13.

I let out a long yawn, feeling small tears prickle at the corners of my eyes as I continued to look at my sister just laying there, peacefully resting.

Hours. She'd spent hours in that damn operating room since they had to reconstruct pretty much everything in her arm; tissue, tendons, veins, you name it.

That damn bitch. I'll get back at her one day. I don't care what the fuck she is.

I swore with conviction, my jaw clenching as my gaze casually darted back to Andrea's wrapped-up arm, forcing me to remember those exact horrifying moments.

All that blood...

I blinked away another small tear that threatened to escape and sucked in a vigorous breath, leaning back on the couch and crossing my arms over my chest as I prepared myself for another sleepless night. I just couldn't anymore. I somehow felt too afraid that if I accidentally let myself fall asleep just for a little while that bitch would come back and try to hurt her again.

I couldn't allow that. I had already let them hurt her once because of my stupidity. I wouldn't do it again.

I suddenly jolted in my seat as I could feel that someone entered the room even though they hadn't made a single sound, passingly realizing that I had unknowingly dozed off as my hazy gaze eventually landed on David's tall and lean silhouette, watching him take silent yet determined steps in my direction.

I remained calm and collected though as for some reason, I didn't fear him at all, even though I had pretty much figured out that he indeed must be one of them too. They all seemed to carry that predatorial aura around them at all times, no matter how nice some them behaved, not to mention that their looks didn't exactly favor their need for secrecy either.

Neither of us said anything as he handed me a steaming cup of coffee and sat down right next to me, both just sitting there in silence as we gazed at my sister's peacefully sleeping form.

"So you're all..." I quietly trailed off after a few moments, keeping my neutral stance.

"Yes," He quickly answered with a calm and even tone, also keeping his gaze trained on my sister's bed.

"All six of you?" I cautiously asked, just to be sure.

"Yep,"

I lightly nodded in understanding, my gaze falling onto the steaming cup in my hand as I couldn't help but start wondering...

"So do you guys like, eat people or...?"

"What?" He replied with an amused chuckle, turning to give me an incredulous look.

"What? Your freaking crazy leader took a bite out of me, okay?" I bit back with annoyance, at the same time trying to keep my voice down as I didn't want to accidentally disturb my sister and wake her up.

"He what?"

"Yeah, the motherfucker bit me," I angrily muttered yet as quiet as possible, unsealing the bandaid to show him my wound.

His expression instantly morphed as soon as he looked at it, seemingly shocked as his gaze then found my own, just staring into my eyes.

"Am I going to turn too?" I quietly asked as his reaction actually managed to scare me a little bit, watching his brows immediately furrow with confusion.

"You know, like, turn into a wolf or something?"

"No, that's...something else..." He eventually managed to say, still seeming a little bit lost as his gaze shifted back to the wound on my neck.

"That is called a mating mark, but I think it's better if he explains what it is exactly and why he did it,"

"Yeah, like I'm ever going to speak to that asshole again," I snorted, receiving a weird look from him as I carefully plastered the bandaid back on.

He chose not to say anything more so I did the same, casually taking a sip from the warm coffee as we fell into a comfortable silence, the steady beeping sound of the machine attached to my sister's healthy arm acting like a white noise as I allowed myself to get lost within my own mind.

However, as soon as I casually trailed my gaze to the large window right next to the door my body jolted and my jaw clenched, unconsciously gripping the coffee cup in my hand a little too tight, to the point where it almost crumpled as it was made out of paper.

"What is that bitch doing here?" I growled between gritted teeth, not waiting for an answer as I shot up from my seat and darted straight towards the door and pushed past it like a raging bull, stopping mere inches away from Estefany.

I glowered at the monster with the face of a female, watching as her pathetic tears continued to fall down her dirtied cheeks while she looked at me with the expression of a beaten-up dog.

"Oh, so now you're sorry?" I snarled.

"Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and get the guards and tell them everything," I roared at her, not even giving her the chance to say anything as I was about to give her a hard shove when David's warm hand suddenly touched my shoulder from behind into a comforting manner, making me stop just in time.

I blew out a breath in an attempt to calm myself down as I realized that I was making a scene, faintly hearing my mother's unmistakable voice.

"Carrie? Carrie!"

My head snapped to the side to look down the hallway, noticing her running straight towards us like a lunatic.

Oh great.

"Oh my god honey what happened?" She asked with a worried tone as she approached us, pushing past David before tackling me into a tight embrace, making me feel so weirded-out and even question her sanity as this was actually the first time she had ever performed such caring action towards me.

"They called me from the hospital and I drove back as soon as I could," She spoke with a soft voice, my gaze following David past her shoulder as he grabbed Estefany's elbow and began to quietly drag her away, but not before mouthing to me with a wink,

"I'll leave you to it. See you later,"

**

I turned off the engine and walked around the car to open the door for my sister, stopping her just as she was about to pick up the backpack in her lap.

"Easy, here, let me take this for you," I quickly took it and threw it over my shoulder before she could even try to protest, completely ignoring the unhappy look on her face. Her arm was still healing, so I wasn't about to let her carry it and possibly hurt herself by accident and create some irreparable damage on her still mending tendons and muscles.

She stepped out of the car with a sigh, casually gazing around the parking lot as I grabbed my bag from the car too and flung it over my other shoulder.

I was about to lock the car when a shrill scream scared the shit out of me, almost dropping the car keys from my hand as I jolted as if something had electrocuted me.

"What the fuck!"

"Oh my god, Dre!" I heard Kayla screaming like a crazy bitch through the whole parking lot as I was still struggling to recover and calm my racing heart, noticing her running straight towards Andrea as I turned around.

"No no no, no, stop!" I muttered with panic, flinching as I watched her tackle Andrea into a tight hug as I was afraid that she could somehow hurt her, sighing in relief once I've noticed that she was actually very careful not to touch her arm.

"Oh my god I'm so happy you're alive!" She cried out with relief, her brown eyes becoming glassy as she pulled back to look at Andrea's face for a moment before another tight hug.

"Thank god the wolves didn't eat you guys!" She exclaimed as she eventually stepped back to look at the both of us, my gaze automatically darting to Andrea as I tried to subtly gauge her reaction, fearing that she would suddenly get those memories back.

Turns out that after suffering such a shock her brain had somehow blocked any trace of memory from that horrible day, rendering her completely clueless about what actually happened. And I couldn't be happier about that as I didn't want her to be mentally struggling too from the trauma. She had already endured enough as it was. She didn't need some more suffering to deal with.

"Yeah, me too," I half-said, internally sighing with relief as I noticed the small and completely oblivious smile tugging at Andrea's lips.

"Who knew that we had freaking wolves in this part of the country," Kayla then commented with a mild and incredulous shake of her head as I finally managed to lock our car, earning a mumbled "yeah" from my sister and a slow nod from me before we flanked my sister's sides and began walking towards the school's entrance.

"Hey where's Jess by the way?"

"Beats me. Maybe she's already in class," Kayla answered with a shrug as she checked the time on her phone.

I nodded and pushed past the entrance doors, allowing them to enter after me as I held one of the doors open for them, my gaze secretly scanning the area inside as I searched for a certain someone's presence, feeling a little bit calmer as I noticed that he was nowhere in sight.

We then walked together all the way to our lockers, chatting around about random stuff that happened in our absence in these last two weeks at school as we reached them.

I unlocked both my locker and Andrea's, placing our backpacks inside and taking only what we needed for our first classes before trying to hand over Andrea's stuff to Kayla, only to be instantly stopped by my sister.

"Dude I'm not a helpless baby okay? Just stop it already!" She complained with annoyance as she took her things with her good arm from Kayla's hands, throwing us a look before turning around to walk to their classroom.

I blew out a sigh as I watched her go, not even bothering to try and argue with her as I knew that it would be futile, so instead I turned back to Kayla.

"Listen, I want you to keep her as far as possible away from Estefany, you hear me?" I carefully instructed her, quickly earning myself a frown from her.

But before she could even try to ask me why I rushed to explain the reason behind my request,

"Look, you know she's already been through a lot, she doesn't need a fucking bully busting her ass on top of it all. We have to protect her at least now that she's vulnerable,"

"Don't worry, you can count on me," She quickly answered with a nod as I closed the lockers and we began to slowly walk in the direction of our classes.

"You take care of her, okay?" I said just as we were about to separate, earning another nod from her.

"You text me if that bitch even tries to approach her," She turned around and gave me a thumbs up before walking away, making me feel a little less worried. She had always been a good friend both to Andrea and myself, despite her crazy nature.

With a tired sigh, I gripped the books in my arms a little tighter and walked the rest of the way to my class all alone, not even bothering to look around as I pushed the door and entered.

Mouthing a small "good morning" to our teacher, I discreetly peered around at the rows of students as I then slowly began to make my way to the back of the classroom, my heart doing a flip-flop as soon as my eyes met a pair of vivid green ones right before noticing that there were only two available seats left in the whole classroom.

One next to him and one next to David.

I could feel my fear and adrenaline increase as those vivid green eyes trailed over the entire length of me, my brain automatically trying to push away all those images as I basically ran to sit next to David and throw my stuff on the desk in a rather clumsy way.

"Hi," He quietly said with a small smile, his rich brown eyes peering right back into my own.

"Hi," I mumbled back.

"You okay?"

I quickly nodded with a lousy attempt of a smile, sighing as I could feel that numbing tiredness creeping at me as the class started.

I was feeling so damn exhausted after so many nights of staying awake, so I leaned to the side and rested my head against David's shoulder, hiding myself from the teacher's view behind the broader form of a classmate sitting right in front of me as I finally let myself doze off just for a little while, oddly enough comforted by the sense of safety in David's proximity.