Death's Saviour

Author's Song of the Chapter: Given Up by Linkin Park

A tapping on my ribs pulls me from my restless sleep, I jump awake causing the pillow to go flying from beneath my head as my feet wack against my desk. Blinking my eyes, I see Caroline leaning on the edge of the bed looking down at me as her bottom lip trembles and her eyes are hard.

“If this is about your brother again…” I start to grumble before she cuts me off.

“Check your phone, Crane.” Caroline snaps in a small voice before falling out of my view on my bed, the floor creaks beneath me as the bed shifts.

The moon has just begun to rise outside as I reach up onto the dresser for my phone which blinks. I flip my phone on and swipe the lock screen, a new text icon is displayed on my home screen and I crumble. Who the hell would be texting me? No one texts me anymore not since all this stuff has been going on. I click on the text to open it up surprised to find that it is an attachment from Danny. Maybe he has changed his mind and is sending us information, that’s an encouraging thought since I was so worried about Tucker’s loyalty today. He was just an added worry on top of my number one worry, Noah. Noah’s reaction was not what I wanted or intended to get out of him by revealing our knowledge of him. It is not the way that Perry guy promised Noah would react. The attachment fully downloads on my phone pulling me from my thoughts as a picture pops onto the screen causing me to freeze. The picture is of Tucker taken in the forest, he lays on the ground blood pooling from his mouth and his eyes glazed over. Bile rises in my throat as I try not to vomit, my eyes scanning the picture for more. When I find it, a tremor runs through my bones. A message is burned into Tucker’s side reading ‘ I don’t like it when you go accusing the wrong Wolf’.

“He’s dead Crane, he wasn’t betraying us he was trying to find the truth and now he’s dead.” Caroline’s voice drifts up from the floor and I squeeze my eyes shut.

Tucker is gone, I let this happen because I jumped on the answer that I thought was right. Now it’s cost me, it’s cost us. My heart aches, I never even got to tell Tucker that I knew his secrets, that I was okay with them. Tucker was smart, and he was gay, this life wasn’t something he ever felt he had a place in because of those two things and I didn’t help him. Now I won’t ever get to help him, I am no leader. I am nothing. If I don’t fix this and soon it will only be me left, they will come for Caroline next. I have no doubts about that.

“We shouldn’t go against them tomorrow, it’s clear that this isn’t something that we are winning. They want me, Caroline, you should go and never look back.” I whisper as defeat settles into my burning soul.

Sharp pain rings through my cheek as Caroline reaches up and slaps me.

“Crane, they died for you, all of those who are gone. We are not backing down now, we are retaliating. Tomorrow we kill Danny!” Caroline snaps at me as she slaps me again before plopping back down on the floor and going quiet.

I sigh and settle back onto the ground if we try tomorrow we will fail. No, I end this tonight before my fake father returns from his trip and finds the rest of his pack killed and in shambles. If I end this now than at least some of us will survive what he brings with him. At least some of us will still run free. I pull myself from the bed as I walk slowly through the house and out the door into the night. Caroline hollers my name behind me but she doesn’t follow me into the forest, it is quiet around me and it’s not a full moon, I shift anyways and let the noises flood me. I will return to the only place I am okay with dying, to the place where I should lay dead now beside the only people I ever belonged with. My mind flashes back to the wolf in Noah’s paintings and I can almost see Dusk before me. I run quietly and slowly enjoying the last night I will ever have alive. As soon as my paws touched the ground I could sense that it knew I was here within its territory. It will be tracking me any moment now. I may not even make it back, but I will try, I want this to end where it should never have begun. I want my life to end where I was tricked many years ago.