Chapter 3

      Beep. Beep. Beep……Beep. Beep. Beep. I jolt awake from the nightmare and lie still, letting my body relax. My face is still wet with tears and my heart is racing. I haven’t had this nightmare in a while. For several years after my parents died, I would wake up screaming and crying from the memory. The only reason I could think of that may have caused the memory to resurface was my graduation. I graduated college yesterday and couldn’t help but wish that my parents were with me. Thinking about them probably triggered the nightmare episode. 

      After my dad died in my arms, I ran back to our house. I wasn’t able to bury my parents and that is something that I have always regretted. I continued my schooling at home and was able to get into my parents’ accounts and use the money. My parents had homeschooled me all of my life, so I simply continued my online classes. The only difference was that I no longer needed to take holidays as I had no one to celebrate with. 

      I threw myself into my studies to dull the pain of their loss. I took classes almost everyday of the year, with rare exceptions like my birthday or when I was sick. I also occupied myself with hobbies. I decided that I would no longer be helpless. I was unable to help my parents, but that would soon change. I studied fighting techniques, learned how to wield weapons, and researched my heritage. 

      If it wasn’t already obvious, my parents and I are lycans. Lycans are the less commonly known cousins of werewolves. My parents were unable to find a lycan pack to settle down in and decided to live as ‘rogues’ or packless wolves instead of joining a werewolf pack. There are several perks to being a lycan, as I have learned. My healing ability is far greater than a human’s and better than a werewolf’s. Unlike werewolves, silver and wolfsbane will not kill a lycan. Wolfsbane gives us headaches and silver just doesn't affect us. Lycans have larger wolves and are more powerful than werewolves. However, werewolves and lycans both shift at the age of eighteen.

      There is one main issue with werewolves that my parents made sure I understood from a young age. Werewolves that live in packs absolutely detest rogue wolves. I do not blame them. There is good reasoning for hating rogues. Rogues usually go insane from the solitude and, more often than not, end up attacking and killing innocent wolves. The group of wolves that killed my parents were rogues. Since then, I have made a habit of going rogue hunting. I take a break from my work and hunt down and kill rogues that have gone insane. 

      Unlike most werewolves, I don’t kill all rogues, just the ones that are insane. That is why I said that the werewolf treatment of rogues is a problem. Often, wolves who have gone rogue to escape a bad situation and are seeking shelter, are killed or imprisoned simply because they are rogues. Ugh. This annoys me so much. Innocent people are killed because of herd mentality. Why can’t the pack wolves see that some rogues are not bad?

      Anyway, when my parents died, I was in sixth grade. They had homeschooled me due to their distrust of others. They taught me to hide my scent around other people. The humans couldn’t tell, but werewolves and humans look alike from a distance and by the time you can smell one, they can smell you as well. Like I said, pack wolves hate rogues and will kill one in human territory simply because it could be a threat. Thus, I stuck to online schooling. I managed to graduate high school at the age of fourteen and began college later that year. 

      I co-majored in business management and business operations while minoring in computer science, finance, and accounting. By taking classes during both the summer and winter sessions, I graduated college with a bachelors degree at the age of seventeen. That summer, I decided that I should go for a masters degree in business. My masters took two years, but I finally finished and officially graduated, with honors, yesterday.

      Groaning, I roll over and climb out of bed. I’m not sure what to do next. My parents left me plenty of money, so I could wait a couple of years to get a job. Throwing my arms up, I stretch and yawn. The tile is cold beneath my feet as I walk into my bathroom. I need to get dressed and figure out my life. We could always find our mate. My wolf suggests. She knows my feelings on this. I don’t trust people. My mate will probably just reject me for being a rogue. I pull on a shirt and pair of shorts before sitting down at my desk. Might as well do some research for possible job openings.

      I turn on the computer and it opens to my email. I notice that I have a new message, so I click on it. I begin to read it aloud: “Dear Miss. Lozerno, We would like to offer you an internship at our company. If you do well, we may consider hiring you full time. We are looking for people with your skill set and hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely, Rebecca Dulte, Hiring Specialist at Techex.” Techex is a big tech company, as in fortune five hundred big, and I just got an internship offer from them. How does that sound? I ask Enar, my wolf. An internship at a fortune five hundred company. 

      Better than nothing, she responds. I roll my eyes as I type up a polite acceptance email and send it. Not ten minutes later I receive another email. “Thank you for your prompt response. We are pleased to hear that you will accept the internship. Please come to the office tomorrow at nine am to start your training.” The sudden start seemed a bit unfair, but I had nothing else going on. The address for the office was included in the email, so after sending a response email, I looked up directions. The office is actually in the city near my house. How lucky is that? I do some research on Techex, so that I actually know about the company I will be interning at. I knew that it was famous, but I didn’t know the global scale of the company. 

      However, everything made sense when I saw who the CEO is. Claire Buroet is a famous business woman. She started Techex herself when she was twenty and now it makes billions in annual revenue. There are many things one can learn from a woman like that. I need to be prepared for tomorrow. The laptop screen goes dark as I stand up and enter my closet. First things first, I need an outfit. Among the racks of clothing, I find a black pencil skirt with a matching blazer. Perfect. I sift through a rack of shirts before finally finding a silky tank top that fits nicely with the blazer and skirt. I try everything on, just to be sure, before hanging it up together on the back of the closet door. 

      Stepping out of the closet, I hear a grumble from my stomach. It's lunch time. I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. I watched many, many videos on how to cook before I was able to make a proper meal. I pull out a saucepan and a pot. Placing both on the stove, I open the pantry doors. I should make a meal today, so that I have some leftovers that I can eat while I figure out my new routine. I grab a jar of spaghetti sauce from a nearby shelf and snag a box of noodles on my way out. I fill the pot two thirds of the way full with water and add a dash of salt. 

      I pull out bread, ham, cheese, and mayonnaise from the fridge while the water heats up. Might as well make my lunch for tomorrow while I’m in the kitchen. I spread the mayo on a piece of bread before adding the ham and cheese. I package the sandwich in a baggie and place everything back in the fridge. The water is starting to boil, so I dump the noodles into the pot. I return to the fridge to pull out some ground beef and a clove of garlic. I think that a meat sauce would be good on the spaghetti.

      I brown the meat in the sauce pan before I mix in the jar of spaghetti sauce and the clove of garlic, which I crushed. The sauce starts to bubble, so I take it off the stove just as the timer goes off for the noodles. Perfect timing. I dish myself a plate, but let it sit to cool while I package the leftovers and wash the dishes. I eat my lunch while surfing through channels on the TV. I spend the rest of the day resting and preparing for work tomorrow.