Hunted

It was like any other day; I was late coming home from work. We had just moved into the outskirts of a new pack’s land. My mother had a meeting with their Alpha last week. He approved for us to be Neutral. Not Rouge and not pack, just neutral. I never could go with her to these meetings. She never told me how she got the Alpha’s to agree. All she would say is “One day Emmry you’re going to find the right pack and you won’t have to go through this.” She didn’t explain what exactly she meant. I always thought it had to do with the fact that I couldn’t shift. The pack doctors of every territory we stayed at always wanted to see why an 18-year-old shifter had not …shifted. They could never figure it out either. Everyone starts shifting when they turn 16 but I never did. I had some ideas as to why, but they could never give me an exact answer and I wasn’t exactly upset about it. I had spent most of my life isolated anyway. “Mom!” She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room like she was supposed to be. That’s when I heard the snarl and the scream. I ran to the back door and there was my mother laying in the middle of the field behind our house. Dying. I saw a flash of black and silver dash into the woods. My feet couldn’t carry me fast enough to her. I instantly fell to my knees. My mom was covered completely in blood. The scratches and tears…almost made it impossible to tell who she was. “Oh my god Mom…I need to call for help…Mom stay with me.” I called for help explaining my mother was just attacked by a wild animal. The EMT’s were on their way…but taking another look at my mother I knew she wasn’t going to make it. “You’re going to be okay Emmry. I promise.” Her voice was so weak. “Mom…please…don’t leave me….” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. She was bleeding out and there was nothing I could do to help her. “You need to be safe…go…please…” She was begging me to leave her…my own mother. How could she expect me to do that? “I am not leaving you.” I grabbed my mother’s hand and pushed hair away from her face. I wasn’t going to just leave the only person who had ever loved me. Her strength was failing her. There wasn’t much time left. Again my mother started begging me to leave. “It’s…he’s still here baby…please leave…I love you…” That’s when I heard the snapping of twigs. Whatever. Whoever did this to my mother was coming back and they probably wanted me to… What could I do against them? I couldn’t shift…I wasn’t special. “GO. NOW.” My mother pushed me away and I fell back onto the grass not expecting the force coming from her. “I love you…” I told her giving her one last glance before running in the opposite direction trying my best not to look back. When I made it to the main road, I was picked up by pack security and taken to the pack house. They were trying to decide what to do with me. I was covered in blood and the image of my mother laying in the grass dying could not get out of my head. The Alpha of the pack whose land we lived on immediately sent out his warriors and trackers to see if they could figure out what monster had killed my mother. I spent most of the next month sitting in a room trying to make sense of my new normal.