2 - JADE RIVER

ALYSSA

I made it down the roof, landing on the ground with hardly a thud but the implicating sound of my sneakers mashing dead leaves was more than enough reason to quit stalling and rake the fucking backyard already.

My feet were light and being smaller than normal werewolves of my age—I’m about 5’5”—could be thanked for my silent landings but that’s the only benefit you get from a small body when you’re living amongst savage beasts with more bloody stamina than you.

My phone buzzed in the back pocket of my skinny jeans, almost giving me a mini heart attack.

Cursing under my breath, I jerked it out angrily and opened it to see a text. I wasn’t surprised when his name showed up… or rather what he thought was a great username.

“Not now Mr. Dracula, this is me time,” I muttered to myself, gliding the notification away.

‘Let’s bet on setting me free tonight that you’ll reply him before we return home.’

I wondered when Carmine, my wolf, would speak. It’s not in her nature to keep her fucking mouth shut.

‘Haven’t you gotten the memo? We can’t shift yet?’

A short silence from her then, ‘Oh.’

She has a bad memory and the last thing I want to do is spoil tonight’s mood by talking about her or my shifting problem… but it seemed like something else was about to.

The moonlight shined on my face and staring at my reflection on a phone screen did the exact thing I feared… spoiled my mood.

My apple-red eyes were staring right back at me, and it doesn’t matter that they were mine because I shiver any time I gaze at them. I wonder what other wolves see when they look at me. They’ll probably think I’m a demon… or the popular tag, a freak.

My straight spider-black hair stretched down to my waist and was illuminated in the white light of the moon. Even the hideous freckles staining my cheeks were visible in this mood-spoiling reflection.

The whole of Moonfall, including mom, constantly call them ugly and I can’t prove them wrong because I haven’t seen anyone else around here with these annoying speckles. My skin would have passed on for normal, which I really wish it could, if I didn’t have an unofficial condition that makes an inflicted area red for hours just because someone, or myself, gave it a little pinch or bump … I even have one on my ear right now from mom’s squeezing.

Imagine how I look coming back from a bully encounter.

The only thing mom hates more than my ears is my hair. It grows three times faster than everyone else’s and if she didn’t keep grooming it, I’d be Rapunzel by now. I’m already living in a tower anyway, shut out from the rest of the world, so everything else would fit in nicely.

There was no need for makeup or to hide anything right now because it was nine pm, and no one would be out to draw attention to my abnormalities, or call me a freak. A reason I love night so much.

It’s pretty clear now why I can’t bear staring at my reflection. I’m a freak. Who else has red eyes, abnormal skin, freckles, wilder growing hair, is as small as me, and can’t shift even when she has her freaking wolf? It gives the bullies out in this miserable pack so many things to torment me with… and they love it.

Ignoring the craving to throw my phone away and cursing for the second time tonight, I slid my phone back in and dashed into the forest.

Night in the ‘jungle’ is the only time I’m secure, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. Out here I don’t have to worry about mom, the bullies… I could do anything I fucking wanted.

I moved fast, slipping my cold hands into my red hoodie, and taking the path I always went through. My feet had moved down here so many times that it was evident someone had made this road a daily—nightly—route.

But there’s a major reason I take this path. I know it’s validating that I’m a confirmed weirdo but… Ah, there they are! I stopped at a shorter but huge tree that was right at the edge of the path. It seemed like any other old oak tree but if you're brave enough to take a closer look, you’d be running out of here faster than a fugitive on the chase… unless you’re me of course.

This was a habitat for spiders. The leaves had been choked to death by their stunning cobwebs and the bark was now a roadway for the cute little things.

The big one wasn’t in sight so I took a step closer and stretched my hand out, letting one of the babies crawl up my arm. I loved the tingly eerie feeling of it slinking up my skin and still don’t understand why people are so afraid of them but I guess they’re just misunderstood, like everyone else who is a little bit different.

I returned the cutie and went on my way. Staying around there for too long would make the spiders feel unsafe and I didn’t want to get there one day only to find them gone.

‘I can never get used to them.’

I rolled my eyes at Carmine’s words.

I was getting closer… I could already hear the soothing sound of water flowing and smell its freshness. I can’t remember exactly when I found the spiders but they remind me of a pet bat I once had, Simon. Mom got it killed when Simon flew into her room.

I was seven.

‘Shit, Alyssa, no negative thoughts. No negative thoughts.’

The only thing calmer than the walk to Jade River—yes, I named it…

‘We!’

‘Whatever.’

…was the river itself because once I reached, all my worries evaporated. I smiled, grazing my lip at the night’s coolness, and took my regular seat at a rotten log infested with moss and bugs, letting myself look directly into it.

The moon was frustratingly bright tonight, I hate that fucker, but the stars never left me, even when the whole world does. I see them during the day, watching me. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true… or maybe I really am just crazy.

Speaking of the whole messed up world, all I know is Moonfall. I’ve never been out, I’ve never seen if the horribleness of wolves stretches out there and it’s not like I haven’t considered running away sometimes, many times actually, but dad keeps holding me back.

I can’t do that to him. I just… can’t.

The flowing river drew me out of my thoughts. Staring at it from here, it looked like it was falling from undetectable steps because the ground was uneven, and since it was constantly running at high speeds, hitting rocks along the way, it appeared white and foamy.

The relaxing burbling sounds of it made me moan and if my parents weren’t around, I would’ve spent the night here. Its intoxicating musky soil-like smell cured depression faster than any medicine.

No one else knew about Jade River and I wanted to keep it that way. The only thing worse than stealing my night was taking away my only safe place.

‘There are so many things in the world to be afraid of Alyssa,’ mom would say to me often. ‘A time will come when everything good in you will be stolen away and burned to ashes, nothing you do will stop it,’ she’d sometimes add but her favorite quote was always, ‘You’re living in a bubble my darling and when it’s time to pop it, I’ll be there with fired dynamite to make it explode.’

“Asshole,” I whispered silently, closing my eyes and trying to get her the fuck out of my head. “Asshole,” I muttered a bit louder, feeling an insane anger rising in my chest, my fists clenching to breaking point, and my mind losing all sense of cautiousness. “Asshole!” I eventually gave in and screamed, gripping both sides of the rotting log that had become a home to so many things and doing all I could to control my breathing.

She’s my fucking mother, how the hell can I call her asshole?! How the hell can I even think bad about her? Well, I feel no fucking guilt because if you’ve known the evil things she’s done to me, what she’s put me through… I closed my eyes, chewing savagely on my lip.

But when my eyes flashed open, my breathing raced for a different reason. I felt eyes boring into the back of my head, sending an intense feeling that someone or something evil was watching me. I’ve stopped being scared of this feeling because it’s gone on like this for the past several months.

And even though I knew what I would see when I turned my head, it still made adrenaline pump into me like crazy. Between two tall healthy trees that would make a woodcutter very happy, was a shadow.

The first few times, the shadow didn’t have a shape. It was just like a foggy mist of darkness haunting my dreams from far away but as time passed, it got braver. Now, it’s in the shape of a man and this shadow was so obvious because it was darker than the night itself.

But it wasn’t the shadow figure that scared me, it was its eyes. Chili-red eyes that sent shivers down my spine. Demons are the only creatures with red eyes, but somehow I have them, and no one has an explanation for that. I didn’t want to believe that this shadow was one of them.

We never get demons in the South, heck we don’t even have witches. Perhaps it was something else that happened to, unfortunately, have red eyes, you know like me, but the fucking shadow isn’t the only thing that’s gotten braver these past months.

Shooting out my silver claws, I slowly got on my feet, approaching it with gentle but fierce steps. The shadow didn’t move but I could tell its eyes were shifting… I felt them all around me like lasers of a gun, preparing to fire and kill without error.

The air around it was chilly, even when it was more than ten meters away. I wanted this thing to talk to me, to say something. I was tired of this hide-and-seek game we had been playing.

Normally, I’d have confronted it a long time ago because I embrace the weird and creepy but something about this darkness screamed danger in ways I couldn’t ignore.

I stopped a distance away and the shadow tilted his head… suddenly developing this crazy intuition that it was smiling at me. Probably smiling at my stupidity because I wanted to confront it rather than run as any normal person would.

My mouth summoned bravery, ready to spill out the curses that had been playing through my head since the first time it crept up to me, when my phone unexpectedly buzzed. I looked away for one second to throw the damn thing in the river and looked back up to see that it was gone.

“Shit.”

It would take forever to gather enough bravery to do something as stupid as that again. I wondered if it was still somewhere around but I knew it wasn’t.

Deciding not to lose something that had taken me forever to get, for the hundredth time, I unlocked the screen and saw another text from Mr.Dracula.

Just because I haven’t seen enough of the world or haven’t properly left the pack doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced things. One of those things, is this app I have where I meet up with guys to get… distracted… and all of my ‘friends’ so far have been wolves since I was fifteen.

The problem is that mom has warned me never to lose my virginity or she’d kill me—I don’t take her threats lightly.

But it isn’t much of a problem anymore when there are other places for guys to stick their cocks into, and I’ve been with so many now that I’ve lost count.

‘The app counts it for you.’

‘Shut up, Car.’

Though there was this one guy that forcefully tried to ignore our agreement and drive his cock in any way. I remembered breaking a TV on the motherfucker’s head and till today, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.

Thirstydracula: You’re running away from me, aren’t you little bat? We both know your tiny legs can’t take you very far, you’re better off spreading them open for me.

He thinks he’s very smooth, doesn’t he?

Thirstydracula: Answer me little bat or I’m gonna have to find you. I get thirsty when I’ve got to work for my food.

Asshole.

Spiderqueen: Doubt you can even find your cock when you need it.

I was still distracted by the eyes of that… thing. Gosh, I wanted to be annoyed at this guy but I don’t know, his words make something in my stomach flip. He’s… different from the others.

But that’s crazy. I haven’t even met him, they’re just words…

Thirstydracula: I do love a challenge. Let’s MIRL and I’ll show you just what I can do with my cock.

Automatic lip bite.

Ugh, I wanted to see him, not just some stimulating pictures that’s gotten me through a few masturbations but I’ve been really hesitating. I’ve heard that getting laid by a vampire is the best and worst thing that can ever happen to someone.

I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. What if we took it too far and I let him… Vampires love blood, don’t they? I might not be lucky the next time a guy tries to break my hymen.

What to do?

Thirstydracula: Is my little bat afraid of a little challenge?

I hated that he interpreted my hesitations but like I’ve been doing for the past few days now, I pushed it.

Spiderqueen: You can’t get me that easily. One pic’s all you get 2nite. GB. XX.

I shut the phone down before he replied, and damn does he have fast fingers. One more eye scan for the demon and I was out of there. I wouldn’t let that asshole go so easily when we meet again.