Violets and Ash novel Chapter 1

They said it was raining when I stumbled into town, past the boarders so poorly protected even a critically wounded ten-year-old could slip through.

I had been walking for hours. I was told my feet were blistered and bloody with wounds that reappeared faster than they could heal, but that they paled in comparison to the thick slices covering my body.

I couldn’t remember the pain, or the song they had said I’d been singing. I couldn’t remember the feeling of the rain on my face, or the mud in between my toes.

The widow who had taken me in while I was sick and healing, who had begged her Luna and Alpha to take me off her hands once the night terrors and outbursts became too much, I couldn’t remember her either.

My first memory began with him. The tender eyed doctor with the curly hair and friendly smile. I had giggled when his glasses slid off his nose and fell into my lap. Elijah was the first person who didn’t treat me like a problem in need of solving. I told him my name that day, the only detail from my past life that I remembered.

And just a few days later, the small-pack doctor who had never wanted children of his own adopted me. The place I had left—the place I had no memory of it became a distant nightmare I would never be able to shake.

All too soon the townspeople’s stares went from sympathetic to wary. The near endless flood of casseroles and chocolate chip cookies dwindled into long stares and whispered words. Instead of inviting me to play with their children, they would pull them away.

Even with their beloved town doctor as my guardian, I was an outcast.

In school the other children avoided me. They slowly made a game out of it, pretending I didn’t exist. Even though I’d come home crying on numerous occasions, it was nothing compared to what awaited me in high school.

That summer was one of growth for all of us. Lanky baby-faced boys morphed into pimple-faced teenagers, swollen from the small amount of muscle they gained from their limited summer activities. Those same boys, who had squished their faces into looks of disgust whenever a she-wolf their age walked by, now chased them in flocks of strong-scented cologne and spearmint gum.

When the other she-wolves realized the newfound power they acquired in addition to their growing chests and backsides, it was only a matter of time before the games of chase began.

There would be many discoveries and realizations during those three long months, all of which marked the beginning of what would someday become adulthood. When high school rolled around, the children who once pretended I didn’t exist were now infused with a newfound sense of courage that wouldn’t cease.

Teenage hormones and cruel curiosity were the instruments of my destruction—and what a pretty picture they painted.

Scarlet splashed against tile, fabric splitting in two again and again, the sounds of prickling laughter as they tore at my skin—at the scars I tried so hard to keep hidden.

I was swept away, plunged into darkness that stung like ice water. It poured into my open mouth, down my throat in waves that stung and forced me to sputter for breath. The water thickened to slush in my lungs, leaving me frozen and suspended in darkness while a ghost wearing my face smiled down at me.

The last thing I remembered were the screams.

Voices that had deepened this past summer now rang out in shrill sopranos, only fading when the icy grasp of nothingness released its hold on me and sent me freefalling to earth—to the mess I had made.

Everything changed after my blackout.

I was dangerous. A menace. A ticking time bomb that would burn our little pack from the map before long. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember anything, that I’d been disconnected from my body like a hot air balloon thousands of feet above the ocean, desperate to land but destined to succumb to the vicious and violent waves far below.

Even as Elijah sat me down for our first ever serious talk, he never looked at me the way the other parents did—never spoke to me in that syrupy sweet tone that reeked of disdain and ableism. He listened to me, gave me every ounce of his belief even though I’d done nothing to earn it. Beginning home-schooling, that was a decision we made together—one of our firsts.

Within those first two months, my grades skyrocketed. I began baking, taking up different hobbies to pass the extra time on my hands. The little girl that longed for friends became used to her comfy, padded prison.

Even when the lock rusted and fell off, she stayed.

We stayed.

Still, there was this restlessness in my chest that I couldn’t seem to shake. It only eased when I ventured outside, took deep breaths of the crisp mountain air, and listened to the dull chatter of people outside.

It was this restlessness that led me to Jeb’s Saloon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I ducked just in time for the glass to shatter on the wall above my head, raining little crystalline pieces down into my hair. A sigh escaped my lips as the tiny pieces tangled themselves in my pale curls, the loose ones tumbling down my shoulders.

Well, this was wonderful. Not only would it take forever to get out of my hair, but I’d also get a bloody scalp.

I groaned softly when some Jim Beam trickled off the counter and onto my shoulder, soaking into my last clean t-shirt. The pungent liquor burned my nose and filled my head with its nutty and floral scent.

A silent prayer of thanks left my lips because Jeb would skin me alive if it had been the top shelf stuff flung across the bar.

The sound of grunting and cursing meshed with the AC/DC blasting on the speakers, which overpowered tonight’s football game. The subtitles were on, but most of the guys here were stopped being able to read them four hours ago.

If they weren’t piss drunk by 6pm, they’d realize this was just a rerun from last year’s game. Not one person noticed how the date jumped from game to game, or how the players seemed to come and go without reason.

Most of our bar fights started this way, and I can’t say I made things much better.

Some sore loser would bet his entire paycheck that the Raven’s would win this time around, only to forget that when the same game played last week, they had lost miserably.

Chiefs vs. Chargers, Raiders vs. Browns.

Who knew who would win?

It was sneaky and devious, two things I absolutely was not. Still, the cash I won did come in handy for those late-night baking sessions and the occasional tie for Elijah.

I figured it was a little slice of revenge for the men’s mates and children, who they’d complain about endlessly once they stepped foot through the creaky blacked-out door.

All Billy Macon’s kids did was whine, while Phil Crow’s mate couldn’t stop spending his hard-earned money on her ‘scratchies’ at the gas station down the block. Night after night they’d punish themselves, drinking to forget the finality of their choices, the ones that led them to be where they are now.

Most of our bar fights were over the football games, but not this one.

“Donny, you know he’s been sleeping with your wife for two months now.” I said with gritted teeth, narrowly dodging a half-full shot glass as it soared through the air.

Donny was all bark and no bite, especially since he had half his teeth removed last fall. He was one of our more friendly regulars, but his demeanor would change the moment his wife walked through the door—which has happened a time or two.