Eclipse Child |✔|

|44|

I rip things apart,

just to prove that they can break.

You are not safe in my hands.

***

This must be a dream.

It's the first thought that comes to me as I slowly approach the sobbing child.

I can't come up with any other rationalization explaining how or why. My mind is in a haze, a thick cloud pushing through my thoughts making them obscure and hard to push through. But that one thought is clear within me as the view of the sobbing back becomes closer.

It must be a dream.

The child lifts his head.

My heart beats to loud. Louder than it should as the noise drums in my ears. I can't breathe as I swallow back the thrill that runs through me from the sight of blue eyes that match my own.

"Where is daddy?"

His question confuses me.

That's when I see the discord to my dream.

The sobbing child is not like how I should have envisioned. There is something off, something wrong in my creation of constructing my wonder to life.

Undiluted blond hair shines against the darkness. Hair that is not dirty or tinged with black. It is clean, almost white.

I see it and know whose child this really is as he whispers again, his small voice choking on his tears, "where is daddy?"

"I...I don't..." I back away from the child, aware within my mind that I could move back from this image that caused me confusion and pain. I could shift my focus away to the object that stared at me with accusing eyes.

"Where is he?"

I don't want to answer.

And as I raise my hand, to push the child back, push him completely out of my dream- I see blood on my fingers.

And it occurs to me then, that maybe this isn't a dream.

***

I freeze when sobbing is the first thing that reaches my ears.

My eyes remain closed. The lids are heavy, unable to raise on their own. I continue to breathe in and out normally while taking in the distant voices.

I recognize Grandma. She cries somewhere to the side.

"I could have helped her Jay...If I still had the- I could have saved them."

"Daisy, don't."

Grandjay's strained voice cuts through whatever Grandma was about to say.

I feel a warmth beside me.

The familiar smell of the woods invades my nose. Orion is close.

My eyes remain shut. I don't want to see him. Not yet.

Coward that I was, I didn't want to see him.

But Leo's voice puts a stop to whatever plans I had.

"Soraya...are you awake?"

I'm scared. I feel it wash through me. The fear could be smelled in the room. Following it was shame. I was ashamed of my fear to answer him. Ashamed of my fear to open my eyes.

I wanted to stay in this blissful darkness forever.

But I can't. I can't.

You're the Alpha Soraya. Dad's voice echoes into me. The pack comes first. It always comes first.