~chapter 5~

                Mark led the way to the Den, occasionally looking back at Casandra. She was blank faced. “Casandra…I know we don’t really know each other but-“

                “Mark. I don’t wish to talk about this. Leave me be,” She cut him off.

                The rest of the walk was completed in silence. Casandra didn’t differentiate one tree from another, didn’t notice any landmarks. Other than blindly following the boy in front of her she didn’t register anything. She couldn’t follow her tracks back if she wanted to.

                Fifteen minutes later they arrived at a large, old looking house. Mark turned around again to speak, causing Casandra to nearly walk into him, and snap out of her blank state. She realized she couldn’t walk into the Den the way she was. Too many questions would come from it. “I take it this is the Den?” She asked.

                Mark nodded, still looking at her, confused in her sudden change in moods.

                “How did you possibly get this? It’s huge.” Casandra asked. She couldn’t help but be amazed.

                “Greg’s father passed it onto him. This house actually is hundreds of years old. We keep it in good shape though so no one pays much attention to it. No one comes out this way anyway; it’s out of the way, perfect for us. We theorized that this place was built for our kind, and our ancestors, or Greg’s at least have kept it rather secluded. No one wants to meddle in the affairs of wolves,” Mark smiled a bit on the last statement. “It has all our needs.  There are enough bedrooms for all of us, all on the second floor, 6 to be exact. Despite that, Steph and Meg still share a room…no idea why.  There are two bathrooms, one for girls, and one for guys. There’s never any fighting over them either. The living rooms, kitchen, dining room are on the first floor. Attic, basement, and secret passageways throughout the house, and tunnels leading to different escape places in case of an attack and we can’t defend ourselves. We’re lucky to not have had one of those for awhile. There are also rooms down there as well, stocked up with food, cots and such if it’s ever needed.”

                Casandra looked at Mark in mild amazement. “It seems you guys are all set here. So... Greg’s twenty-nine right? Where’s his father. He must be around still; we have better health than most. What did he do? Just leave the pack or..?”

                Mark looked down at his feet. “Greg’s father used to be the Alpha of this pack. He died in the last confrontation with one of the Houses about four years ago... Greg tried to help his father but it turned out to be useless.  No one likes to talk about much. He was a great man.”

                “Oh. I’m sorry I wasn’t aware.”

                “You know that our health is better than most, but you don’t recall our life expectancy due to the Others? Surly you must understand that, you’ve had close calls yourself,” Mark paused for a moment. “What of your parents?”

                Casandra’s expression froze. Keeping her voice as steady as she could she responded, “they died. Two years ago.”

                “Then you should understand the life expectancy of our kind.”

                “No. They were humans.”

                “Oh,” Marks eyes widened a little, “so your one of the human born werewolves. Those aren’t very common.”

                “I’m aware,” Casandra but on a reciting voice, “Vampires are born from vampires, werewolves from werewolves. There is no changing an ordinary human into one of our kind. Human borns are rare.”

                “Right... So, what did your parents think of having a werewolf child? I’m curious?”

                Casandra paused, slightly unwilling to answer. “They...didn’t know,” was the first thing that slipped from her mouth.

                Mark looked even more shocked at this. “What do you mean they didn’t know? Transformations start at a young age, before you can even control it. There isn’t a way to hid it from parents. They had to have known.”

                Casandra was about to respond with another lie when the front door opened and there stood Greg, a questioning look in his eye. “Casandra was it?” She nodded, once again about to speak, before Mark cut in.

                “I was out at the rock and she passed by. She said she would like to take us up on the offer if it wasn’t too late. I told her that it wasn’t.”

                Greg nodded, “that’s fine. Come on in Casandra, make yourself at home. I’ll get one of the girls.”

                Mark and Casandra walked inside the house, Casandra looking around the well furnished space. It was even larger than it appeared on the outside. Yet at the same time it had a cozy feel to it. “Still not my apartment” she thought to herself.

                Casandra turned her head to the sound of rushed feet on the stairway. Meg’s feet, legs, then body appeared at the base of the stairs where she stopped and looked at Casandra. After a moment of looking her over she walked over and took Casandra’s hand and looked up. “You’re tired. Common, you need sleep. Let’s give you a room.” She turned around and trotted back to the stairs, pulling Casandra along with her. Casandra cast a fleeting glance back towards Mark and Greg before she was yanked up the stairs.

                At the top Meg turned around and pointed to the left.  “Mark’s room is down there on the right, and the room across from that is Greg’s room. The room on the other side of Greg’s is the bathroom. The guy’s use that one. Steph and I don’t., to smelly in our opinion.” Meg then turned and pointed to the right. “Our bathroom is actually on the left. Steph and I grabbed the room across from it. We figured it was easy to get to and we didn’t have fight with anyone to get there. We’ll add stuff for you later, towels and stuff, once we figure out more about you. You know, favorite color and all that so you don’t feel left out. Let’s see. The rest of the rooms are open. There’s still a room left open on the guys’ side, and two on ours. So…which room do you what?”

                Casandra looked down the hallway. “I…I’ll take the one on the left in the back.”               

                Meg looked shocked. “But…that’s the one that’s furthest away from everyone else.”

                “That’s what I want. Now…please excuse me. I’m tired.” With that Casandra brushed past Meg and walked over to the room that was now hers. Once inside she shut the door and sighed. This wasn’t where she ever thought she’d end up in life. Yet it seemed to her then more than ever before that her dreams were now also part of her past.   She took off her shoes, went over to the bed, plopped down, and looked around the room.

                The walls were empty, and colorless. Just that blank white. Oh well, white was fine with her, she was used to it because of apartments anyway. The bed was actually surprisingly comfortable, with the basic white sheets on it. The room looked like it had just been waiting for someone to move into it, to give it personality. Too bad for the room, thought Casandra. This wasn’t a permanent fix. Not if she could help it. She already didn’t like the thought that she had to be tied to these...people. And Mark? Well…Mark asked too much. She wasn’t sure why he did so.

                Casandra took off her jacket and tossed it on the floor. As she did so she noticed a ticket fall out. Reaching down she picked it up. It was the Halloween party ticket. Suddenly the day’s events came rushing over her and she felt a wave of tiredness. She couldn’t do any more thinking right now, she simply couldn’t.

                She placed the ticket down on the table next to the bed. She would figure that out later. Pulling the sheets back Casandra slid into the bed, shut off the light and closed her eyes, just praying for sleep to come.