CHAPTER 1

ARIEL’S POV

“Wake up, Ariel.”

I woke up with a jolt and poked my index fingers through my earlobes in a bid to shut out the sound, the monstrous growl that I had been hearing every night for the past three months, the voice that threatened me to wake up from my sleep at exactly 11pm every night.

I stared at the old clock that hung loosely on the wall in my room. It was 8 a.m. and I sighed remembering that the clock had stopped working a long time ago. My phone beeped beside my bed and I turned quickly to have a look. It was a text from my best friend, Valerie, and as expected, the time on my phone screen was 11:01.

Someone was haunting me through my dreams, and I desperately needed to find out who, and why.

Telling my parents was not an option. They would never believe me. Telling my elder brother, Aaron was even worse. He would yell at me and call me a freak and probably chip in something like: “no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend yet. Who would want to date a nineteen year old weirdo?”

That was how much my family sucked. My parents and my elder brother were the most annoying people in the world and trust me, I had met a lot of annoying people. 

I knew that it was not normal and it was definitely not my imagination. Something was wrong and someone was trying to reach out to me. What I so desperately needed to know was who it was and what he needed from me.

I stood up from my bed and attempted to run my hand through my long brown hair as was my usual morning routine but my reflection in the mirror reminded me that I didn’t have it anymore. My hair had been cut.

Some days ago, my dad had come from work fretting and panting, and he had brought up all sorts of crazy ideas about relocating to Hawaii or Madagascar. My mum had tried to calm him down but she couldn’t, and when he eventually remembered that he was a pauper and couldn’t afford even a bus ticket to another state, he had transferred his energy into suggesting that everyone in the family had a makeover. 

A makeover was usually not a terrible idea and none of us had frowned at it until he made mention of my hair. It was too long according to him, and it would be better if it was short. I had cried and protested all day long, but all my pleas fell on deaf ears. My father pinned me down on the sofa and called in Aaron who was only too pleased to do justice to my hair with his huge scissors. That day, I concluded that I hated them all and I had resorted to living in my bedroom ever since. I had not set my eyes on any of them for days and I didn’t plan to do so for a long time. 

That night however, I needed to come out of my room. I was starving and low on supplies, as I had been surviving on five stale cheeseburgers and two bottles of diet coke for four days. I needed good food, and fresh air. The whole house stunk like dead and rotting flesh, and there was no better time to come out of my room without being seen than a few minutes past 11. My parents would be snoring heavily, and Aaron would be too busy with his video games to even know that I existed. 

“A perfect plan,” I smiled to myself.

The eerie silence that greeted me as I came out from my room was enough to tell me that something was wrong. On a normal day, the gunshots of assault rifles from Aaron’s videogames could be heard. He always liked to connect his phone to a speaker whenever he was playing his games, and disturb the peace of the whole house, except today. 

“Strange,” I muttered to myself.

I closed the door of my room and slowly tiptoed to the kitchen and I gagged at the foul stench that greeted my nose once I got in. With one hand across my nose, I groped around in search of the light switch. I was damn hungry and I needed to get something to eat before I fainted. I finally found the switch and as soon as I pressed it down, I wished that I had not.

Lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of dried blood was what remained of my mother. I could only recognize her because of the T- shirt that she wore. I had gifted it to her on her birthday a year ago. Her arms were sprawled across the floor lazily and her neck was twisted in a weird angle. A variety of sharp kitchen utensils stuck out from her chest and the left side of her face was burnt. It was as if whoever had killed her was scared that she would not die so easily and the person had resorted to trying different methods all at once. 

I closed my eyes in pain. I could feel the tears begging to break free from my eyes but I had promised myself on my sixteenth birthday that I was never going to cry again. Tears never solved any problems. They only added to it. 

I walked out of the kitchen and straight to my dad’s room. I knew what to expect and when I saw him sprawled on the floor lifeless and missing a few body parts, I wasn’t really surprised. My anger was heightened. Whoever had done this was definitely going to pay.

I turned around, blinded by my rage and started out of the house and just then, I remembered him – Aaron. No wonder he hated me. How could I forget to check on my brother after seeing my parents dead? I spun around immediately and made for his room expecting the worst, or should I say the best considering the fact that I didn’t give a fuck if he was alive or dead?

With one kick, his door flung wide open and I peered inside. No blood, no kitchen knives, and no Aaron. Just a scattered room and the usual stench of rotten cheeseburgers. I scanned the room quickly, looking for anything that could help me trace his whereabouts and warn him that a murderer was on the loose in our small pack and just then, I made a shocking discovery. Aaron’s iPad. It was on the bed. Aaron never went anywhere without his iPad. I walked to his drawer and pushed it open and just as I had suspected, it was empty. There was not even a single cloth inside.

“Bastard!” I cursed through gritted teeth. He had chosen the perfect time for his abomination. He knew I was angry and was not going to come out from my room for days and he had used that opportunity to murder my parents, our parents and get away with it. 

I searched his room quickly for clues. He had to be working with someone. The Aaron I knew was too dumb to have come up with a plan like that, and still dumb enough to leave enough clues behind that would help me catch him. 

I turned my attention back to his bed and just then, I saw it. A brown piece of paper sticking out from the pocket of one of his trousers on the bed. I dragged it out of his pocket and held it up. It had a golden seal at the edge and I could tell that it was from someone very important. 

I opened it finally and read.

“If you do a clean job, I’ll give you double of what we bargained initially. 

Signed.

Alpha Joharres of the Blood Moon Pack.”