Chapter 6: Backup Plan

Lilac’s P.O.V

“I hate this,” Dani huffed, sitting next to me as she shuffled through the pages of her own assignment. “What is wrong with Serena and her slut squad!”

“I dare you to call them that at their faces.” I told her, stretching my arms above my head to take a break from writing the same things twice.

“You know I can’t,” Dani gave me a puppy-eyed look. “I’ll be scared to death and probably pass out before I could even approach them.”

“Good, you don’t have to worry, I’m done.” I showed her the finished assignment.

“Already?” Dani’s big brown eyes got even bigger as she stared at the papers and then back up at me. “Did you stay up all night for this?”

“Nope.” I shook my head, giving her a grin. “I had a backup plan, one that I had been using for years without her noticing.”

“Okay…spill.” Dani folded her arms across her chest as we sat at their dining table, her mother working on snacks in the kitchen while her dad was away on patrol duty.

“Remember that really expensive digital printer at Krimson’s office? The one that I have to go clean once a week while he is away?” I grinned. “Well…it prints handwriting like a pro. So whenever Serena and her gang gave me homework to finish…how do you think I got them done so easily for all of them without compromising on my own studies?”

“I always wondered how you had a 5.0. You’re literally a genius in the making.” Dani sighed. “My 4.2 doesn’t seem to be enough for my parents.”

“That’s because you don’t study enough!” Dani’s mother commented from the kitchen, before she came out with some piping hot pakodas and her famous masala chai. “I always tell you to learn for Lily! And yet, all you do is gossip around. Study! Or you’ll never get into Harvard. At least get into Yale.”

Dani made her sad face once her mother was gone while I could only smirk at her before diving into the food. “Oh…hot! But so good!”

Her mother made the best Indian food that the best restaurants in Kansas couldn’t even beat.

“Well, tell me about the rest!” Dani urged. “Did you give her the printed one first or the original?”

“The printed.” I told her, while blowing on my chai to cool it down. “Serena knows that I’ll be gone once I graduate high school. She might be a 3.8 in GPA, but the girl knows that no one who has been tortured their entire life in this pack will be willing to stay longer, so she’ll try to abuse me as much as she can while I’m still here. And these last three months are probably going to be the worst. So I gave her the printed one. Now, all I did was rewrite the signature pages and I’m done. The rest is up to her.”

“How much are you going to charge her for it this time?”

“$500.”

“FIVE-”

“Dani, stop screaming!” Dani’s mom reminded her from the kitchen as she chocked on her chai.

“Five fucking hundred?” Dani whispered to me this time, covering her mouth so her mother couldn’t hear her saying bad words.

“Serena isn’t the only one who’s going to get vicious, Dani.” I told her seriously. “I’ll be done with this pack for good in three months. So I plan on leaving as many unpleasant memories as they left me.”

“Well, then I wish you get that scholarship and go out and rule the world…wherever you plan to go!” She clinked her chai cup with mine before we drank it together, burning our tongues in the process.

“I’ll be off now.” I told her after about an hour of us finishing up on homework and even more assignments. “I still have to go train.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow for the big event?” She returned my grin. “I really hope you drain her dry.”

I laughed as I said goodbye to Dani and started making my way back to the Soup House where I’d made home in the attic. I went back to put my books away and change into more comfortable clothes for trekking before heading back out to find Beta Luca.

I hadn't told Dani where I planned to go after graduation, especially because I didn’t want anyone to find out. I knew it was a foolish hope, because no one was going to remember me…well, except maybe Dani’s family and Beta Luca’s family…sans his son. But that’s fine.

The people I knew and loved, the people who I really belonged to…they were all dead…Dawn Wood pack was gone…burnt to the ground with some kind of magical fire that left no one alive.

People here said that it was the cleansing. That once in a thousand years, the Moon Goddess descended upon the earth to punish those who had sinned to such extremes that there was no return. She also came to gift other packs for their hard work. Thus the people here help out hope…hope that by giving home to the child of a sinner pack, they had done a thing so great that they deserved a boon.

I had learned a lot later that most of the people in this pack had come from in and around Dawn Wood. That Dawn Wood had a vicious reputation as leeches that would drain their people by imposing impossible taxes and leave their people in poverty. Women were never safe, especially from their Alpha and Beta…and neither were children. Learning this about my pack…I couldn’t believe it. The picture I remembered as a child to that the packmates here were portraying…they didn’t match. But there was no one left to verify the truth either.

As for Krimson? No one knew why he hated that pack so much, but they assumed that he couldn’t bear to see his packmates in pain. I knew it was a straight out lie.

The way he had tried to cut off my breath that night in the infirmary four years ago… he had enjoyed it…he had liked watching me suffer. If it had been possible, he would have watched me die without guilt. And that alone told me that his hatred for me and my pack was deep-rooted…something that none of us could ever imagine. And I didn’t want to either.

Because the night he had shown me just how much he hated me…he had broken something fundamental between us…something that should’ve been between us mates.

Trust and loyalty.

I owned none of it to him now, no matter how much my heart pounded upon seeing him and how much my body reacted to his touch. And he never had any of those.

Three months. And then all I need to do is wait for the ultimate rejection of my life before I get the hell out of this pack.

The only thing I could wish for now…is that my heart has a backup plan as well…for what comes after a rejection from my mate.