The Moon Warriors Second Chance

Chapter 2

AMARIS

“STOP RIGHT THERE AMARIS!” my sister yelled from behind me.

I stifle a sigh and barely resist rolling my eyes. I was hoping I’d make it through the day without seeing her, but luck isn’t on my side today.

“Hello Bri, what can I do for you?”

“Well, for one, I wanted to tell you my omelet sucked, it was the worst one you’ve made so far. You should probably find a new recipe or something. I know you know my birthday is next week and Mom and Dad want to throw me a party. I need you to plan it.” She said with a sickly sweet smile.

She likes to do this now and again. Complain about her food. I’ve made it the same way every day for the past 6 years. Today it’s the worst omelet she’s ever had and tomorrow it’ll be much better and that’s how I should make it every time. Like I’d waste my time trying something new for her just to hate it and get me in trouble. She takes some sort of sick pleasure in getting me in trouble. It didn’t always used to be this way. We used to be close at one point. Almost inseparable, but one day, when she was 13, everything changed. Ever since then, she’s made my life more difficult. She wouldn’t even tell me what changed. Just that I deserved it. That’s what she’s doing now with this party. She’s rubbing in not only the fact that she’s getting the 18th birthday party of her dreams, unlike me. She’s going to use this to make sure I work every day for over a week straight. She’s going to say she wants one thing when, in reality, she wants something else. I’m going to have to work double time to make sure the party goes well, or it’ll be my ass, literally.

“Sure. What were you thinking about the party?” I asked, gritting my teeth because I know she was trying to mess with me.

I barely listen to what she answers. Like I said, it’s not what she wants for the party. I think about what I know about Bri and her past parties and start planning based on those. Maybe I can save myself a little grief if I plan for her shenanigans ahead of time.

“Sure, sounds good. I’ll start working on it, and I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”

She looks at me a little stunned. Like she didn’t expect me to just agree. Fighting her on it won’t do me any good, so I’m unsure what she honestly expected of me.

“Good.” With that, she turned around and marched back to the main part of the pack house.

“Tell me again why you won’t let me bite her.” Artemis startles me.

“Because she’s my sister, no matter how shitty she is to me. And two, we’d get in trouble.”

Artemis scoffs. But she doesn’t reply. It’s the second time today I know she wants to fight with me. But she doesn’t. She’s been trying for months to get me to see it her way, and she’s slowly winning me over. But it doesn’t feel like it’s the right time for us to leave. Instead of starting up the same conversation again, I decide to go for a run and clear my head. That’s the one thing Alpha Robert lets me do when all my chores are done.

After I changed into a pair of leggings and a hoodie, I hit up one of my favorite running trails. It’s well out of the way of where everyone else runs. I call it a trail, but it’s not. One day, when I was still in high school, I stumbled off the normal path when I was trying to get away from my older brother and his friends and found a waterfall and a small lake. I found it unusual because no one was talking about it. I thought for sure someone else knew about my secret trail to the waterfall, but 6 years later, I’m still the only one who knows about it. I’ve tried to show it to Mike for our secret training area, but when I brought him with me one day, I couldn’t find it. It’s like this place is only MY place. So I haven’t tried bringing him here again since.

During my run, I think about everything Artemis and I have been through. The beatings. The bullying. The humiliation. Is she right? Is it finally time for us to leave the pack? If so, why do I feel like something is keeping me here? Why does that feeling keep growing stronger?

I think about the first time we almost left, almost three years ago. It was just after I turned 18 and Alpha Robert asked if I had shifted yet. Even though I wanted to tell him yes, to save myself from the beating I knew he was going to give me, I told him no. I told him no because Artemis insisted we couldn’t trust him with the truth about us. So even though he had me beaten within an inch of my life and sent to a cell in the dungeon, I lied and said I didn’t hear or feel my wolf.

The whole time we were in the dungeon, Artemis would heal me a little here and there, but she couldn’t do much. Not without people noticing. That was the first time she brought up leaving and has pretty much every day since. Luckily, Alpha Robert has given up asking me about my wolf. And we haven’t taken a beating that badly since then. But now and then, something will come up that makes Artemis’ desire to leave stronger than before. We had a plan; it wasn’t perfect, but we probably would have gotten out of the pack with no one noticing. But I couldn’t go through with it. On the bad days, I curse my stupid 18-year-old self.

Maybe I should listen to her. I’m not doing myself any favors by making my wolf unhappy. And she is unhappy no matter how much she tells me she isn’t. Sometimes I think she deserves a better human, but she swears she wouldn’t want anyone but me.

“Artemis? Maybe you’re right. We should leave Silver Claw. We’re both unhappy, and you deserve somewhere you can run around and be happy.”

“We both do Ris. We both deserve to be somewhere where people will treat us better than they do here. Where you won’t take a beating for messing up someone’s eggs. Where we can train out in the open without fear of someone seeing us.”

“How about we leave during Bri’s party? That gives me time to get everything in order for her party, and we can slip out, hopefully unnoticed.”

“You know we could just break the pack link from here, right? We could go back to our room and get what we need and leave from here. We don’t need to wait until next week. I say we do it tonight.”

“I know you’re right, but if we leave now, there’s no telling if they’ll come after us because I didn’t plan the party for them. You know how they are. At least if we leave during the party, it gives us a better chance to be further away before they notice I’m missing.”

“Alright, I still think we should leave sooner, but you make a valid argument. Just please, this time don’t back out. I don’t know why, but I have a strong feeling we need to leave here as soon as possible. The longer we’re here, the stronger the feeling gets. So I’m serious, not backing out.” Artemis pleads.

I’ve never heard her like this before. Pleading with me. It’s almost enough for me to say screw it and leave right now. But I know I’m right. For us to have a better chance of making it out of here unnoticed, we need to leave when the party is in full swing.

“No backing out. We’ll leave in a week.”