Crescent World

01

I tried to focus on the paperwork scattered in front of me as my mother's cold gaze continued to stare a hole into me.

I wished she would've just left me alone. It felt as though she were trying to peer into my soul. I kept feeling like she could see all the secrets that were bottled up inside me and it was only a matter of time before she uncovered every single one of them.

I was doing everything I could to stay resolved and get through this. So many people were depending on me.

"I'm proud of you, Ava," Anna said in the tense silence, the sudden sound of her voice causing me to jump.

I forced a pleasant smile on my face despite wanting to snarl. She may have been my biological mother, but I hated her with everything I had. "For what?"

"For seeing to reason," she said and smiled warmly at me, though the coldness in her eyes belied the sweet tone in her voice. "For realizing what you were meant to do." 

By reason and what I was meant to do, she meant joining and helping run a Pack that was destined to ruin other people's lives, taking over other territories, kidnapping other Shifters, and, best of all, using and looking into Black Magic.

Donald Gray, my biological father, was the Apex of the Apple Valley Pack, one of the oldest and most powerful Packs in the world. He was set out to take over everything and was hurting people in the process.

He was forcing my little sister, Sarah, to act as a perfect daughter in the eyes of the public, shaping her into exactly what they wanted without any thought into what she wanted or needed. She was afraid of them and had a hard time speaking out against what she was going through and how she really felt. She was a prisoner in her own home. Our grandmother, Mary Gray, expressed they were forcing her to become a leader in the Pack and said Sarah always faced harsh consequences when she tried to protest.

Mary had tried to save Sarah and me from the people who brought us into the world. Mary had placed me up for adoption when I was a baby behind Donald and Anna's backs. She did it so I didn't have to grow up in the Pack. Being in the foster system was hell and I was put through abuse no one else could ever imagine and faced the possibility of death more than once, but I was protected from Anna and Donald. At least until now. However, I wondered if everything I went through was worth it since I was brought back here anyway. It seemed like my life would've been hell anyway, no matter if I'd been put in the foster system or not. I couldn't hang onto the past, but there was still underlying anger that my life had turned out like this.

I was doing everything I could to get Sarah and me out of here, as well as my own Pack. So far, not much was happening. It'd been two weeks since I'd been brought back here and it was filled with reading one thousand-paged books, writing down notes, and doing homework, yes, homework on everything I was learning. They were dedicated to making sure I was learning, I'd give them that, but I also felt like they were testing me, seeing if I was true to my word that I wanted to learn more about my family and become Second of the Pack.

One giant book later, Anna said, "It's time we take a break. How about lunch?"

A glance at the clock told me it was only noon. My back was already sore from sitting in the chair for so long and my eyes were gritty and strained. I desperately wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep but I was still under the watchful eye of everyone and they expected everyone to be up and working twelve hours a day. I wondered if some of them even slept. Probably not.

I followed Anna into her suite of rooms. We walked into her entertainment area, where Donald and my Sarah were sitting at one of the tables, trays of food already placed in front of them.