the room and dive onto the bed. Rational thought has evacuated, and the only reasonable thing I can do is grab my father and my mother and shake them.

"Wake up," I whisper desperately. My mother's eyes are shut, and despite the blood and gashes...she seems so calm. Like she's asleep. "Por favor, Mamá...Mom!"

I bow my head against the heavy weight of her corpse. Everything inside me crumbles. My body and mind become paralyzed with the admission that they're gone. They are never coming back. They aren't ever opening their eyes.

He killed them.

Orion took them away from me too.

Silence. Iphigenia growls inside me as she senses my chest tightening. Everything inside me tells me to scream. But she's a fortress against the emotions that batter both of us—the lone-surviving tree against a tsunami or lahar. Be quiet.

Soft sounds of tinkering music reach my ears in the absence of my sobs. He's still in the house.

Find him. She seethes.

My feet are sodden with the blood that pools on the carpet. Silence is no longer the sound that comes from me. Each step closer to him is like the sound of claws against wood. With every step, I become hunched and blackened. Insanity and Death curl my lip into a twisted, grotesque snarl.

The veins of my hands are purple and black. Rage inside me finally reflects the rot of me on the surface. I wrap my obsidian fingers around the ceremonial blade.

He sits at Steph's piano. Those same hands that just stole my parents' lives now glide over the keys as he plays a soft, joyous song. The ivory keys are smeared in blood, the ebony keys sound flat and malign against his touch. He knows I'm standing behind him. He continues to play without a care in the world.

I lift my hand. He needs to die. I need to slit his throat, but I can't. I freeze. Suddenly, Iphigenia's will to bury this athame deep into his chest ceases. For some reason, she needs him alive. She's overcome by reason but I'm not. She screams at me to stop. I can't. I'm too far gone.