Chapter 2 : Nightmares

*Delilah*

“I saw you roll your eyes. I won’t tolerate it,” Dad said, looking at me sternly.

I looked him in the eyes, calmly. “She’s lying. If you want to believe her, fine. But I won’t fake being happy about it.”

I saw Kendra smile at this. Dad’s face grew ten shades redder, and if shifters could produce fire, he would’ve been breathing it at that point.

“Delilah, you will respect Kendra. Just because you’re older, that doesn’t give you the right to bully her or to lie about her.”

I chose to remain silent. I wanted to eat, and if I kept going, he’d send me to my room without food. I was too hungry to fight at this point.

I started putting food on my plate from the various dishes on the table.

I put my fork into my piece of meatloaf when he said, “Do you understand me?”

I looked at him before putting the food in my mouth. I nodded rather than speaking because I couldn’t trust myself to hold my tongue.

That settled, the three of them went back to the normal routine of pretending I wasn’t there. I finished my dinner quickly, taking my plate into the kitchen and putting it in the sink. I went back to my room quietly and shut the door, glad to be done interacting with them for the night.

Laying down on my bed, I stared at the ceiling, thinking about my life.

My father, Conrad, was once a rogue. My mother died in childbirth, and for some reason, he blamed himself. In his grief, he stole me and ran away from our pack lands. My grandparents, Logan and Bethany, labeled him a rogue for kidnapping me. Whenever I dreamed of running away, I imagined running to the Gallaway pack.

But I’d threatened it once, and he said they would refuse me because I was tainted with his blood.

After running from the Gallaway pack, my father made his way to our current pack, or theirs anyway. I didn’t really feel like I had a pack. The Blackwell pack, the pack my stepmother Jennifer was from, eventually took him in.

My father tried to leave his past behind him, completely immersing himself in the Blackwell pack. He and Jennifer married, and that’s when I met my stepsister, Kendra.

For some reason, the pack never welcomed me. The label of rogue seemed to have left my father behind and transferred to me despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything. I’d never committed a crime in my life.

Kendra was the favorite, and it was clear to everyone. She was the cherished daughter of Dad and Jennifer, I was the black wolf of the family.

I hoped my first shift would change things, but I didn’t expect it to change much. I’d have to be extraordinarily powerful to get respect in this pack. Maybe all I’d be able to do when the time came was leave. It would be better than staying if things didn’t improve.

Maybe my grandparents would take me in. After a particularly bad fight between me and my father, he’d told me they’d never take me back because they thought he’d tainted me. He couldn’t imagine why I’d even want to go back.

Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t have a heart, brain, or eyes when he talked to me. How he could be so manipulated by Kendra, I would never know.

She’d picked on me for as long as I could remember. I had been so excited to be a big sister. I thought of all the slumber parties we’d have, sharing clothes, talking about boys, anything normal sisters did.

But we were anything but normal. At first, it was wonderful. We did so much together. She was only two years younger than me. As soon as we started school, everything changed. I never knew what had triggered it, but it was like everyone there told her I was evil.

When I was around fourteen, she started rumors that I was insane. She said I had nightmares, and when I did, they had to strap me down so I didn’t hurt them. She said one night she woke up to me standing over her bed with a knife.

None of it was true, but it didn’t matter. From then on, I was the biggest outcast in the Blackwell pack. My best friend abandoned me, and now she was Kendra’s friend.

I launched off my bed, pacing my room. Just thinking about everything she’d done to me, that they had done to me, made my entire body hot. I was so close to shifting too, my emotions were all over the place.

A loud banging on my door made me jump, and then I heard Kendra laughing as she went to her room. What would seem so normal in other households made me cringe, and it made me sad.

Siblings fight. They prank each other and they sometimes pick on each other, but they’re supposed to at least love each other for all of that. Even my own father clearly favored her.

I didn’t even want to be the favorite. I just wanted to feel like he saw me when he looked at me. Sometimes he looked at me with such haunted eyes that I knew he only saw my mother. He should’ve left me with the Gallaway pack, with my blood.

If he couldn’t love me for something neither of us caused, he should’ve just left me.

I stripped off my clothes and pulled on a long night shirt before turning my fan on high and turning the light off. I flopped onto my bed, trying not to cry.

I was so alone, and I knew it. I crawled under the covers, tears falling despite my best efforts to keep them at bay. Not all days were this bad, but there were too many days of my life like this.

Was it too much to ask to be loved simply for existing?

That thought made me cry harder, and I could no longer contain my sobs.

I hugged myself and cried until I fell into a deep sleep.

***

I ran through darkness, frantic and furious.

All around me, I heard shouts; it sounded like I was in a war zone. Looking down, I noticed that I was a wolf, a white wolf with blood stains covering my paws.

The world around me started to solidify as I ran, fast as the wind. There was definitely a battle underway.

I ran through a well-manicured lawn, covered with fighting wolves and people. Nobody looked at me as I ran, so I pushed into the house, launching through a window.

Inside the strange house, I paused, not sure where to go or what had brought me running at such speed.

I moved into the living room of the house, and felt as if I knew where I was. There was a mirror on one wall, and I saw that I was a big white wolf, bigger than any female shifter I’d ever seen before. My eyes glowed blue, and blood dripped from my mouth.

I was beautiful.

And I had children.

That thought brought me back to why I was there, and I remembered suddenly.

Then a shrill scream sounded from the upper floor of the house, a child screaming.

Instinct took over, and I bounded up the stairs and into the bedroom of my boys. It was empty, the sheets had been thrown on the floor as if they’d been pulled from their beds.

I growled in my throat, the sound rumbling through my chest. Whoever thought they could hurt my children was wrong. I would do anything for them.

I moved out of the room and down to my daughter’s room. Her bed looked much the same.

I left the room snarling and looked down the hallway. At the end, Kendra was dragging my children, kicking and screaming.

She heard my snarls and tried to rush them out faster. I ran at her, my teeth bared.

I was going to kill her.

***

I sat up straight in bed, breathing heavily. My hands trembled and sweat covered my body. I grabbed my phone to check the time–4:00 a.m.

From the time I was young, I’d been having strange and vivid nightmares. For a long time, I didn’t tell anyone. Usually, I couldn’t make sense of them anyway.

The first time I’d had the dream where my stepsister stole my children, I’d rushed out of my room and pounced on Kendra. I told her if she ever dared, I’d kill her.

That was when she’d started the rumors. My father even thought I was insane for attacking her over a dream.

But they didn’t understand what it was like.

Everything felt so real. It was like my body knew it was going to happen. I’d never told anyone, but I’d had a dream that came true once. I’d dreamed of my father with another child, a daughter–my stepsister.

My soul felt as if these nightmares would happen. I had to make sure I kept my children safe.

The thought of me having children was almost laughable. That was the most unbelievable aspect of my dreams. I just knew I’d never find a mate, or even someone in this pack who would tolerate me. How was I going to have children?

But the feeling in my gut didn’t change, despite that conviction. Nor did the love I felt waiting in my heart for them.

Whenever they came, they’d be loved as I never was. They would never have to feel how I did.

I lay back down, tossing and turning, but I couldn’t get comfortable again. The dream played over and over in my head.

Finally, after an hour, I got up and went to the bathroom quietly. I was so sweaty that my shirt stuck to my back as I tried to pull it off.

Instantly, my body chilled.

I turned on the water and waited for it to heat up. I liked to basically scald myself when I showered, so it took a minute.

For at least five minutes, I just stood under the water, trying to let it wash away everything I was feeling. My body slowly relaxed, and the tension left my shoulders.

Once I was clean, I got out and wrapped a towel around myself. I stood in front of the mirror, gazing at my reflection through the fog.

My dark hair hung long and straight down my back, my blue eyes faint behind the haze of the mirror. I sighed, not liking what I saw, and left the bathroom quietly.

Shutting my door silently behind me, I quickly got dressed and made my way to the kitchen. It was almost 6:00 a.m. now, so everyone else in the house would be up soon.

I filled up my water bottle and grabbed some granola bars before walking out the door.

My college classes wouldn’t start for two hours, but I knew I’d rather spend that time in the woods than in my house. And a morning that started without my family was always more peaceful.