LUNA'S RETURN

CHAPTER FOUR: REJECTION

RIVERA’S POV

“Get out of my sight you disgusting thing” Celeste commanded, eyeing me and twitching her nose as I walked past her from the park dump where I had been assigned to clean.

Her clique of friends who stood with her laughed and called me all sorts of names. I couldn’t blame them because I reeked of garbage. It wouldn’t be the first time I had been publicly humiliated in this manner and one could say I had gotten used to it.

I headed straight to the public shower for after pack duties and washed off before heading to my room where I soaked myself in my bathtub and let my train of thoughts take over.

The months that followed after Casper and Celeste’s affair had ushered in a new beginning: the reign of Celeste. Celeste who had been unavailable all our lives suddenly appeared everywhere I was, constantly reminding me of my status in the pack and humiliating me every opportunity she got.

My pack duties were downgraded to scrubbing toilet floors, cleaning the pack dump and emptying everyone’s garbage into it. I had to walk for miles to empty the contents of the heavy dump into the truck that came around the neighboring vicinity of Sunnyvale, which was a whole 5 miles from the pack. When I returned, my back would be aching and my legs would be shaky.

The minute I slumped on the floor to take a little break before going about the other duties, Celeste would appear reminding me that I had other duties and as the chatterbox that she was, would engage me in annoying conversations so I would get back to work in a bid to stop listening to her.

It worked like a charm and weakened me down to the last cell in my body. I was fighting to stay alive each passing day.

I visited Luna Raina and to my surprise found her chatting away happily with Celeste over historical stories. I couldn’t complain about anything again and instead pretended that I just wanted to read for a while, an excuse for me to take a break from my duties.

Celeste being the she-devil that she was, immediately reminded Luna Raina that it would be better for me to get back to my duties than sit around all day doing nothing, to which Luna Raina asked me to return to my duties.

I pleaded that every part of my body ached and my hands were so sore they couldn’t lift anything, to which she responded that I go see the healers of the pack to have a look at the areas that were sore after completing pack duties for the day.

With anger I demanded to know why Celeste did not engage in pack duties like me and few others and paraded herself around all day. Luna Raina snapped and asked me never to compare myself to Celeste. She went on to remind me that my father worked to get to where he was before his death and that it was now my turn.

She warned me never to address Celeste as lazy, stating that her father was held in high esteem in the pack and as a prime native of the pack, Celeste could afford to sit around all day. I couldn’t believe it, Luna Raina who I considered my mother was on Celeste’s side.

I bowed my head in shame and excused myself from her presence, blaming myself for ever considering anyone besides my father, my family. I was abandoned on the roadside of life to die a wretched and miserable death.

I woke up to more demanding pack duties as the days went by. The worst being, scrubbing the floors around Casper’s room and whenever I did that, Casper and Celeste would be inside f*****g themselves senseless.

I knew it was an attempt to make me feel worthless. I prayed constantly to the moon goddess to take away my eyes and ears so I wouldn’t be able to see the man I loved in a relationship with another or hear them do these things to me. After their activities, they would emerge from the room, not even bothering to look my way.

I had no friends or family. I was dead to Casper and his family. I was degraded to Celeste’s pawn which she could humiliate whenever she wished.

I didn’t bother to retaliate whenever she “accidentally” stepped on my hand when I knelt scrubbing the bathroom floors or dumped ice cold buckets of water on my head because no one cared anymore. They would just take her side blindly.

The only thing I could do was watch with misery how my life had changed just a few months after my father’s death.

My fears of being unloved and with no one to stand up for me had unfolded right before me. Misery had become my middle name. I wasn’t allowed to eat anywhere near her or Casper or even get an opportunity to talk to him. Talking to him would be a waste of time anyways since he was too busy with his new lover to even acknowledge my misery.

I became a ghost to them, always looking sickly and exhausted, not having time for anything other than pack duties and constant mistreatment from Celeste. I was basically transformed to a circus clown for Celeste and her air-headed friends, leaving nasty comments on the simplest activity I did in front of them, even down to tying my hair up for pack duties.

The next week, I decided I had enough of Celeste and her stupid rants, so I switched the clean drinking water in her room with toilet water. Celeste was livid and didn’t suspect me at all, calling all her friends to question them separately about the incident. The next morning, I woke up to pieces of my long hair scattered on my bed.

Celeste had cut most of my hair. My long raven-black hair which had always been my pride lay in chunks on my bed. As if my misery couldn’t be any worse, Celeste reported my actions to Alpha and owing to the fact that I was no longer a favorite of Casper’s family, my punishment was worse than normal.

I was to be Celeste’s personal maid for the week. I was crushed and it didn’t help that I had expected that kind of punishment.

I broke down in tears in front of Celeste, Casper and his entire family and no one comforted me like before. It was the most miserable point in my life and I had no one to talk to. I was at the peak of my rejection.