All Chapters of Mommy, Please Believe Me Once: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Laughter brought me back. Dad's voice, Mommy's, and Maya's."The Blood Moon Ceremony was beautiful. The square hummed with music and the scent of roasting meat. It was the loudest celebration our pack had ever seen."Elena's voice held a warmth I had never once heard her use on me.I drifted and watched them come through the front door. Without thinking, I moved toward them out of old reflex. I always took their coats. I always lined up their boots.I tried even harder to please her. I just wanted a single compliment. But I never received one."Mommy." I opened my arms. "I don't hurt anymore. I'll be good. Don't be angry."My hands passed through her like smoke.She shivered and frowned."Why is this house so cold? Did someone leave a window open?"I stared at my own transparent hands. I was dead. The dead cannot hold the living.Richard glanced down the hall."Someone check on Selena. She didn't come out for dinner. Make sure she's alright."I looked at Elena. Would she cry? If she fo

The third day arrived. The pack house heat had run high all night, and the seal tape could no longer hold the smell.Elena sat trimming wolfsbane blooms. No matter how strong the flowers were, they couldn't cover what was coming from my room. She grabbed a stem too hard and a thorn punched through her finger.She had already decided I was hiding something foul in my room on purpose. To her, this was defiance. This was war.She went to the hall closet and came back with a training rod, the kind pack Enforcers used for discipline."You don't respond to severance, Selena? Then we go back to basics."She ripped the tape off the bottom of the door and shoved the spare key into the lock.The door crashed open.The smell hit her hard. She staggered back, gagged, and one hand flew to her mouth.She looked up. I was still at the desk, in the same position as three days ago, my back to her and not moving.In her mind, that was arrogance. A silent challenge."I'm talking to you." She crossed the

For the official record, the Enforcers needed the findings documented.The Lead Pack Healer‘s voice stayed level, because the facts didn't need any help."Selena was born with a sick heart. A simple check-up at any Healing Den would have found it. But you never brought her in. This child hasn't seen a healer since the day she was born.""If she had been diagnosed, we would have known the red mark was a medical emergency, not a lie. She needed medicine, not punishment. If you had cared enough to check, she would still be alive."Richard put his face in his hands.Elena stared at the floor."I didn't know," she said, quiet now and hollow. "I didn't know she was sick.""You didn't look," the Healer said. "You had a pup whose body communicated differently, and you called it dishonesty."-The Enforcers read the Penance Journal into the official record. They did it in the living room with Richard and Elena both present.A female Enforcer read it. Her voice was quiet, but it carried anyway.

The High Council committed her eventually.They placed her in the regional Healer facility, and she was the strangest patient they had.She had woven a red cord and tied it around her wrist. She called it her mark.Anyone who tried to remove it got bitten."Don't touch that. She's watching. She needs to see it."She developed a reflex. When a healer asked "Elena, have you eaten today?" she would clutch her wrist, flinch, and say:"Red. That means I'm lying. Liars don't eat."Then she would force herself to sit at the table and eat whatever was put in front of her, even when it was scalding, even when it made her sick. She swallowed it all. She never spit it out.She was imitating me, living my last hours through her own body over and over, as if she could suffer them correctly on my behalf.-Years passed.Maya grew up wrong, with no structure and no consequence, and no pack would take her seriously with that name following her everywhere.When she ran out of coin, she thought of Mommy.