Chapter 25

Halsey fought back tears as she drove from Billburry, not wanting her daughter, Aria, to see her cry, heartbroken that the one she thought she'd finally receive her happily ever after with had moved on with someone else.

She wanted to be very mad at Alpha Brentwood, but she blamed herself for being the one to cause him to move on after she betrayed him in the most cold-hearted way.

But still, she questions if he ever truly loved her, for it only took him a month to get over her with someone else.

Halsey doesn't believe she can ever love a man like she does Alpha Brentwood and sees herself being single for the rest of her life without him.

As Halsey is about to approach the sign that says, 'leaving Billburry,' her eyes widen to see Brandon's car blocking the road while he leans against it with his hands folded, waiting for her.

Brandon unfolded his arms and stood straight, giving an evil smile when he saw Halsey behind the wheel of her car.

Halsey sat frozen by fear within the seat as Brandon walked towards her.

"Open the door," Brandon commanded her as he now stood at her car.

Terrified of him, Halsey quickly opened the door.

"You think you can run away from me, you whore?" cursed Brandon, dragging her by her hair from the car.

Halsey cried out as he did. Brandon pulled her to the ground.

Aria screamed in the back seat at her father to stop as he was kicking her mom repeatedly onto the ground.

Aria ran out of the car to push her dad away from her mother in an attempt to stop him. Angrily, Brandon shoved her away. She landed on the ground, hitting her head and becoming unconscious.

The sight of her daughter now lying on the floor before her, unconscious. Halsey is taken over by anger.

"Look what you made me do!" Brandon reached down to pull her from the ground by her hair again, but as he was lowering his body to do so. In full rage, Halsey strikes him in the face. Her eyes widened when she saw his face slash into two, and soon he collapsed, dead.

Frightened, Halsey looked down at the hand she struck him with to see claws emerging from her fingers.

Scared, she started flashing her hand for the claw to go away. As the claw disappeared, she picked up Aria and got into her car. She hit Brandon's car out of the way, fleeing from the town before a cop or anyone found out that she killed him.

Driving for hours, Halsey came to a stop in a town named Flinstone that's way larger than her former town, Billbury. She believed it would be better to stay there because, in a large town, people are less likely to notice you compared to a small town.

After leaving her car in the parking lot, she took her bag and carried Aria, who had just woken up three hours after being unconscious and was now sleeping again. She went into a small motel to pay for a room.

She placed Aria down as she got to her room, put the bags on the floor, and locked herself in the bathroom.

She held her hand in front of her, which had once possessed claws, and stared at it. She tries to make the claws come out again by flashing them, but it doesn't. Suddenly, she remembers how the claws had first emerged from her hand, recalling Brandon shoving Aria onto the ground; the claw quickly came from beneath her finger, and her body flinched at the sight of it. She touched them, feeling how hard and sharp they were.

In the mirror, Halsey glimpsed her dark eyes, now a bright yellow, and they looked more animal-like than human.

"What am I?" She gets closer to the mirror, observing them.

Halsey knew something wasn't right about her for healing faster than a regular human does, but now she has claws and beast-like eyes. She wonders if she was human at all or something else; she has yet to find out.

"Mommy," she heard her daughter calling her.

She calmed down, looking normal again, and went to her daughter.

Her daughter had a terrible dream that her father was kicking her again.

"He'll never hurt us again." Halsey hugged her tightly in her arms.

"No one can harm us," Halsey thought angrily, and in a mirror across the room, she saw her eyes glowing back into the strange golden form.