Before I Die Young

The day my birth parents found me, the reunion banquet they threw turned into their funeral.

My parents and their adopted daughter, Leila, died of food poisoning that night. The only one who survived was my older brother, Alpha Kian. He didn’t like sweets, so he never touched the cake.

The cake that I handed to them myself.

“So you want to take Leila’s place.

“You’re just jealous because she got all our love!

“She was the only one who ever accepted you, and you still killed her!”

Those were Kian’s exact words as he shouted at me right outside the hospital room.

From that day on, I became a sinner.

To make up for it, I barely slept four hours a night and worked five jobs just to buy back the villa the rival pack seized during the chaos.

However, the day I finally saved up enough, I saw my dead parents throwing a birthday party for Leila in that very villa.

Kian stood among them, looking at her with a warmth I didn’t recognize.

My mother said, “Isn’t today also Lily’s birthday? It’s been eight years. Maybe it’s time to forgive her.”

However, Kian didn’t hesitate to refuse. “No. Even though Leila sniffed out the wolfsbane and saved you, we agreed that Lily gets ten years.

“We can’t risk her ever trying to poison Leila again. Not even a day less.”

I clutched the diagnosis paper from the clinic tightly and laughed through my tears.

I knew I wouldn’t get to ten years.

I was already dying.

...

It took me two hours of rummaging through the first aid cabinet to find a single vial of painkiller.

I wasn’t even sure if it was expired, but I injected it into my arm, hoping it would dull the searing pain deep in my bones.

Just as I crawled back into the corner cot in the living room that served as my bed, Kian returned.

As he caught sight of my pale, sickly face, his expression flickered. However, it was quickly replaced by disappointment.

He glanced at the clock, then said in an icy voice, “Time’s up. Head to the confessional. You know the rules.”

Relics of our parents and Leila filled the confessional. The floor and walls had been dusted with a layer of fine silver powder, nearly invisible to the eye.

I figured it was just another method of punishment.

I had been kneeling in the confessional every day for eight years. Two hours a day, not a single day missed.

I forced myself to my knees, biting back the stabbing pain in my bones, my body limp from the burning sensation of the silver dust.

Outside the doorway, Kian stood watching coldly.

“I just came back from the cemetery. Today is their death anniversary. And you’re here, resting?

“Don’t forget how they died. Three lives. You could spend the rest of your life repenting, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“All I’m asking is for you to pray for them here. Don’t act like you’re being tortured.”

However, I’d seen them earlier today in the villa I’d worked for years to buy back, celebrating Leila’s birthday.

I pushed down the nausea from the silver burn and asked quietly, “Why have you never taken me to the cemetery all these years?”

Kian paused. Then, with obvious irritation, he said, “Because you’re cruel. You can’t stand Leila. All you’d do is disturb their peace.”

I closed my eyes. All I could see was what I’d witnessed earlier that day.

There was no cemetery visit because they weren’t dead.

Over the years, when Kian said he was going to the cemetery and locked me in the confessional to atone, he was with Leila.

That was the punishment, they said.

Because at the reunion banquet, I was the one who handed them the cake laced with wolfsbane.

So, for eight long years, I carried the guilt of killing my family. Kian, with his twisted sense of righteousness, made me atone for it day after day.

Lost in my memories, I barely registered Kian’s voice thundering at me from the doorway. His voice with Alpha Force hit my ears.

“Lily, I told you to repent, not to space out!

“Think about what you did to Leila. Don’t think for a second that this is enough to clear your sins!”

His words lashed me, slicing through to my wolf spirit.

My already weak body finally gave out. My vision went black, and my forehead slammed into the silver-dusted floor. It sent waves of searing agony through my body.

Strangely enough, after the initial burst of pain, I quickly became numb.

Maybe the painkiller finally kicked in.

Perhaps it was something else; as the next moment, a wave of familiar weakness washed over me, and everything faded.

Kian froze as I fainted and collapsed on the floor. Then he bolted into the room and scooped me up, his voice uncharacteristically panicked.

“Lily! What’s wrong? Wake up!

“Get the car! We’re going to the treatment room now!”

However, just as he stepped outside the confessional, his phone rang.

The ringtone stopped him in his tracks.

He hesitated before laying me down on the floor and rushed out to take the call.

The floor was freezing. I lay there silently, stomach churning. Eventually, I couldn’t hold it in and vomited.

I’d heard that ringtone many times before. However, it wasn’t until now that I realized it was the one he’d set for Leila.

Just as I was feeling nauseous again, Kian returned with a sullen face.

He stared at the limited edition shoes now covered in vomit. They were a birthday gift from Leila, and he treated them like a treasure.

His expression turned murderous.

“Lily, is this how you’re trying to get my sympathy?

“Or do you just hate Leila so much that you had to defile the shoes she gave me?

“You’re disgusting when you get jealous. I never should’ve gone easy on you.”

Before I could even react, he dragged me back into the confessional.

“Stay here and repent until sunrise. Don’t come out before then!”