01• The news

It was 4am, when the doorbell rang. I got up, grabbed my jacket and being the responsible sister, I went down the stairs and opened the door, surprised to see the police, and my father's beta. James.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Silence.

James furrowed his eyebrows.

"Let me take care of this." He said to the police.

The officer nodded and went back to his car. James stepped in and closed the door behind him. He kept a hand on my shoulder.

"Zoe, I need you to sit down." He said.

"No. Tell me what happened." I insisted.

"Zoe." He looked at me. I glared back at him. He took a step back, and raised his arms , surrendering. "Okay." He sighed and sat down on the couch. I however didn't sit down.

"Your parents, A- Alpha and Luna , were on their way to the sun rising pack, and it takes about an hour and a half to reach there. About two hours passed, when I called them, their call wasn't getting connected. I thought maybe the phone battery might have died,

I waited for about an hour, and then went to look for them. Half an hour later, I found a car crashed into a tree, but their bodies weren't found,

Later police called me up saying their bodies had cuts and in the autopsy report , it stated that they were poisoned.... but Zoe-"

Second by second I got numb. I looked at James, his lips were moving but I couldn't hear anything. I blinked once and twice, but still no sound came to my ears. I found it hard to catch a breath. Air wasn't filling my lungs anymore. Hoping this was a dream , I closed my eyes shut.

______________

When my eyes opened next, I was on my bed, surrounded by the pack doctor and James.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You fainted." James answered.

When I got up , my head felt dizzy. I gripped the sheet of my bed to maintain balance.

"You should take a rest." James said.

"No, where's Aubrey?" I asked looking around for my sister.

"She didn't come out from her room, since we told her." James said, looking down.

Tears trickled down my eyes. So it was real. My parents. I wiped the tears with the end of my jacket and made my way to Aubrey's room. I knocked. No answer.

"Aubrey. It's me. Zoe. Open up." I almost whispered.

It took her a second to open the door, her face was red , like she had been crying for hours. Her beautiful blue eyes were swollen.

I took her in my arms and gently stroked her hair, while she cried in my arms. I cried too, she was the only family left. After a few moments I looked at her face, tears weren't stopping from her eyes. I wiped her tears.

"A-aubrey" I said. "Look at me." I took her face in my hands. She looked at me. "You have to be strong. " I barely whispered.

"I-i can't." She said and started to cry again.

"Aubrey. You can. We have to go through this together." I said.

"I- I just , mom a-and dad." She started.

"Shh" I kissed her forehead. "You need rest. Go to sleep."

She shook her head. "Aubrey. Trust me."

"Here." I heard James. He handed me a pill. A sleeping pill. I clutched it in my palm and made Aubrey sit on the bed, James grabbed a glass of water.

"Take this." I told her. She looked at me. "Trust me."

She took the pill and in a few minutes the drug started to work, her eyes started to droop and she fell asleep.

I hated myself for fainting, while I was laying in the bed my sister was crying her eyes out. I dug my nails into my fist. Anger was boiling in me.

You have to learn how to control Zoe. My mother's voice ringed in my ear.

I closed my eyes shut, and took a deep breath. More tears trickled down. I wiped them off. James and I walked out of the room, I closed the door behind me. I gulped.

"It wasn't an accident, Who killed them?" I asked, looking straight into James's eyes.

"Let's go downstairs." He said and I followed him to the hall. Quite a few people had gathered. A few Alphas and their mates from other packs, I recognised and the pack police.

"We really don't know what happened." A police officer said,

"Both the bodies had traces of wolfsbane."

"That means, someone poisoned them?" I asked.

"The car crashed into a big tree, they would have healed from the crash, but the wolfsbane was impossible." James said.

"They also had rope marks around their wrists, like they were tied or something." Another police officer said.

"How could such powerful werewolves be tamed? You know how strong they are in human form as well." Victor Hugo the neighboring Alpha said.

"We are going to the accident site again to investigate." One of the police officers said.

"If anything comes up, I'll contact you." He said and they left.

Victor's mate, Regina, came up to me. "Zoe." She placed a hand on my shoulder. "Take care." She said and left. Soon people came and said a few things and left.

"I'll be back." James said. The door clicked shut and I was sitting alone on the couch. The whole room was silent.

What will I do? How will I go ahead with my life? My parents were no more, how was I supposed to go on? Should I run away? What about Aubrey? I had to be there for her, I couldn't leave her alone. I had to distract myself.

I had to. I got up from the couch and opened the door and headed towards the woods.

I changed into my wolf and ran and ran until I was away. My paws carried me faster, the air was hitting my face, I realized I was going too fast, it felt good to be wild and run away.

BANG.

I was interrupted in my thoughts when I collided with something hard. I rolled on the damp ground and got on my feet. I looked at the thing- a werewolf.

A dark brown wolf with red eyes. An Alpha. It growled at me. I growled back. We looked at each other. It felt like it was someone I knew.

We were ready to plunge at each other. But nobody was moving. A howl interrupted our stare, The brown wolf ran in the opposite direction, I ran towards a small pond, made by heavy rains.

I looked at my reflection. My fur–greyish white, was the same. But my eyes weren't. They were red.