Chapter 8

He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Everything was closing in on him. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t want to kill. He didn’t want to be like his father. He could hear his father’s voice angrily in his head from earlier, “I’ve been grooming you for this for years! You can’t just walk away!” 

“Yes, I can! Give it to Viktor, he already planned on taking it all over before I was even around, in fact you had been teaching him 10 years before I was even thought of. I don’t want it! I don’t want anything to do with it, with you, this pack, or the Rogue Hunters! I don’t want to be a killer!”

“It’s your destiny! You are my blood! You WILL become Alpha; you WILL become part of the Rogue Hunters and you WILL kill eventually! When you do, I will be there, and you will finally be part of the Rogues. You will know and understand the supreme satisfaction and joy of taking a life, it’s inevitable, you are my blood. 

“I can’t! I won’t!” he yelled out loud shaking his head back and forth. He looked around him at the chaos that was beginning to settle down, he looked at the small semicircle of concerned people beginning to surround him, Jaxson, Bastian, Derrick, Mr. Everwood, and of course his best friend. They have become his family and his escape from his dad.  He looked back again at Iliana, and slowly started backing away from her dead body. The body of the girl he was in love with, the girl who was his sanctuary from his father’s cruelness and abuse, the girl he had been dating for the past two years, the girl who he never saw in her wolf form, because they wanted to wait to reveal themselves tonight at the party. The girl he killed. The girl whose throat he ripped out without a second thought. He turned around and ran! He ran, and ran, as if the demons of hell were after him. He ran from the girl he killed, he ran from the Everwood’s, he ran from his best friend who had been there since they were cubs, but mostly he ran from his father’s voice in his head saying, “It’s your destiny! You are MY blood! You WILL kill!"

He ran south, through the woods of Carrington and further still, back into Blackthorn Territory. He wanted to go home to his mother who tried so many times to protect him and his sister Rochelle from their father’s anger, but never quite succeeded, dear old dad always found them no matter where she hid us. But he was afraid that his father would be there, smiling at him, saying, “I told you so.”

He thought about where he could go to get away from him and his voice in his head, there was one spot deep into Blackthorn Territory that he and Rochelle had found recently, their dad hadn’t been able to discover it in over two years. He ran there now, not stopping for anyone or anything. Just ran, trying to escape it all. 

He crossed through the thickest part of the woods just north of the Blackthorn Estate where no one ever went. He saw the river that would lead him to the spot, all he had to do was cross it, and then no one would be able to find him, and he could mourn the loss of Iliana.

He got to the bank of the river and tried to find a good place to cross. It had risen since the recent rains and the waters were rushing quickly over the rocks where he would normally cross. He walked south along the riverbank, and he eventually found a tree that had fallen across the river to some large boulders and looked pretty sturdy. He decided to cross there, and hoped he made it, although right now he could care less if he lived or died. He felt he deserved to die for killing Iliana. He began to cross, the tree was not as stable as he initially thought, it gave a little under his weight, and moved whenever he walked. He slipped once, caught himself, then slipped again halfway across. This time he fell into the rushing water. He felt it envelop him into its cold embrace, for a moment he let go and let it take him.