Chapter 2

After I finally recovered a little, I went back to the storage room where I lived.

The moment I opened the door, I froze.

The room was packed with things Kaiser and Kelly hadn't gotten around to putting away.

What annoyed me the most was that there was so much stuff that there was nowhere left to put anything on the ground. Kaiser and Kelly's hunting weapons had all been dumped on my bed.

The blood and grime on them had stained my sheets and filled the room with the overpowering scent of blood.

My mind went blank, and I trembled with rage.

I headed to the living room. They were all eating happily.

Mom happened to meet my gaze.

In that instant, I knew for certain that she had seen the state of my room.

She had seen my humiliation and despair, yet she simply looked away and continued laughing and talking with everyone else.

She didn't feel sorry. She didn't tell Kaiser and Kelly to move their things. It was as if I deserved to sleep in a pile of junk.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

I used to have my own room.

It was between Kaiser's and Kelly's rooms. It wasn't very big, but it had plenty of natural light.

Then one day, Kelly grabbed Mom's sleeve and cried that her room was ten square feet smaller than Kaiser's.

My parents were driven crazy by the argument.

They simply had workers tear down the walls of my room and turn it into Kelly's closet.

When Kaiser found out, he kicked the coffee table in the living room to pieces and ran away from home for several days.

After that incident, my parents converted the other half of my old room into Kaiser's gaming room.

That was how I ended up in the dark, cramped storage room.

It was still pouring outside. Someone had left the window in the storage room open, and the rain from outside formed a large puddle across the floor.

The water reached my feet, and I was the one who had to clean it up.

I suddenly realized my status in the family was just like this puddle. Eventually, I would disappear too.

Back then, it was my room that disappeared.

Now, it was me, the person nobody considered important.

I numbly closed the door to shut out the laughter and chatter from the living room.

I didn't sleep that night because I didn't even have a place to lie down.

The next morning, my mentor, David Forrest, summoned me to the Werewolf Academy.

He told me that my application for the isolated training camp had been approved.

Before I could celebrate, his expression turned serious.

"Anna, the training at the isolated training camp is extremely demanding, and the program lasts a long time. You'll need a parent to sign the parental consent form. Have you talked it over with your family?"

I immediately clenched my fists at my sides.

I then nodded seriously.

"Okay, Mr. Forrest. I'll talk to them when I get home."

As soon as I left David's office, I ran into Kelly crying and making a scene in the academy's hallway.

She was clinging to Mom's arm while openly whining and sobbing.

"Mom, Kaiser won first place in the mock battle, but I got nothing! That's not fair!"

In the past, seeing the two of them being so close would have made my eyes sting with tears, and I couldn't help feeling envious.

But now, I only glanced at them coldly and prepared to circle around them.

Mom suddenly stopped me.

She looked annoyed as she ordered me without hesitation, "Anna, didn't you win an award in the hunting competition a few days ago? Tell your mentor that you're giving the award to Kelly.

"You know our family believes in fairness. If Kelly doesn't get that award, she'll definitely refuse to eat."

My mind went completely blank. I couldn't believe she'd just said that.

The tense sensation in my throat made it difficult for me to even speak.

"Mom, I risked my life for that award–"

Mom cut me off. "I know it wasn't easy for you, but there will be plenty of other competitions in the future. Is it really worth making such a big deal over this one? Why not give the award to Kelly and let her have what she wants?

"Do you really want to watch them start fighting at home?"

My eyes went wide.

All the resentment and anger I'd kept buried for more than a decade went straight to my head.

'Why? Why did maintaining fairness in this family always have to come at my expense? What about me? What exactly did I mean to this family?'

I was about to throw a fit when my fingers brushed against the parental consent form in my pocket.

I felt calm almost instantly.

I raised the document and spoke coldly. "Fine. I'll give it to her, but you have to sign this."

Mom smiled. She snatched the parental consent form from me.

She didn't even look at it before signing. She couldn't have cared less what was written on the document.

Once she finished signing, she immediately turned around to comfort Kelly.

Kelly stopped crying, linked her arm through Mom's, and walked away with her.

As she passed me, she deliberately stepped on my foot as if by accident.

She turned around and sneered. "Why did you have to put on the act? In the end, you still had to give it to me."

She had always taken everything for granted because that was the rule in this family.

Everything had to be fair, and everything had to belong to her too.

I said nothing. I simply clutched the parental consent form tightly against my chest.

I felt like a drowning person holding onto the only thing that could keep me alive.

'Soon. Very soon.'

In just a few more days, I would be free.