RETURN || SCOTT MCCALL [1]

||5.05.2||

I BARELY NOTICED CLAIRE DRAGGING ME FROM POINT A TO POINT B, depositing me into a corner before walking away. I could barely pry my eyes open, even as the muffled shout sounded from across the room. Two muffled shouts.

I remember Liam and my mother in that moment, recognizing the dining room decor, and shift myself suddenly and painfully until my blurry vision straightens on the two people on the other side of the room.

My mother's blue eyes are wide and scared as they meet mine, a strip of tape on her mouth, and there's blood running down her face from her hairline, some of the blond tinted red. There's bruises on her wrists from where she struggled against the rope tying her to the leg of our dining room table. She's shaken, and frightened, and.. guilty.

She remembers Claire, and of course she does. She's Claire's mother.

My eyes flit to Liam and I gasp, struggling to lift myself only to find a pair of silver handcuffs attaching me to the china hutch next to me that I hadn't even noticed Claire put on. It's a testament to the strength and quantity of the wolfsbane that no matter how hard I pulled, I couldn't break free.

Liam moaned again, something that could pass of as "Indi" through the tape on his own mouth, probably meant to keep him from howling. He, too, was handcuffed to a table leg, and from the unhealed marks and blood on his wrists, I could tell she poisoned him too.

"Liam, Mom." I breathed, and I wondered why Claire hadn't taped my mouth, too. Didn't she realize I could howl too? She'd met some of the pack, and she knew Scott is our alpha.

I brace myself, trying to build up a growl in my throat, ready to howl, but find that I physically can't.

The wolfsbane.

Claire laughs from where she leaned against the table, arms crossed, glaring at me.

"Claire, just stop. Let Liam and Mom go." My voice was croaky and weak. "You already told me you have to kill me. Just let them go."

Claire shakes her head, narrowing her eyes at my mother, who watched her warily. "Not a chance! She has to pay." Claire laughs. "You, Indi, I don't want to kill. Your mother, well, her I want to kill."

She starts toward my mother, claws extended, and I call out, moderately loud despite my croaky voice. "Wait, Claire, please, stop!"

My mother trembled at the clawed hand on her throat, Claire pausing there, running her claws gently over the skin. "Why should I?"

Panic filled my brain, already buzzing and jumbled from the wolfsbane, but complete terror washed over my body as this girl, only two years older than me, was going to kill my mother. Our mother.

"Because she's your mom." Was the best I could come up with. "And she was only doing what's best for you."

Claire's eyes narrowed, but her claws retracted, and my mother sighed in relief. In a flash, the tape was ripped off my mother's mouth. "Is that true? You sent me away because you thought that was best for me?"

And there it is. Claire's unhealthy obsession with being loved. Of being the only one loved.

My mother had to choose her next words wisely. As a supernatural creature, Claire could hear any lie my mother told. And something told me Claire was ready to kill at the first one without batting an eye.

My mother nodded, and I was impressed. There was no way to tell if she was lying or not, Claire could tell.

"Tell me about that day, Elizabeth." she hissed, using my mother's first name, showing her mistrust of the women. "Tell me all about the day you sent me away."