Chapter Ten: Repercussions (Molly Cassidy)

Molly finally learns the truth about the world in which she lives as the last of her innocence crumbles.

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June, 2013

            I wake with a groan and sit up slowly in my bed.

            "Molly?" That voice sounds familiar. There's a warm, firm pressure on my shoulder.

            I blink away the haze and look over at Jaden, who is at my bedside, watching me intently. His face is a blank mask.

            Flashes of what occurred come rushing at me all at once. I instinctively reach up and touch my shoulder where Jasper bite me. I tug down the sleeve of my gown. The skin is healed. There are small pink indents from his teeth, but that is all. It looks like an old, long since healed injury. I look back at Jaden.

            "Jasper is a werewolf." I blurt out.

            He sighs heavily. "It's time you learned the truth." He says softly.

            "Where's Christian?" I demand, realizing suddenly that we're alone. Christian is always by my side, especially when I'm hurt.

            "He needed to get some air to clear his head and cool off." Jaden explains.

            "Jaden, Japer said something about me being the thirty first. He said I'm supposed to be used in some kind of ritual to summon an all powerful demon from Hell that will wipe out humanity and turn everyone into werewolves." I say. I can hardly believe the words coming from my own mouth. It doesn't sound real.

            "It didn't make any sense. I thought he was joking, or just crazy, but then...Then he turned into a wolf, and these other two wolves appeared, and..." I trail off.

            It was all a wild dream. That's what my brother is going to tell me. Jasper is alive, and he isn't a werewolf. Neither are my brothers. Monsters don't exist. But that isn't what my brother says.

            "He wasn't crazy, and he wasn't joking." Jaden tells me. My blood runs cold.

            "Molly, our mother was a werewolf, and a member of the last Pack. The Pack believes they are superior to humans, and they seek to live in a world dominated exclusively by werewolves." He says. "Turning people one at a time would take too long, and be near impossible, but the Pack worships a demon known as Ruem, and according to the lore, when he rises he will have enough power to infect the entire world with his disease.

            "In order to summon him, however, there needs to be a very specific sacrifice, which must take place on All Hallow's Eve of this year. The Pack requires a virgin who was born on the thirty first, and is the thirty first werewolf to be turned. The Pack chose our mother to be the one to carry the special child. They lied to her about the sacrifice, and about the demon. They told her that it was an honor to bear the chosen one."

            I shake my head in denial. His words can't be true. They can't be. Just like Jasper can't really be dead.

            Jaden is oblivious to my distress. He goes on.

            "You were born prematurely, which put a wrench in their plan. The Pack's Elders told our mother they could still use you, though; that so long as you were the thirty first one to be turned, the ritual would still work. She became suspicious, and began to research the ritual and what it was intended for. When she realized they planned to use you to summon Ruem, she decided...That it would be better to kill you herself than to allow them to sacrifice you. She didn't resent being a werewolf, but she didn't want to turn the entire world against their wills and for humanity to be abolished, either."
            "No." I whisper.

            "Christian and I stumbled upon her as she was about to kill you, and we stopped her, but in the process we were turned by her. At the time, there were thirty werewolves, and we became the thirty first and thirty second. This posed another problem for the Pack."

            "No." I repeat more forcefully.

            "Christian and I took you to our Aunt Rose's house, and left you there. New werewolves can be volatile. It was too dangerous for us to be around you. When, after two years, we felt we were in control, we returned for you.

            "We thought the Pack had given up on you, because regardless of whether or not you were turned, you couldn't be the thirty first, but we took you anyway, thinking it was better to be cautious."
            "No!" I cry. Tears sting my eyes.

            "Now that it's the year two thousand thirteen, it seems they're searching for you...And they're beginning to close in on your location. I would guess they're operating under the belief that if the three werewolves who've been turned since the thirtieth are eliminated, then you will move down in rank, thus taking their place. Once Jasper, myself, and Christian are all dead, you'll be the thirty first. If the ritual will still be effective, no one can say, but it seems the Pack is determined to try it.

            "Another werewolf must have tipped Jasper off, and he had the same idea as our mother; to kill you before you could be used to summon Ruem."          

            I close my eyes, and I see the face of the woman who I know is the culprit.

            "The woman from the ice cream shop." I mumble. "Jasper went inside to talk to her. He was acting strangely when he came back out. She must be one of the Pack." I shudder. "The woman at the mall who sold me the locket...She looked like she had claws."

            "Can I see your locket?" Jaden asks me.

            I'm confused by his request, but I take it off and hand it to him. He holds it up to examine, and frowns.

            "What?" I ask him. I can't stand much more.

            He hands me back the locket, and I start to put it back on.

            "The symbol on that locket is that of the demon Ruem." He tells me.

            I drop the locket, and stare down at it in horror. I'd felt inexplicitly drawn to it, and now that I understand why, the reason disturbs me deeply. Perhaps I am the thirty first after all, even if everything about me is wrong. Well, not the virgin part; I'm still that.

            I look at Jaden again. "You and Christian...You said our mother turned you after she tried to...to kill me." I know now why my brothers never talk about her. I can hardly think of the woman as a mother. What kind of mother attempts to murder her own daughter, and turns her sons into werewolves? Whatever her justification, it isn't sufficient enough for me.

            He nods. "Christian and I are werewolves, too." He confirms.

            "You were the wolves who saved me, right? You were the bronze one with the saggy fur, because you have saggy, bronze hair, and Christian was the one with the sand colored fur, because he's blonde." Thinking back on my childhood, there were plenty of signs that I'd chosen to dismiss or ignore entirely because my rational mind could not handle them at the time.

            "Yes." He says in response to my question.

            Make believe monsters have always been lurking on the periphery of my life. When I imagined the world beyond the cabin where I grew up, it never included mystical beasts.

            "You killed Jasper." I whisper brokenly. Tears well in my eyes again. I reach into my pocket and grasp the coin he gave me. It's all that I have left of him, and it isn't much.

            "I had to, baby girl." Jaden murmurs. He reaches for me, but I flinch back from his touch. "He was going to kill you; I didn't have a choice. I didn't want to do it. I didn't enjoy doing it. I...I did it to save you."

            Jasper was going to kill me. I don't want to believe that, but it's true. The worst part of it is it doesn't change anything about the way I feel for him.
            "Being here on the farm with Jasper was the most normal I ever felt." I whisper. "It was the first time I ever felt like I had a home. I should have known it couldn't last. I'm destined to bring about the end, I can't have anything resembling a normal life."

            "I know how you feel." Jaden tells me. "I miss it, too, and I had it for far longer than you did." He sighs and shakes his head. "We thought bringing you here would be good for you. It was a stupid mistake. We exposed you to the Pack, and gave you hope, when we knew this could never be your life."

            "Jaden, who killed our father?" I demand. My brothers always told me he was killed by a wolf, and now I suspect it was not an ordinary, wild wolf that was responsible, but a werewolf.

            "Our mother." He says. His tone is bleak. "The report called it a wild animal attack because, in a sense, it was. She was in her wolf form when she did it."

            "What happened to her?" I always assumed she was dead, but perhaps she is still out there somewhere.   

            "I don't know what became of her. She ran off after turning Christian and I. Rayna still had connections within the Pack, though, and no one has heard from her since...Since that night." He reports.

            "Rayna." I mumble. I hadn't thought of the woman until now. "And Ted. Where are they? Do they know that their son..."

            "Christian killed Rayna and Ted." Jaden says quietly. "He had to." He adds, because I'm staring at him in wide eyed horror. "They were threatening all of us, but you especially. Apparently Rayna wasn't a former Pack member as she claimed; she was still loyal to them."

            "So they know where we are." I gasp. "We have to leave!" The thought of leaving the farmhouse is painful, but there is nothing left for me here. Jasper is gone. I swallow hard and clutch the penny tighter in my fist. Nothing is as painful as that irreversible knowledge.

            "We can't leave yet." He pushes me back down onto the bed when I attempt to rise. My head is swimming.

            "Molly." He says gently. "Jasper bit you."

            I stare at him, my mind refusing to process the implication of his words. "No." I whisper in a shaky voice. "No!" I cry more forcefully.

            "You're a werewolf." He informs me. "Over the next three days, you're going to undergo the transformation. It's an unpleasant experience, I won't lie to you. You may wish you were dead. It should begin soon."

            Fresh tears spring up in my eyes. "I don't want to be a werewolf!" I sob. "I don't want to be the thirty first!"

            "I know, baby girl, I know." He pulls me into his arms and cradles me against his chest. He rests his head atop mine. I clutch at his shirt as I cry.

            "I'm sorry." He murmurs, stroking my hair and rocking me slowly back and forth. "I'm so, so sorry."

            After a time, my eyes run dry, and I squirm out of my brother's arms. "Is Christian angry with me?" I ask. He hadn't, at first, approved of me dating Jasper. Perhaps he's furious with me because I was foolish enough to trust Jasper, and because of it I've been...turned.

            "No, he's angry with himself." Jaden corrects me. "He's convinced himself it's his fault that you were turned; that he should have gotten to you sooner or been stronger...He spent your whole life protecting you, and trying to prevent exactly this. He's having trouble accepting that his worst nightmare has become a reality."

            "He'll return, won't he?" I ask. 

            "Of course he will, Molly. He just needs time. He'd never abandon you, and neither would I. You know that."

            "How can you still love me, knowing what I'm intended for?" I cry.

            "Molly, you had no choice in this. Neither Christian nor I blame you. And the Pack will never have you. We won't let them. As soon as your transformation is complete, we're leaving. We're going somewhere far away and secluded where they won't be able to find us."

            His promise brings fresh tears to my eyes.

            "Molly, I swear they won't touch you." He cries when he sees how upset I am once more. "They won't use you to summon Ruem. You're safe, I promise."

            I shake my head. "I don't want to spend my life in hiding!" I moan. "I want to be normal! I want to have friends, go to the movies, go shopping, and have ice cream, and...and...I can't do it any more, Jaden, I can't!" I wail.

            " I wish it didn't have to be this way, baby girl, but it does." He offers me a pained smile. It isn't at all reassuring.

            "I love you." He tells me.

            "I love you, too. I just...I wish things could be different." I confess.

            "I do, too, baby girl." He says, and I can tell that he means it. He takes my hand into his and squeezes it. "Now go to sleep. The next few days won't be easy."

            With a sigh, I roll onto my side and close my eyes. Jaden tucks me in and begins to hum softly. I feel myself being lulled to sleep.

            There is the sound of the door being opened, and the thud of footsteps, but opening my eyes seems like too much of an effort. A warm hand caresses my face.

            "Everything will be alright when you wake up." I hear Christian murmur.

            "Do you promise?" I manage to ask. I'm drifting, on the verge of consciousness. My voice sounds like mush, even to my own ears.

            "I promise."

            The last thing I feel, as I go under, is Christian's kiss upon my temple.