Chapter 39 Cryptic Bullshit
ADRIANA
Training was extra extra stressful because it was like Hazel wasn’t in a good mood at all. She’d pushed us harder than usual. Longer runs. More drills. Harder sparring.
Whatever it was that Elijah was preparing the pack for, it was clearly getting closer and more serious. As soon as I got back to my room exhausted, I took a long hot shower and went straight to bed, the muscles in my legs feeling the burn the most. Every movement ached.
I’d just fallen asleep when I started to dream vividly.
I was floating in the clouds and for a moment, I genuinely wondered if I was dead. Was I? I was pretty sure that Hannah was somehow responsible if I was. Maybe she’d finally succeeded.
“You’re not dead.”
I screamed loudly and looked behind me in panic. It was a young girl. She had long silver hair that flowed past her feet and pooled on the clouds beneath her. Her eyes were very fierce and bright, glowing almost.
She looked familiar but I couldn’t exactly put my finger on where I’d seen her before.
Well, for one thing, I was grateful I wasn’t actually dead. That wouldn’t have been very nice at all.
That’s when it suddenly clicked in my mind.
“You’re—”
“Yara. Your wolf.”
I scoffed loudly, feeling the anger start to bubble dangerously in my chest like a pot about to boil over.
“What the hell do you want from me this time around?”
“I’m here to apologize to you.”
I burst out laughing bitterly. The sound echoed strangely in this cloud-world. Right now, I didn’t know who was my greatest enemy. Hannah or my very own wolf who was supposed to protect me but never showed up when I needed her.
“Apologize? What exactly could it be that you did wrong for you to feel the need to apologize to a mere human like me? What? Could it be the disappearing stunt you pulled for all those years only to appear one random night and put me through the most excruciating pain imaginable with no explanation whatsoever, under the guise of shifting and then disappear again immediately after? Is that what you want to apologize for?”
No, I was sure that she hated me the most out of everyone. She had put me through hell without doing anything in particular to help me. It was so annoying and heartbreaking because she had never been there when I actually needed her most. Never.
She only came out when she had some foolish cryptic thing to say to me and then vanished into thin air.
“And that’s exactly why I need to apologize to you. There are certain things you can’t understand right now—”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, just shut up! Stop it with all the mystery and the secrets and everything!” I didn’t know when I started yelling. “Just stop it! I’ve had enough of it all. That’s what you said the last time too, that I won’t be able to understand and you proceeded to disappear right after, leaving me in the worst pain of my life that I almost clawed my own eyes out. So please tell me what exactly it is that I won’t be able to understand! What’s so complicated that you can’t just tell me the truth?”
I was sick and tired of her cryptic bullshit and the way she kept acting like everything was some big dramatic mystery. I didn’t want any part of it. I was done with secrets and lies.
“I apologize, once again. You didn’t deserve to go through all that pain—”
“Damn right, I didn’t! I was honestly better off when I didn’t even know you existed. At least back then, I didn’t have the false hope that someone would actually save me when I desperately needed it. At least I knew I was alone!”
I tried to walk away from her but then I remembered that I didn’t know where the hell this place even was and I was still technically asleep and until I woke up, I was stuck here with Little Miss Secrets.
“You’ve been doing good so far. Nothing terrible has happened to you yet.”
I would have slapped her hard across the face but that would be like slapping myself since she was still technically my wolf at the end of the day. But how was she this stupid and insensitive? How could she not see how her words hurt?
“Good? Where exactly were you when Hannah almost clawed my entire face off? Where were you when I suffered all those horrible treatments from the people I called my family after mom died and left me alone? Where were you when I needed you most?”
Tears were gathering rapidly in my eyes now. I was crying in a dream. How pathetic.
“The reason I said that you’re fine now is because the time is coming very soon when you won’t be fine at all. The things that you’ve endured so far will be nothing close to what is to come in your future.”
I stared at her for a long moment to see whether she was bluffing or exaggerating. She wasn’t at all. Her face was dead serious.
“W-What do you mean by that exactly?” I stuttered.
She had better not go silent on me again or I just might smack the words right out of her mouth myself.
“All the things that you’ve been through, all the terrible things that you’ve endured, they were all specifically to shape you for your future. You’re not a normal wolf, Adriana.”
“Can you please skip all the parables and riddles and just tell me what you actually mean? I’m tired of guessing games.”
She grabbed her long silver hair and held it up to show me. Then she began pulling and pulling but the more she pulled at it, it was like her hair was completely neverending. It just kept coming and coming.
“Is that all your hair or does it just keep growing forever?”
She looked directly at me and smiled mysteriously. Then I suddenly started feeling extremely hot. Way too hot. Like I was burning from the inside out.
“You have the power to control people. How they feel, their emotions, what they think about. You can manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings. You can also read their minds clearly.”
It sounded like complete fiction or a lie. Like something out of a storybook.
“If this is some kind of joke…”
“It’s not a joke at all. It’s exactly why I took so much time to finally come out and reveal myself. It will take some time for everything to be revealed to you properly. You need to be patient.”
I looked at her carefully for a long moment. She had no reason to lie to me but then, what exactly did all of this actually mean for me? What did it mean for my life?
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why me specifically? What does all of this actually mean? Why was I chosen?”
“Your shifting was like a beacon to the evil forces that have been coming after you. That’s exactly why I held off for so long. If you had shifted back at your home pack, they would have killed you immediately but here, this is where you’re meant to fulfill your destiny. You will learn everything you need to know, right here in this place.”
Only one thing had really caught my full attention out of everything she’d said.
“Wait, those who want to kill me? Who wants to kill me?”
“There are some very dangerous people who aren’t happy with that fact and they want to come after you. They’ve been actively searching for you for years and the exact day you shifted, they became completely aware of your existence and location.”
“But I don’t want to hurt anybody at all. Why can’t they just leave me alone and let me live in peace? I just want to be normal!”
She stared at me with a calm expression. Like she wasn’t just telling me my life was in danger.
“You need to be strong, Adriana.”