Chapter One

Chapter One

      I swerved on the highway I was racing down, in the car I had stolen two cities away from where I was going. Yeah, I had stolen a car. And I was pretty good at it too. I know, it’s kind of a sad thing to brag about, but that’s all I had right now.

  Cursing, I slowed down a bit. I didn’t have to speed the whole way. I’d lost the people who were chasing me a while ago, but I just couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t relax. The last place I stayed was supposed to be safer than where I was going now, but the vampires had found me.                               Yeah, you heard me right. Vampires. Those cold, good for nothing, leeches.

      I’d been running from them for about four months now. Why they wanted me, I didn’t know. What I did know is that it must be pretty damn important because they attacked my pack just to get to me. The werewolf pack that I belonged to. The only family I had. If any of them had died for me�"

      I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t think about that. Just the possibility of that happening sent a sharp, biting pain through my chest and made my concentration waver. I needed to be concentrated on only one thing right now, and that was getting to my destination. An apartment Lucian had rented for me in Kennewick, Washington.

      Lucian had chosen Kennewick because it was low-key and most likely had no vampires or werewolves running around, causing trouble. Because it wasn’t only vampires I couldn’t trust, but werewolves either. That thought made me sad. But I couldn’t take any chances.

      I pulled into the parking lot of the medium class apartments Lucian had chosen as our emergency hide out. They weren’t anything fancy, but they were better than a motel. I hopped out of the car and shut the door as quietly as possible. I had to get rid of the car soon, and hopefully I won’t have to steal the next one.

      I made my way inside and looked for the front desk or wherever I could find someone to hand over my key card. I spotted a petit girl coming out of a small office room and raced over to her. Her eyes widened when she saw me.

      Looking down at me clothes I found the reason for her shock. I was covered in mud and blood from head to toe. Craptastic. I forced a smile and held out my hand. “Addison Marboch. Sorry for showing up at the last minute, but I got caught up. There was this poor man whose car broke down on the side of the highway and I had to help. I have an apartment here, but I haven’t started using it till now. I need the key card.”

      She visibly relaxed at my explanation. We humans were so gullible. “Oh, its fine sweetie. Just hold on a sec, let me go get it.” She unlocked the office and stepped in to go find the key.

      I stood there, tapping my foot and growing impatient by the second. I couldn’t help it. Everywhere I turned, someone was trying to kill me.

      “You said Addison Marboch, correct?” She asked from the office.

      “Uh, yeah. But everyone just calls me Addy.”

      “Can you please tell me what the name of your father is?” I rolled my eyes. So like Lucian to make her ask security questions. Poor girl, she probably thought we were FBI secret agents or something.

      “Lucian Agayfa Dorofei Marboch.”

      She came out of the office, key card in hand. “Alright, here you go. It’s on the third floor, number 302. The third is the last floor, and if you don’t want to walk so much, you could take the elevator that is stationed right next to the stair cases. Have a good night.”

      She handed over the key card and I gave her a tight lipped smile. “Thanks.”

      I took the long flight of stairs. I hated elevators. It’s not like I had a bad experience with them or anything, they just scared the crapola out of me. Yeah, it was kind of childish, but the way they were a tight spaced box makes you feel like the walls are closing in on you. And I hated the moment when the elevator starts to move and it makes your stomach drop…

      I shivered. Elevators weren’t my thing.

      I reached the apartment in record time and felt eyes on me. If I were a normal human I would brush it off and call it being paranoid. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from all this, it’s that you can never be too paranoid.  So I opened my door slowly, tensing, waiting for someone to attack, but no one did. I exhaled with relief. Okay, maybe I was being a little paranoid.

      I shut the door and looked around. It was a good size for one person and it didn’t smell too bad. As soon as you walked in, you were in the living room which consisted of a small brown love seat, a brown recliner, and a forty seven inch flat screen TV. Then there was the kitchen just beyond that, and it was only big enough for one person. On the right there was a hall that had three doors: one bathroom and two bedrooms. Okay, I could live with this. I made my way to the first bedroom in the hall and opened the door. It had a bed, a dresser and a radio. I turned on the radio to the local rock station to drown out what was coming next. I was going to unload the weapons that were weighing me down.

      I took the customized SIG Sauer P226 pistol loaded with silver bullets out of the band of my jeans. It was well hidden by the leather jacket I had worn over my shirt, so no one had asked questions. Then I took the two stakes out of my boots. The one in my left boot had silver coating on the outside, while on the inside it was wood, so all you had to do was push a button on the handle with your thumb and while inserted in the heart, it sprayed wood pellets. Handy for both vampires and werewolves. The other was just a regular wood stake.

      Dax Marboch, Lucian’s son, and I, had made the special stake together. I smiled at the memory. We were going to make more for his dad and a few select people, but then the attack happened. “Oh, Dax…” I whispered. I didn’t even know if he made it out alive.

      Dax became my best friend after Lucian brought me back to the pack. I was seven years old, and I hadn’t talked to anyone. Lucian had found me stuffed in a counter underneath the sink at my old house. My parents had been murdered by werewolves and I saw it with my own eyes. Every last gruesome bite of it. I had screamed and yelled while it happened, begging for my parents to run, fight, anything. But the werewolves either didn’t hear, or didn’t care. And I stayed in that awful counter the whole time, too scared to move. Somewhere deep inside of me I knew there wasn’t anything I could have done, but there was always this part of me that wondered, what if? What if I had gotten out of that moldy counter and distracted the wolves or done something to get them to go away.

      Anyway, after that Lucian had stayed in an apartment with me for a couple months so that I could get comfortable, and trust him before going back to the pack. I didn’t want to go with him, or trust him after what I saw was done to my parents by his species. But I couldn’t help it when the two hundred and something werewolf came in like an angel of death, saving me from the same fate as my parents. I owed him everything. And since that day, he was like a father to me.

      When he took me to the pack I was nervous. I knew how to act towards werewolves from everything he taught me, which was important, but I was always expecting a wolf to jump out, clawing and biting, trying to kill me. It never happened, but regardless, I never talked to anyone but Dax. Dax and I were inseparable from the moment he came into my room and said, “You’re really quiet, and I’m not used to that but I want to make you a sandwich, so what kind?” I smiled at the memory. I don’t know why that question cracked me up so bad, but it did, and I loved it. Maybe it was because I was a little crazy, but I didn’t care. He had come in, blue eyes wary, chestnut brown hair sticking out everywhere, and got me to be his friend from one stupid question.

      After that, I didn’t talk to anyone but the Marboch family for about two years. Then I got tired of everyone looking down on me for being human, so I challenged one of the best fighters in our class to a duel, and got my butt kicked. Two fights after that one, I won, and people had already started to respect me. I was no longer the weak human, but the weak human who took a beating from a werewolf, and then beat that same one. Ever since then, I’d been fighting and running my mouth off towards every werewolf that could hear because I wanted to prove myself. Many times Lucian had said he liked it better when I didn’t talk. My attitude always got the best of me. Poor Alpha, always had to deal with a teenager and her raging human hormones.

      I ran a hand over my face and made my way to the bathroom. I would need to go get clothes tomorrow. But right now I just wanted to sleep. I got to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My very red hair was greasy and matted with mud running through it, my amber colored eyes were red rimmed and I had bags underneath them that made me look paler than usual. I had mud, and blood all over my face and was sporting a big blue and black bruise on the side of my chin where a vampire had kicked me. I snorted. After his pretty foot left my face, I had turned him into ash.

      My jeans were ripped on both knees, my favorite leather jacket was ripped on a shoulder, my shirt was almost nonexistent, and I was just so tired. At least my favorite boots had made it out alive. All I needed to do was clean them.

      Looking at myself in the mirror, I sighed. I was a vain person. I was curvy, but fit, because training with werewolves doesn’t give you room to be fat, and my face was alright. I had a small nose, and freckles. My eyes were a unique amber color that some people say would ‘glow’. I didn’t really care much for my face. Especially my freckles. I didn’t like those. They made me feel like a little kid, when I was supposed to feel like an awesome human that was raised by wolves.

      I usually couldn’t go a day without taking a shower, but right now, I just didn’t care. There was a weariness deep down, that I could feel in my bones. I just wanted to sleep, and forget everything for a while. So instead of taking I shower, I went and flopped down on to the bed. The clock/radio read 10:47pm. Goodness I was usually up until around one. I must be super tired. Thanks a lot, vampires. Stupid leeches. After that thought, I fell to sleep.