Kelly

Fourteen

The peace of that summer didn't last. With my birthday passed and another school year beginning, a subtle shift occurred in the pack's dynamics. Caleb, now fifteen and bulking with muscle and misplaced confidence, had been quietly building a resentment that was no longer just about me. It was about his father's perceived favouritism toward Noah, about the Alpha's son, Alex, keeping a cool distance, and about a pack that, in his eyes, was forgetting his rightful place in it. He started finding other wolves who felt the same way—bored youths who saw Alpha David's leadership as weak and longed for a more ruthless pack that discarded the weak and kept only the strong. A pack where birthrights weren't discarded because an orphan cried.

His new cronies were a mirror of his own spite. There was Liam, who had failed his warrior assessment twice and blamed anyone but himself. There was Chloe, a girl whose sharp tongue and even sharper elbows were a direct result of her own family's neglect. And there was Ben, a quiet, simmering boy who followed Caleb with the blind loyalty of someone desperate for a leader to follow. They were a small, festering group of discontent.

Their taunts at school became more pointed, their glares more venomous. They would "accidentally" knock my books from my hands, or block my path in the hallway, whispering just loud enough for me to hear. "Death-stench," "burden," "charity case." The old words, now backed by the weight of Caleb's new, dangerous crew. I kept my head down.

The breaking point came on a crisp autumn afternoon. I was walking home from school, my arms full of textbooks, taking the longer path through the woods that led to my cottage. I preferred it. The quiet of the trees soothed me. They weren't there to judge. I was humming a quiet tune my mother used to sing, a song about the moon and the tides, when I felt it. That familiar, unsettling prickle on the back of my neck. I wasn't alone.

I stopped, my senses on high alert. I could smell them before I saw them. The sharp, sour scent of Caleb's anger, mixed with the cheaper soap of Liam and the cloying perfume of Chloe. They stepped out from behind a cluster of ancient oaks, blocking the path. Caleb was in the centre, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. He wasn't just bigger; he was harder, his face a mask of malicious intent.

"Well, look what we have here," Caleb drawled, his voice loud in the quiet of the forest. "The little witch, communing with her trees. Are you going to make the flowers attack us, Kelly?"

Liam and Chloe snickered, flanking him like mangy dogs.

"Just let me pass, Caleb," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. I clutched my books to my chest like a shield. I wouldn't show them fear. I wouldn't give them that satisfaction.

"Or what?" he challenged, taking a step closer. "You'll cry to my dad again? Tell him the big, bad Caleb is being mean to you?" He spat the last word out like it was poison. "This is pack land. The Alpha's land. Not yours. You don't get to make the rules here."

He lunged then, not at me, but at my books. He ripped them from my arms, sending them scattering into the mud and damp leaves. My sketchbook. The beautiful one my grandmother had given me. It landed face open, the charcoal drawing of Storm, my wolf, exposed to the elements.

Caleb's boot came down on the page. He ground it into the dirt, a look of pure, unadulterated satisfaction on his face.

"No," I breathed, a wave of ice-cold fury washing over me. This was different from the garden. The garden was an insult. This was an attack on my soul. On my memory. On the one good thing I had from the grandmother who despised me.

Something inside me snapped. The quiet connection I had with the earth, the gentle nurturing I practiced—it ignited. It wasn't the warm sunlight of before; it was the fire of an old-growth forest burning. A low, guttural sound escaped my throat, a sound of pure rage. I didn't think. I just acted.

The ground beneath Caleb's feet trembled. Not a large, dramatic earthquake, but a deep, resonant shudder. Thick, gnarled roots, ancient and slumbering, erupted from the earth. They weren't the delicate vines of my garden; they were like the tentacles of some angry, subterranean beast. They wrapped around Caleb's ankles with terrifying speed, yanking his feet out from under him.

He cried out, a shocked yelp, as he was dragged to the ground. Liam and Chloe scrambled back, their faces chalk-white with terror. The roots continued to snake up Caleb's body, pinning his arms and twisting around his chest. He was immobilized, a struggling bundle of arrogance and fear.

I walked toward him, my movements slow and deliberate. The forest was silent. The birds had stopped singing. The only sound was Caleb's panicked breathing and the creak of wood as the roots tightened.

"You think this land is yours?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. The scent of his fear was acrid, sharp in my nose. "You're nothing but a child playing in a place you don't understand. This land is older than you, older than your family, older than this entire pack. And it does not tolerate disrespect."

I knelt down beside him, my face close to his. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated with a primal fear that went beyond a simple fight. He could see it now. He could feel the power rolling off me in waves, a power he couldn't comprehend.

"Please," he whimpered, the bravado completely gone. "Kelly, I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't enough, I told you to stop. This is your problem Caleb - it's what Beta Joseph, the Alpha and even Alex have been trying to get through your thick skull. You need to learn to think before you act. You go around thinking you are owed a life on a silver platter; like this pack owes you something just for the pleasure of you being born." I said, but the fire in my chest was starting to bank, cooling into a hard, diamond-like resolve. I wasn't a murderer. I was not Caleb. But Caleb deserved a lesson.

"Perhaps a night out here will teach you that nature doesn't owe you anything. It's the opposite - you owe it for always nourishing you, sheltering you and keeping you safe and warm at night. There are many who pray for what you believe you should have handed to you, I know because I was one of them. I suggest you take the time tonight to think, Caleb. Think about who you would be without Beta Joseph or Aunt Charlotte. Think about what would happen if you faced what I had to face." I sighed and closed my eyes. The warmth remained inside me, steady and comforting. But it was like I could also feel Caleb's pain. I didn't understand it, what did he have to hurt for that wasn't the consequences of his own actions? Actions he had been warned over and over about. Consequences that had been clearly laid out for him if he continued to act the way he does.

Liam and Chloe had long disappeared, having left Caleb to my mercy. For a moment my heart ached for Caleb and the friends he kept. But they were a reflection of himself and I didn't doubt he would have done the same to them.

"I don't hate you Caleb. I once wished that we could have been friends since you reminded me so much of my brother." I whispered before slowly standing and collecting my books. They were a mess. My sketch of Storm was ruined. My anger was already gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness. I looked over my shoulder, at Caleb pinned to the earth by the strong roots, a sacrifice to his own pride. A punishment of my own to cool him off.

"They'll let you go in the morning," I said as I turned and walked away, leaving him to his lesson. I didn't look back.

The silence of the forest on the walk back was absolute. Not a cricket chirped, not a leaf rustled beyond my own footsteps. The land itself was holding its breath, watching. When I reached the sanctuary of my cottage, I barred the door, my fingers fumbling with the simple wooden latch. My reflection stared back at me from the dark window—a pale, haunted girl with dirt on her cheek and a darkness in her eyes I didn't recognise.

I slid to the floor, my back against the heavy wood, and finally let the tremors take me. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't unclench them. My sketchbook lay discarded on the table, its pages smeared with mud and shame. The drawing of Storm was a ghost, a smudge of charcoal on a ruined page. It was a perfect metaphor for my life. Every time something good started to grow, someone like Caleb came along to stomp it into the mud.