Wayward Wolf - Completed

State Of Strength

 

Chapter 12 - State Of Strength

~Alexis POV~

I ran up the stairs of my empty house. Guess Duke was still out on patrol. I miss him. I slept at the bar last night, then I went to school. It's been over twelve hours since I last saw Duke. I felt my heart ache for him. I missed my brother. I wonder if he was mad at me for taking off last night? I hope he can understand that it was just too much to take in all at once. Processing things isn't one of my many talents.

I was letting droplets of water onto the floor and stairs as I ran into my room. I drooped my shirt on the floor of my room and took a look at myself in the mirror, checking my arm.

Yup. Blood soaked through the bandage. Great.

I walked into my bathroom and turned on the shower. I smelled like wet rain and mud. Oddly enough, the smell wasn't bothering me. But it would bother others once I stepped back into that school. 

Once the shower was warm enough I stepped in. The water was nice and warm and it cleaned off the rest of the blood that had dried on my skin. Looking at my cuts I saw that only one was still open. The others were all healed almost. I guess Sheryl Crow had it right when she said the first cut is the deepest.

Mentally, I slapped myself. Did I seriously just think that? What. A. Loser. 

Still. Sheryl Crow was great. And you can't hate the great.

Moving on now.

I got out of the shower and wiped the steam off the mirror. I didn't look too bad. There were slight bags under my eyes, but they weren't blood shot like the last time I looked in this mirror, so I'm not complaining. 

But one thing was still on my mind. Why was Austin acting all concerned for me? Over these past few days, well, I guess it's only been two. Wow. Only two? Really? Since Austin's been here - and he's managed to piss me off and confuse me this much? 

Geez. He works fast.

Thoughts of Austin got derailed when I took a look at my body in the mirror. My back, my stomach, my arms. Full of scars. My scars...his scars. Nothing compared to the scars inside my head, but still. They weren't nice to look at. Avid reminders of who I used to be, who I was afraid of, my darkest days. The days when I had no hope, felt no love. Days that swallowed me up in a black hole. So many times I prayed for death at the hands of my father. Relief from all the pain, the guilt.

It was bad enough that I killed my own mother, then he had to spend the rest of my life punishing me for it. Day in and day out - pure torture, literally. 

You name it, he did it. Everything except...rape. Thankfully. But who knows...maybe he planned to get to it eventually if my brother and I didn't run away. I could never predict that sick bastard. He was always so creative with his 'punishment'. Never saw it coming at first. Didn't know what to expect or when. Then I started to realize that it was whenever we were alone. Whenever I was vulnerable and weak - away from Duke, friends, our pack. 

Our dead pack now. May their souls rest in peace...dying at the hands of my father...horrible. Tragic. Indescribable pain.

I fell to the bathroom floor and wrapped my legs to my naked body against the back of the door. Tears streamed down my face like I opened up the drainage.

All their faces...

My grandparents, aunts, uncles, my friends...all of them. They're all dead. My families dead because of him. Because of me...and what I did.