Embroswyn15
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Age: 16
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Country: USA
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 Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:13 pm Post subject: Like The Night |
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Chapter One
I knew it was a mistake from the moment he dragged me into it all. The prank was supposed to be just that, a prank. But it turned out to be much more dangerous than any one of us would have thought. “It’s nothing but scaring them a bit,” Theo had said. “Just a bit of fun, that’s all.” And I believed him. But that night turned out to be much worse than any one of us had expected. Because when he died, when my beloved Oliver died, I knew it was my fault. If I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have followed. And if he hadn’t followed, he wouldn’t have been hurt. I will never forgive myself for it all. Never.
At that moment, Daniella stopped writing in her journal and put it down on her lap. That was all she could take. The memories were too painful to write about in length. They were too vivid; too filled with blood and death to remember without feeling the wound open up again in her heart. How she had loved Oliver. How she had desired to be with him more than anything else. But that was all gone now. It was over. Done. Gone. He was gone and she was alive. And now, because of her stupid brother, they had to leave the pack. The ostracism was one of the worst punishments a wolf can receive from their pack, second only to death by fire. And since Oliver had been next in line to be the pack leader, death had been the first option presented to the Council of Elders.
If it weren’t for her taking the blame for Theo’s irresponsibility, he would be dead. Because, in a wolf pack, they rarely kill females as it is they who bear the next generation. Without females, the men are worthless. But since it was clearly Theo’s fault, Daniella had to save her brother. After all, she would never have another one. So she told the Council, that it had been her idea to go out into the camps and scare the hunters. “For fun,” she had had lied, during her interrogation. And only because she was a female, a revered and necessary female, was she spared death.
So, there they were. The entire Mertjos family on their way to their new home in upstate New York, on the border of the Adirondacks. Daphne was driving like a mad woman on the highway, going up through northern Ohio. Outside the car window, the city of Cleveland was busy with activity in the distance. It was beautiful, the city. She had always desired to live there but the confines of a metropolis were no place for a wolf. She would never have the freedom of changing into her animal form without risking her family’s secret.
Daniella already missed Michigan. She missed Hesperia, her beloved home, and she missed the freedom of being around her pack. Being around those like her and being around those whom she didn’t have to hide her true self from. She had loved those hunts, the thrill of chasing down her prey and the taste of another animal in her mouth. It was the animalistic need and the freedom of the chase that had driven her to love what she was. To enjoy being a wolf. Blessed by the wolf spirit to have the form of both animal and man. Of both ruthlessness and humanity. Of instincts and logic. She was the epitome of the wolf.
The car ride so far had been cramped and sweaty due to the eighty-seven degree temperature. It smelled like a mixture of beef jerky and body odor in the old Subaru station wagon they were driving. Daphne was humming along to the radio while Theo, Daniella’s twin brother, was blaring System of a Down on his CD player, looking blankly out the window. He had never even thanked her for risking her life and saving his, all after he had been at fault for her Oliver’s death. And she felt great resentment for the fact that he was not only unthankful for her live-saving actions, but was a bit angry with her for being the cause of their expulsion from the pack.
The only ally other than their mother that Daniella had was Claire, her younger sister. She was fine with moving around. In fact, she loved the idea of having a new place to call home. In the pack there were no other wolves that were her age other than a few rowdy males who constantly picked on her. So the prospect of finding children, even if they were humans, to play with obviously made her eight-year-old mind a bit happier. Oh Claire. Sweet Claire. If only you knew how bad this really is, Daniella whispered to herself, out of earshot of her little sister’s keen ears. As she eyed her sister curiously, watching her play in the back seat with her Barbie dolls. She couldn’t help but smile at her purity and virtue, the kind of purity and virtue that she had given up long ago.
Daniella turned back to lean her forehead against the cool window, feeling a alight draft blow onto her legs from the half-working air conditioner that was turned on full blast in the front seat. She watched the cars pass them by as they moved along Interstate 90 past the city of Cleveland. It was hot and muggy outside and even hotter and muggier inside the restrictions of the station wagon. Being in a small car packed to the brim with suitcases and boxes, followed by a small trailer hooked onto the back of the automobile that was also packed to the brim with suitcases and boxes, was not the most comfortable place to be on a sweltering August day in Ohio of in all of the places in the world. But there she was and the only person whose fault it was that she was there was sitting behind her, his feet propped upon either side of her headrest.
“Do you mind, Theo?” she asked in an obviously irritated tone, looking back at her brother knowing he was doing it just to get a rise out of her. He smiled and repositioned his feet slower to her head.
“Not at all,” he replied smugly, grinning like a fox as he turned the volume up louder in his ears. She could hear Serj Tankian, System of a Down’s lead singer, screaming out a ballad without even having to get close to the earphones.
Pushing his feet off of her seat, Daniella retorted, “Well I do, so get your stinking feet off of my seat, got it?” It was clear that she was angry, hungry and not to mention hungry by the facial expression she had on her face.
“What are you in heat or something, Danni?” Theo taunted moving his feet back up to her headrest, but this time so close to her head that the army boots touched her hair. Daniella shoved them back off as her anger rose to much higher levels.
“No. Are you?” she goaded, returning the grin to show her pearly white teeth. Tucking a lock of her dark waves, the ones she got from her mother, behind one ear, she watched the scowl grow on his face. Theo was just about to say yet another smart comment when Daphne intervened.
“Look you two. We have another nine hours or so of driving to do and we will complete them in peace, you got that? Now, Theo, you keep your feet off her headrest and your mouth shut. And Daniella Ofelíe, you had better keep your mouth shut since it was you who got us into this mess, you got that?” Daphne snapped, turning briefly to each one of them with a stern expression on her beautifully sculpted face. Even when she was angry she was stunning. Daniella was the same way. No matter how angry or infuriated she got, she was still the most beautiful girl in the pack. The kind of girl who was chased by all of the males her age.
If only her mother her mother knew that it wasn’t her who had gotten the entire family ostracized from the pack. If only she knew it was Theo, her precious favorite male child, who had sealed their fate and that she was only taking the hit for him. Why was she taking the blame for something that killed the love of her life and caused her and her kin to be exiled from the pack’s territory? Why was she doing this for some ungrateful bastard who she could barely call family? Well there’s your reason. He was family. He was flesh and blood and nothing was about to change that. In other words, Daniella had to be there for him whether she liked it or not.
And not only family, but also her twin. Half of her heart and soul. And though they had at that point grown further apart than ever, the two separate people that were Theo and Daniella, had once been a pair. They had at one time been close enough to be able to finish each other’s sentences and feel the other one’s pain when they scraped their knees or cut their hands on the pavement of the street. They were blood, and more than that, twins…and no matter what, at least one twin would stay loyal, even if that meant being shunned by everyone else including the one they were protecting.
Turning back to her journal, she noticed how frayed the red cloth that covered it was. How faded it’s shade had become over the years since her mother had given it to her for her thirteenth birthday, close to four years prior. And, most of all, how beautiful it still was despite it aged appearance. Her mother had snuck her the diary in secret since records of a wolf’s life were forbidden as a way of protecting the pack. A human might find it, believe it and then come after us! The Council had said when Daphne had asked for approval, though it hadn’t mattered much seeing that Daniella got the diary anyways.
Finally after a few minutes of pure peace and quiet, Daniella fell asleep, her head leaning against the window, arms folded against her chest, her skull crushing the dark curls that fell near her temple.
It was as if time had stopped while she had been asleep. One moment her eyes were closing and she was drifting off into dreamland and the next her mother was shaking her shoulder lightly and coaxing her from her slumber. Her dreams had been odd ones, more odd than any others she had ever had. In her vision, she had been walking in her human skin with snowflakes falling silently around her. She was in the woods, a lush forest of firs and pines. She reached a clearing and a black wolf, one of her kind based on it’s size, appeared. It crouched down, prepared to attack and snarled at her. Instinctively, she tried to morph into her animal form, but somehow could not. She tried to will herself to change, using her mind as she always did, but she could not. And then she awakened, just as the wolf was about to attack, though it relieved her that it was only a dream.
“We’re almost there, Danni,” Daphne whispered, looking back to her brother, in whose lap was Claire, sleeping like a newborn puppy.
Daniella nodded her head and turned to survey the area they were now driving in. It was nighttime and the moon was but a sliver in the sky. Reassurance came over her as she realized that the full moon was not for another four weeks since they had left the night following that of the previous one. They were moving along a back road at a fair speed and there were no cars behind or in front of them. The terrain was difficult to make out in the darkness but she could tell it was a heavily wooded area. In the distance, she could hear a river rushing past them; parallel to their car and the road Daphne was driving on.
She straightened up when she heard wolves howling further away, not wolf, but wolves. Their voices were more beautiful than anything she had ever heard. Her kind didn’t have calls that even rivaled that of their natural cousins, the wolves of the forest. Because wolf were half human, they were not full wolf, thus they did not have the same euphonious cries or startling beauty as them. Not to say that they were not beautiful, just not as due to their unnatural origins. But just as the voices of the wolves were fading into the distance, she caught sight of one on ridge, a grey female with piercing golden eyes. As she seemed to look through her, Daniella willed her eyes to change color to their own gold, with hints of fire in them, to show that they were sisters; to be known for once in her life.
Her eyes changed back to blue as the grey wolf walked back into the forest’s depths. She turned to her mother just as they were passing into the sign saying:
Lyons Falls
Home of the Lyons Falls Lions
“Oh, how original,” Daniella muttered under her breath, still not keen on the idea of living in Podunk. Daphne scowled at her briefly, having heard her unenthusiastic remark, before turning her attention back to the road. How she wished she could live in the city, but that would never be an option…not for her at least. As they entered the town of Lyons Falls, she finally caught a glimpse of civilization. Along the main road was exactly what she expected: nothing special. There was a small movie theater, a grocery store, a hiking supplies outlet and a gas station along with other necessary businesses. Other than that, it was the epitome of the small, pathetic town in the middle of nowhere.
The streets were populated sparsely with people; mostly teenagers hanging out at the movies on a Friday night. As she gazed dreamily at their tight-knit and perfumed groups, she felt a longing inside her heart. A longing to be a part of something normal; of something that was more than a pack, more than a family. But Daniella quickly shook the feeling off and returned her eyes to what was in front of her: the road to her new home. They wound their was around the residential area of town where most people lived. Full of nice looking Colonials and Capes with well-manicured lawns and colorful flower gardens, Cedar Knoll was the “perfect place to raise your pups”, or so the brochure had said so eloquently.
But Cedar Knoll was not where they were going to live; they just couldn’t afford a new house. So, passing the attractive looking housing development by, Daphne navigated her way to their real home: the dilapidated, historical Ramsey house with an overgrown lawn and an unstable dock on the premises, near the Black River. The original family who had lived there, the Ramsey’s, had moved out in 1916 when an intruder killed their daughter Alice in the house one day while she had been home alone. Ever since, it had been rumored that Alice roamed the house in her ghost form. But it wasn’t like that scared Daphne or the rest of her family. And since it was not only a nice, secluded piece of property but also incredibly inexpensive, she had snatched the house in a heartbeat as their new home.
They pulled into the driveway slowly, seeing is it was dark and the trees around the stretch of gravel were unkempt. As Daphne drove along the bumpy lane, the eyes of each and every passenger in the car, including herself, were drawn to the large ramshackle house to their left. Upon a small hillock was the house they were expected to call home and live in; the one with the faded and chipped white paint with dark blue shudders and the unsound porch. Just the thought of living in such a decrepit old building made Daniella cringe, though she restrained herself from making her feelings known to the rest of the family.
“Well, here we are. Home at last,” Daphne remarked, trying to sound cheerful despite everyone’s obvious unhappiness. She parked the car near a garage that looked like it was about to collapse at any moment and looked back at her children to see their dismal faces. “Oh, it won’t be that bad. Now quit moping and lets get settled in for the night, okay?”
Before anyone could answer, Daniella’s free spirited mother stepped gingerly out of the car and was running up to the house with surprising delight. Slowly, Daniella took on afterwards, followed by Theo who had gently laid sleeping Claire on the seat next to his. The two older Mertjos siblings made their way along the dirt pathway, around neglected shrubs and hedges that looked to have not been manicured in a very long time. The door had been swung open, allowing the cool summer air to blow into the house. Daphne was already exploring the upstairs like a child at Christmastime, oblivious to her son and daughter on the first floor.
“Well at least someone is having a good time,” Theo mumbled under his breath to his sister, who was standing at his side looking around.
“Let’s let her have her fun,” Daniella responded.
The pair ambled towards the family room and took seats on some of the dusty, cloth-covered furniture from the previous owners, the Turners. Daniella plopped down on a comfy lounge chair while her brother took to reclining on a worn, denim couch, his feet propped up on the armrest. She couldn’t help but look at her brother with pure, unadulterated disdain. When he noticed her contemptuous look, he sat himself up against the seat and laughed.
“What are you looking at me like that for, Danni?” he asked through lips that were upturned and smiling curiously. Daniella leveled her gaze at him, not changing her expression one bit from seriousness.
Ignoring his question, she instead asked quietly, “Why did you let me take the blame for his death? Why didn’t you tell the truth?”
Theo threw his head back and let loose a low growl.
“Oh, God. Don’t get started with this again. It was your choice, not mine, to take the blame. Why would I condemn you for lying to the Council?” he shot back, glaring at her defiantly.
“Because you are my brother. My twin. Why couldn’t you accept responsibility and allow mom to resent the real cause of our expulsion? Why are you always letting your cowardliness to get in the way of doing what is right?” replied Daniella simply, sitting up a little straighter.
“Oh I’m not the cause. I’m not cowardly. Just smart. And if it weren’t for you, he never would have come along, would he have?” Theo reminded her. He knew just how to hurt her. Just where to hit the hardest. And now, she was pained along with pissed. She got up and walked to him, putting her arms on either side of his head, and looked down at him.
“You’re an scheming asshole.”
“You’re a lying bitch,” he countered quickly, his voice dripping with smugness as he listened to the animalistic snarl building deep in her chest.
Her anger was getting the best of her and she couldn’t allow it to go too far or else she would lose control of herself and change. Whenever she lost her temper, she could not keep herself from changing into her animal form. And though he was a male and much stronger than her, he was clumsy and she was much more agile and precise. She could easily take on her brother, though it would be interesting to see how it would end. She forced herself to take a few deep breaths to try to calm herself down but it just wasn’t enough. If someone didn’t intervene, it would end in a full-fledged fight. Daniella raised her hand to strike him, fury forming inside her body while her blue eyes turned to pure gold.
But just as she was about to hit him, her roar now bellowing ferociously out of her mouth with such anger that her entire body shook, her nose caught the scent of another wolf in the room. The scent of a younger wolf, at that. She cocked her head around, her teeth bared and face twisted in emotion, to see Claire, holding her Barbie doll in her arms, near tears at seeing the ire in her sister’s actions. The little girl just stood there, clinging to her doll with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. And then Daniella’s feelings of anger, some at Theo but mostly at herself, subsided and her eyes resumed their blue appearance. She looked at her sister and tried to speak but Claire ran off upstairs, where their mother still was.
“Claire Wait!” she yelled as she watched the eight-year-old run off. But it was too late. She was gone and scared of her own sister. It made her angry with herself for frightening her own sister with her own out-of-control actions.
Looking back at her brother, who sat there smiling as arrogantly as he could, Daniella slapped him with all her might, making his head jerk violently from the blow, and stalked off to go back to the car. Slipping into the front she let out a deep sigh. She was so tired of being angry with Theo but she just couldn’t stop. On one side, she loved him. He was her flesh and blood and nothing would change that. But on the other hand, he was an egotistical asshole who didn’t care for anyone but himself. He was selfish and irresponsible and when he did things to hurt her, she hated him. It was the epitome of a love/hate relationship. And she despised him right now but she was too exhausted to show it. Pulling her hoodie as far over her head as she could, she curled up in the front passengers seat and quickly fell asleep. |
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Don't tell me you love me unless you really mean it because I might do something crazy like believe it. |
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