Besides the high academic standards, the tuition was astronomical, and our pack was poor. Don’t get me wrong, we had always been able to provide for our own, but we were very much on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
My lips tilted down when I remembered trying to explain that to Gerald, thrilled to have found a subject I loved so much: economics. Except instead, I’d gotten hit across the face hard enough that I’d been knocked unconscious and left with a bruised cheek and busted lip for days.
Apparently, my interest in economics, numbers, or anything that wasn’t ‘motherhood’ was considered wrong. That was coming from Theresa. Gerald refused to talk to me and threatened that if I ever spoke about our pack like that again, the punishment would be far worse.
It didn’t matter that my brain worked better with numbers than with people. It didn’t matter that I was fascinated by the twists and turns that a marketplace could bring, altering entire countries purely based on the perception of worth. Nope. None of that mattered.
Women who talked about stuff like that were hit. Lesson learned.
To say I was wary of people in general—cautious, really—was an understatement. It was one of the reasons I had my bag on the empty seat next to me and was keeping my head down, not wanting to catch anyone’s gaze. My wolf found it annoying, wanting to be more bold than we were capable of defending. She was always pushing for that, though. But if people outside of the pack were anything like the people I’d grown up with, I didn’t want anything to do with them.
Frowning, my hand came up to my neck, feeling the scar that marked me as bitten. As different. As weak. As a target. I couldn’t remember a time before it existed, and I had no idea how it had gotten there. In fact, before the age of thirteen, I couldn’t remember much of anything. I had known my name, when I’d been born, and well… the fact that I had most definitely never turned into a wolf before.
I was still hoping to get my memories back from before then.
Before making my way to Theresa and Gerald’s doorstep, I had been wandering the city frozen to the bone, bleeding, and absent of memories outside of a few select pieces of information. It had been a confusing, terrifying experience, and upon coming across their apartment, I had passed out on their doorstep.
When I woke the following morning, Theresa had introduced herself, and Gerald had explained that I had been attacked. That I would never be the same again. That I was now part wolf. I don’t think I believed them at the time. I should have been scared they were crazy, but instead I immediately took them up on their offer to stay.
They had no pups of their own, and at thirteen? I had seen it as a blessing. I would have taken anyone’s invitation for even a small amount of safety. I don’t think anyone in the pack had really ever wanted me there, even from the start, but they had also dealt with it because Gerald was Alpha’s younger brother.
It was probably the only reason I was still alive and hadn’t been killed in some ‘show of dominance.’ After all, being hit around in our pack was normal. But killing the Alpha’s adopted niece? Somewhat a step too far. Especially because everyone knew I wasn’t very confrontational.
Something that my wolf absolutely hated. She wanted to fight back. But I wanted to survive, and if that meant curling up and covering my head from well-aimed kicks, you better believe that was exactly what I’d do.
While I had never been held up in the pack, I’d been protected. I’d been sheltered from outside forces. I had been told only the pack could keep me safe.
Maybe that’s why something about this situation rang so odd. The one-eighty left me feeling unstable.
It was like a spell had overtaken Gerald and Theresa the minute they received the letter. Even Alpha seemed unusually excited. I could admit that while the opportunity was a big deal, it had hurt how pleased they seemed to be to get rid of me. Normally, it would have made sense to assume they were excited for me, but I hadn’t been part of the conversation. In fact, no one seemed to care how I felt about it. There had been no talk about refusing the all-inclusive scholarship, and by this morning, I’d been packed up and placed on a bus that would drop me off across the street from the train station.
Alpha had brought me. Theresa and Gerald hadn’t even bothered to come say goodbye. So this entire thing felt… orchestrated. Planned? Forced? None of this was normal for how my ‘family’ worked, and now that I was finally away from all of them, that reality and fear was invading my chest.
Sometimes the evil you know is better than the one you don’t, right? Yet here I was, possibly walking into something far worse than before. What if there had been a mistake and that letter wasn’t meant for me? My eyes flickered to the letter in my backpack, knowing that it read Effie Harlow. No, it had clearly been meant for me.
I looked down at the small cellular device I had tucked into my bag. I had never owned one in my life, so when Alpha handed it to me, I wasn’t sure if the expectation was that I would call them or if it was just ‘normal’ to have one. I honestly didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know how it was being paid for, either, and I hoped that it didn’t have a monthly bill, because when I say I had nothing, I meant… nothing.
I didn’t even have their phone number. I had maybe forty dollars to my name and my bag of possessions. Most of which consisted of hand-me-downs and thrift clothes, as well as small trinkets I’d collected over the years. I had been forced to leave anything that the pack could use, which had left me with startling few things in this world. A feeling that was a lot like depression worked its way up my throat at the notion of having so little to tie myself to this plane of existence.
Why couldn’t I have a home? Why couldn’t I have some personal items I loved? A family? Why couldn’t I be around people that wanted me? Tears started to fill my eyes, but I blinked them away, knowing that crying would do me no good right now.
Especially since I had such a long day ahead of me.
I knew I wasn’t going to fit in here at Silver Falls University. I hadn’t even had a chance to use the pack computer to look up the school, but their expensive-looking brochure had shown attractive students in designer clothes lounging in front of a stunning lakefront, and all of it had my gut twisting.
I was going to stick out, and in a bad way. I didn’t know a single family, let alone a hundred, that could actually afford a seventy-thousand-dollar a year tuition bill. I mean, the money I had on me right now was the most I’d ever had in my possession, and it was less than fifty dollars. I truly believed money wasn’t everything, but I knew I needed some level of independence, some way to survive on my own. Crap. They had really put me in a bad place here.
Running a hand over the back of my neck, I resisted the urge to turn around, feeling once again as though someone was staring at me. I knew I was probably just being paranoid, because that was far more likely than someone actually noticing my small, curled-up form that was practically dipping below the back of the seat.
Bringing my hand forward, I nervously examined the dark ring of bruises that covered my wrist from two days ago when Gerald had dragged me into the living room to show Theresa the now chipped nail polish I had tried out on my fingers. The bruises had yet to fade, and honestly, it had been a hard enough hold that at one point I thought he might break my arm by accident. I hadn’t understood—still didn’t—why it was such a huge problem, but they had gotten into such a massive fight about it that I’d ended up locking myself in my room, terrified to get involved.