Chapter 5: Chapter 4

and i think the

saddest thing

is how it is so much

easier

to just not say

anything

at

all.

-kpt

I walk back into the pack house, pausing at the doorway to wipe my feet on the rug- my spirits lifted from talking to Schulman and Leo.

They come plummeting back down the moment I look up and see father’s angry face.

I remain silent as he comes forward, arms crossed and familiar glare piercing into me.

“Dad let me-”

“What.” He stops short a few inches from me, using his height to an advantage as he looks down from above, “were you thinking?”

I swallow thickly and glance behind him, checking to see if maybe mother or Sandra were there.

But there’s no one.

I look back up to him, pulling myself up to my full height as I glare back.

“I drove to see if they would accept me.”

“And did they?”

I flinch from his disbelieving tone.

“.... No...”

A look of conflict enters his face. It’s one that I’m used to. One that tells me he is struggling with himself. Turning over my words and taking them in. Trying to process his feelings and understand if this was a good or bad thing.

“You should have known better.”

“That what? They wouldn’t want me?” I take a daring step forward raising an accusing finger at him, “If you had trained me more or maybe if you weren’t so pro-”

“Don’t blame your failure on others.”

That shuts me up.

We are both breathing hard, our anger getting the best of us like it always did.

“You should have known better,” he repeats again.

He turns away and suddenly, I can’t stay quiet anymore like I had always done in the past.

“I could have made it.”

He stops, his head turning to take me in.

I feel a pressure in my chest, tears collecting behind my eyes.

I so desperately wanted to tell him.

I wanted to run to him and cry and tell him what had happened in that office.

But his glare has me swallowing my words down as I shake my head, “I could have...”

“You didn’t Soraya. Accept it and move on from this...this...”

He pushes a frustrated hand through his hair. He can’t even find a word for what I have.

He’s used many in the past though.

Illusion. Ideal dream. False Hope. Deathwish.

The list rolls in my mind, but at this moment, he doesn’t add another word to it.

“You told me that anyone who challenges the Alpha, and beats him, can claim the title of Al-”

“I didn’t mean you!”

Not a sound is heard as I freeze from the outburst.

We both are frozen.

His hands fall uselessly to his side as he says in a painful whisper, “I didn’t want this for you.”

I look away, hot angry tears threatening to spill. Hiding my bleeding heart from his eyes.

I curl my fist inward, letting the pain of my nails clear my mind as they dig into my flesh.

“Why can’t you just believe in me.” My voice doesn’t break. Not even with the anger and hurt I felt in that moment choking my throat. The mask still perfectly on for him.

His face fills with such sorrow. I can’t look at it. I already know the answer to my question. He knows that I know.

“You know why Soraya. I can’t...what happened to Jewels...and your injury...”

He looks away suddenly, “Vincent will come back when he’s ready.”

“It doesn’t automatically belong to him dad, he can’t just come like it’s a fuc-”

“Not now Soraya.”

Dad’s age shows clearly as he wearily shakes his head, his heavy steps walking past me and out the door.

“Please not now.”

He stops at the doorway, forcing me to turn and face him as he holds the frame, his eyes looking out into the forest, “You will make a great Luna, someday.”

And then he turns his back to me and walks away.

The strands of midnight fall softly around my feet.

My work reflected in the mirror, but I don’t need to see to know.

Each action causes another long lock to fall.

I’m blind, almost crazed as, with scissors in hand- I cut- and cut away each piece.

It didn’t matter the look.

It didn’t matter how clean the cut was.

I raise a piece, cutting it off and watching as the jagged strand falls roughly across the top of my right ear.

So blindly chaotic are my hands, so hurried and reckless are my fingers - I’m hardly even registering what they are doing.

I only flinch as the steel cuts into the top flesh of the ear.

I silently watch as the red collects into a fat drop and falls to land on the side of my face, sliding down to my chin.

I keep going.

Not stopping until there is nothing left to cut from what once was the long collection of black silk.

No more.

I’m clinging to the side of the sink, head down as my breaths come in small short pants.

Anger.

Such white hot and blinding anger ran through me.

The grip upon the sink tightens and I look up into the face of the creature that now stood before it. The ragged cut of short hair and scraped skin that revealed itself.

But it’s not enough.

I still feel it pulsing inside, building up, raging-blinding- until- I’m screaming.

Screaming and grabbing the sink and bowing my head, letting the tears fall.

I didn’t care if the house heard me.

I didn’t care if the pack heard me.

I screamed and cried out the frustration that I had held inside me for so long.

I was done acting the part. I was done looking composed, feeling collected, and presenting such a mask for others to see. Bottling my feelings until they burst.

Done.

But it’s still not enough.

I throw the scissors across the room because I know that in the current state I’m in, I couldn’t have them in my hands anymore.

But the act of throwing them, raging them in violence against the wall-

It’s not enough.

And my hand is connecting to the mirror shattering the image of the crying, bleeding and breaking creature that looked at me.

I stand in silence.

Just my short, ragged sobs breaking into the air.

I felt so frustrated.

Rage. Anger. Fury.

And I watched as the silver slices blend in with the black upon the floor, and the red from my hand dripped down in the mixture-

Like I had ripped my soul out of my very being and spilled it for the world to see.