Broken Butterfly

What's Past...

The day Thaila was born, she already had a best friend, a big brother who saw stars in her baby blues and didn’t ever want the world to hurt her. Dane knew it hurt, he’d seen his mother’s tears and the bruises she’d tried hard to cover, he’d spent far too many nights pulling a pillow over his head to avoid the shouting. At only five years old, he already knew the world better than most adults, he knew the way things worked. He knew that silence was never a good sign and that family had a responsibility to look out for one another. As they grew, he wondered why their mother would bring another life into the household, not just because of the abuse but the fact she could barely feed the mouths she already had. He couldn’t possibly know it was the only way she could think to save her own life. It was unfortunately in vain. At nine years old he shouldn’t have had to be the one to find his mother's body. He shouldn’t have had to be the one to pick up his sister from school and do his best to distract her, hoping that once it was dark it was safe to go home. He knew she saw the flashing lights and the police cars, that the nice man offering her sour patch kids made her happy. He told her that Mama was gone but she didn’t really understand and he made a promise to himself she would never know more about what happened.

It was never Dane’s intention to change, he just had no idea what a werewolf bite could do to a person. He didn’t know that he could change who he was, that he’d become cruel and calculated. He would turn into everything he hated. The wolf was nothing like Dane. When it took over it did and said things that made that little part that was still 'him' in the corner of his mind cringe. The way he treated other people, women who were interested in him and people he once called friends was awful, but what was worse than anything else was turning on her.

The irony of it was that he’d killed their dad, their only remaining parent, for the way he treated his baby sister. He didn’t know the extent of what happened, but he knew that Thaila had been struggling. After their Mom died, their dad started to really lose it. He pulled the kids out of school, sold the house and bought a house in the middle of nowhere. He was particularly cruel to Thai after that and her big brother put it down to the fact that she reminded him of her Mom. She looked so much like her, from those glowing blue eyes to the long blonde tendrils that flowed all the way down her back. She’d always loved fairytales but she had no idea that she looked just like one, and that the same appeal was what once drew their father to the only woman he ever loved - even if he had a terrible way of showing it.

Once they moved, Dane found a way to hide her, an old laundry shoot that led to the basement. He was determined to find a solution to their problem, to become strong, to save them. He was going to save them. He made friends who swore they could help and when they put forward their solution he wasn’t sure he quite believed it but he agreed regardless. He was still adapting to his new life, the power he had, when he came home and found his sister limp and lifeless on the living room floor. He saw red and it wasn’t the blood that covered the once beige rug. He should have run to her, he should have helped her, but instead he turned on his dad. The whole thing was a blur, but what he knew was by the end of the night he was digging a hole in the back yard big enough to stuff his fathers body into. It didn’t matter that he knew the monster he was turning into, he couldn’t lose his baby sister. So he made her a monster too.

He’d never really admit it, but he was jealous. Jealous of Thaila’s ability to retain everything about her that made her good. That even when she would turn on a full moon she hid like a shelter puppy, too afraid to leave her cage and experience more abuse. But that jealously came out of him in fits of rage and before he knew it, he wasn’t her big brother anymore. He was the monster that lived in the dark. The big bad wolf.

It was bound to happen. Considering the night he’d found her, there was a bag packed. The fact she was going to leave their Dad it was inevitable she’d leave him too, but he still didn’t expect to find nothing as he stepped down the stairs into the darkness. Her bed was empty, but the door was still locked, so he shifted his gaze around the room hopefully. It was only once the breeze pushed past him that he knew. He looked up at the hatch door left open and then checked the bed for that f*****g bear she never went anywhere without….. She’d left him.

Now I know what you’re thinking, he’d have scoured the earth to find her, to bring her back. His sister was naive and, for all intents and purposes, new to the world….. He should want to save her. To protect her. To make sure that anyone or anything (besides him) with designs to hurt her was punished and that she was brought home where she was safe. No. Instead, Dane went to a bar. He wanted her to suffer, he wanted her to discover that the world was cruel and come running back with her tail between her legs. There was no doubt in his mind it would happen, that Thaila would be back. Deep down he knew nothing could hurt her worse than some of the ways he and her father had, but he convinced himself that what he was doing was right.