Chapter 4 : Exhausting Dreams

*Delilah*

My father stole me when I was just a day old. He knew he’d be labeled a rogue, but his mind was broken by grief at the time. He felt responsible for my mother’s death and felt that the pack would hate me for taking her from them.

So he ran and took me with him.

My first memory from when I was about two was of him teaching me how to pack my own bag to carry. He made me a small pack out of one of his that had holes in places. He sewed it and taught me what we needed most.

First, I’d need a fire starter of some kind. We always needed to be able to make a fire; it was his most essential tool. The next thing was a small tarp. He taught me how to roll it so it would fit in there well. Then, I’d need an extra change of clothes, with two extra pairs of socks.

Everything we owned could fit in our two packs. For the first few years of my life, we camped and lived like nomads. We roamed through many different wooded areas, careful to stay away from other pack territories, and away from humans.

They didn’t know about us, and we wanted to keep it that way.

Meat was never a problem; my father was a shifter, after all. He would come back, a huge, brown wolf with golden eyes. Many times, he brought down elk, moose, and even a bear one time.

I never knew how he did that.

When he’d go hunt, he’d have me forage for vegetables. I got really good at finding wild onions and root vegetables. I was also responsible for keeping the fire going.

Sometimes, we’d need medical supplies, or he’d want something we couldn’t find–alcohol mostly. He’d venture into human towns then, sure that no pack would take him with his rogue status. He did odd jobs–construction, that sort of thing.

While he was at work, I was left to myself. Nobody knew of my existence around those parts but him at that point.

The pack we’d left never found us, and I didn’t know about them until I was older anyway. My father had always just told me we had to leave to save my life. I never understood it, but I didn’t question him.

To busy myself while he was working, I explored. My love for nature stemmed from that part of my life.

I remember walking through a forest once, alone. The lush green of leaves and moss covered everything with bits of brown bark peeking through at times. I’d been walking uphill for an hour at that point and was getting exhausted.

Finally, I felt the ground flatten and walked to the edge of the cliff. Below was a huge valley of trees. It looked like broccoli covered the ground. It was breathtaking.

But there were also many dangers of growing up a rogue.

Once, when I was about four, something alarming happened. It was late at night. I’d been sleeping deeply, dreaming about a war. My dad grabbed my shoulders roughly, shaking me and speaking softly to me.

“Wake up. We need to go.”

My eyes flew open, and I quickly packed my bag as he’d taught me. I remember catching a glint of pride in his eyes that day.

He grabbed my hand, and we abandoned our fire, make-shift home, and all of our food.

“Daddy, you're hurting me,” I said.

He was walking so fast I couldn’t keep up, and he was pulling my arm too hard.

Suddenly, he stopped and knelt down beside me, slipping his bag off his back. “I’m going to shift, and you’re going to grab my bag and get on my back, understood?”

I nodded, eyes as big as the moon. I was scared. We’d never had to run like this before.

He shifted without another word, his clothes falling to the ground as his brown wolf emerged. I tried to hop on his back from the ground, but I was too small, and our bags were too heavy.

He lay down on his stomach so I could crawl over. Once I had a good grip on his fur, he took off.

It felt like we ran for days, but I knew it was only a few hours.

We finally stopped, and I slid off his back, laying on the ground. My arms were numb from holding onto him, and I was exhausted. I curled into a ball, trying to get warm.

He nudged the bags away with his nose and curled his body around me. His fur smelled like the woods, and I instantly fell into a deep sleep.

That was the first night I remembered having nightmares about a war.

Another time, I remembered seeing my dad actually kill another shifter.

It wasn’t long after our run for our lives through the night. He’d just come back from making a kill, a large doe hanging from his maw as he loped back toward camp. I could see him approaching and then saw him drop the deer and run for me.

My heart raced, and I looked all around, trying to see the threat. I saw a blur and then heard snarling.

I screamed and lurched to my feet. A black wolf had been heading right for me when my dad intercepted him. He flung the other wolf through the air when they collided, and the two wolves fought ferociously, blood and saliva slinging through the air.

I stood, clutching my pack to my chest and watching in horror.

With a sudden quickness, I heard a yelp, and then the wolf fell to the ground before turning into a man. I remember thinking that his neck looked weird.

My dad came rushing back to me in wolf form but shifted back to his human form as he approached me. He grabbed his spare pants, slipping into them before grabbing me and clutching me to his chest.

He had small scrapes that were already starting to heal all over him.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating into my ear.

I felt numb and didn’t say anything back to him. He sat me down, taking the pack from my hand and building up our fire. I was shaking, but it wasn’t from the cold.

He slipped out of his pants and shifted again after a few hours to take the body of the other shifter away from our camp.

I didn’t sleep at all that night.

Then he met Jennifer.

We’d ventured a little too close to the Blackwell pack lands, having run out of places to go, and my dad not wanting to circle back yet. He was hunting one night when he ran into a white wolf. She knew he was a rogue; it was obvious. But it didn’t bother her.

Over time, they grew closer, and I learned that she had a daughter. He hadn’t believed me when I told him I had a dream of having a sister, but I was right.

Her pack, not wanting one of their own to continue to be a single mom, decided to take us in.

I was so excited. For the first time in my entire life, I thought I was safe. I’d no longer have to sleep outside, and we wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

Most of all, I was excited to have a little sister. I imagined all the things we’d be able to do together. I was even the flower girl in Dad and Jennifer’s wedding ceremony. At first, everything was as I’d imagined. It was a dream come true after struggling to survive for so long.

As a child, the pack hadn’t treated me terribly. I had friends and played often with them in our backyard. I remembered running through the yard pulling Kendra behind me in a wagon as she squealed with delight.

Until school, we were close. I loved her, and she loved me.

Then it all changed. I’d told her about my dreams of having a sister, and about my scary dreams. She told me I was crazy and to stay away from her.

From then on, she’d worked on turning not only our peers but the entire pack against me.

First, she’d tell girls at school that I had crushes on their boyfriends. For years, it was just that, petty lies trying to make people hate me.

But in middle school, she took it to another level. She told my best friend I kissed her boyfriend and that she saw it. Everyone made fun of him for kissing a loser like me, and my best friend never talked to me again. Eventually, the guy rebounded, but I never did.

Then, she started the rumors about me being insane. That was what really led the pack to hate me. She made them fear me.

Overnight, it was like I was the rogue in our pack. Even adults shunned me. Dad and Jennifer seemed completely oblivious to the treatment, both from Kendra and the pack.

Kendra was the child who could do no wrong. She’d break something and blame me, and they believed her every time. It was like the universe was working with her to bring me down.

Every incident of bullying I’d experienced at her hand flashed before my eyes, the sounds and feelings overwhelming me. Then a bright light broke through everything, blinding me.

***

I sat upright in my bed, sweat pouring down my face, again. I stared at the wall across from me where an old picture of me and my dad hung. The heat was overwhelming, so I threw the blanket off me, grunting in frustration as it tangled around my ankle.

“Will this ever stop?” I whispered to myself through ragged breaths. Tears welled in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

I was tired of crying. I was tired of living in that house. I was tired of being me. I was tired.

The dreams of my past weighed on me. I remembered it perfectly well when I was awake, and I didn’t need the replays running through my head in my dreams.

I shivered as the sweat chilled my body and grabbed the blanket from the floor, throwing it over me as I fell back onto the bed.

I felt my head slowly sinking into the pillow and exhaled. I was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing.

Would I ever escape this life? Could I find happiness in this pack?

The idea of finding my mate in this pack was out of the realm of possibility in my head. I just knew I was destined to be alone.

Despite my thoughts, my eyes slowly closed as my breathing evened out. I slipped into an uneasy sleep, full of dreams that didn’t make sense.

The sounds of kids screaming and wolves snarling were the most vivid memories that stuck with me.