Wolf #1: The Pack [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

I pull at the sleeves of the black dress I wear. It's Steph's but I don't have anything black. She always used to wear black—a rebellious grunge to the very end. It's a pretty fifties-styled pencil dress, and one of my sister's favorites to wear for school presentations. She had always looked breath-takingly inspiring in it, the fabric skimming over her curves just right. The material feels a little tighter on me and the hem falls inches below my knees, but it still looks decent.

"She would want you to wear her favorite pumps with it," My mom is smiling at me from the door.

I glance down at the black ballet flats I'm wearing, "Yeah, she would love to see me eat the grass at her own funeral."

My mom laughs but it's absent, just like she is. She's barely here before but now she looks like she's about to run out the door any second. I know that look too well from my parents and I suspect that they'll be burying themselves in work before the first shovel of dirt has been tossed onto Steph's coffin.

I just pray that they don't drag me with them. If I'm lucky, they'll leave me to watch over the dock. We already have a manager for the place, but he always can use another hand. And I will willingly quit my current job if it means I can stay.

"Are you okay?" My mom touches my arm.

I nod but I think she knows I'm just moving out of habit. It isn't that I want to stay in this town but I don't want to leave either.

In truth, I don't really know how I feel anymore. Alone. Confused. But not in denial—not like everyone thinks I am. I know my sister and she never would have left me. We always talked and I know that if something was really wrong...she would have told me.

That pang of doubt punches me in the ribs again. It reminds me of how distant she had been the months before her death. Richard had barely come over to the house in the last year, and she had become possessive of her own space. She had shut me out to a certain extent.

Why hadn't she told me? I used to think that we could tell each other anything but apparently this was the one exception. Who was the man in her room, and what had he been looking for? It must have been important for him to come back multiple times for it.

I had never seen him the first time. I had only seen the aftermath of him tearing through my sister's room. Steph had been kneeling on the floor in tears but didn't provide an explanation why someone had broken into our house to steal her things.

Or perhaps I've been seeing things. Maybe Steph had trashed her own room. Maybe I hadn't seen the man from that night—I had just woken up from the strangest dream, so perhaps that had been part of it. Everyone acts like it is; that this is all some made-up fantasy of mine to cope. Had Steph really been murdered or is this just easier than facing a harsher reality? Was the man I saw in her room real? Is that necklace been hers?

"Amelia!"

My mom is calling me from downstairs. I didn't even hear her leave...

I check my hair one last time before heading to the door, pausing when something catches my attention. A smudge—no, a bruise—on my cheekbone. I stare at it curiously, confused how it had gotten there.

"Amelia!"

"One sec!" My voice echoes off the walls for the first time in weeks. I quickly cover the bruise with some makeup and head downstairs.