The Betrayed won't Lie Low (discontinued)

Chapter 11

"Let's start." Laurelyn clapped her hands together and smiled. She looked at the door, making sure it was shut. It was, and she continued to speak. "But before that, Aurelia..."

"What?" Aurelia said.

"I have just one question. Are the walls soundproof?"

"No," Aurelia answered, and paused for a moment. "...but why do you ask?"

"Because the glazer fixing the window out there could hear," Laurelyn replied.

"Oh. Wait. Give me a second."

There was a long moment of silence.

Aurelia spoke again. "Uh, there is a room with really thick walls though...?"

"Really? Where?" Laurelyn prompted.

"The basement," Aurelia explained. "I can take us there and we can continue?"

"Okay." Nyx's tone was indifferent, like she wanted this talk to be over.

"Yeah, sure," Laurelyn said, nodding.

Aurelia opened the door without thinking, leading the two sisters into her old room, which was next to David's, as the passage to the hidden basement was there. It was where she had always hidden during attacks.

She froze. Nostalgia rushed through her, unfading, unfeeling of her pain. She should have thought this over before doing it.

She swallowed hard, trying to force her feet to move. Yet they refused, and she stayed rooted in place.

"'Lia," a voice said from behind her.

Aurelia whipped around at the sound of familiar nickname, only to see Laurelyn standing there with an slightly bored look in her eyes.

Aurelia breathed out, a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Then she gulped.

Nyx gave her a questioning look.

"P-please don't call me that," Aurelia stuttered. "A-anything but that."

"Okay." Laurelyn looked confused, but she was quick to answer and didn't ask about it.

"Mm," Nyx made a small noise of agreement.

Aurelia's heart was racing. "Th-th-thanks." She slowly turned back to her room, trying not to let her childhood memories get to her, but they pierced her heart. She couldn't get them away from her. They were too close.

David had been too close.

"I'll always protect you."

"I'll never leave you."

"We'll always be best friends."

Hollow promises.

Why? Why did David break them?!

Attacking her and leaving in wolf-shifter territory was protecting her? Sure it did.

Abandoning her in a foreign place was never leaving her? Yeah, Aurelia believed that.

Shooting her was something a best friend did? Aurelia knew, now, that he had never been her friend.

She wished it wasn't true.

"Leave my best friend alone!"

"Please stop... Don't hurt him...!"

"I-I'm sorry I couldn't protect you..."

Naïve love.

How could she just trust him like that? Her weak defending, trying to stop their school bullies attacking him... it was all useless. Those bullies had only gotten a huge laugh out of it.

"It's okay. I'm strong. You don't have to protect me."

"We'll always be together, won't we? Don't worry so much."

"Hey... Don't cry. Everything is alright now..."

Empty lies.

Aurelia regretted everything. She regretted her life. She regretted having ever been adopted by David's now-dead parents.

Everything had been false. Every single thing.

"Stop holding me back! Don't you want Mom and Dad to be avenged?"

"You've always been so useless, Aurelia. I don't need or want you here."

"You're not dead. But you will be."

Cold truths.

How could he?!

"Aurelia!" Laurelyn snapped.

The wolf-shifter's voice sounded so far away, like Aurelia was underwater. She looked around and saw an empty sea. She was nearly at the bottom of it, and the sea floor was less than a meter below her.

She gasped for air, trying to swim back to the surface, back to the present, but it was useless. Blue waves of memories were pushing her down, silver chains of the past holding her to the sea floor.

She was sinking, sinking... And now, she was stuck on the sand. Then Aurelia saw how beautiful it was here, and she suddenly could breathe. The beauty of the golden sand reached for her, and Aurelia longed to touch it.

But then, it turned black, a strong scent of blood coming from it. It was just another beautiful lie. Aurelia cried out, but the ugly truth haunted her.

She didn't want this. She didn't want the pain of knowing the truth!

She just wanted to taste the addictive lies again. She wanted, for the truth to die. She wanted it gone.

Aurelia's tears blended with the ocean as she struggled to breath, the air gone again. She could smell the lie, the intoxicating golden scent that made her yearn for it. After all, that was the meaning of her name - golden.

Golden.

Golden.

Gold.

She needed the escape of the lies.

She just wanted to live the life she had before. She hated all of this. She didn't want to be shoved into the world of the wolf-shifters.

Why did she have to be born human? she had thought each time she, David and her adoptive parents were attacked. Now, Aurelia regretted ever thinking that. Of course, if she had been a wolf-shifter, she would be useful, and David wouldn't think she was weak.

But no. Maybe it wouldn't work out like that anyway - because now everyone was telling her she was a wolf-shifter. It didn't help.

She wasn't. If she was, she should have had keener senses and she'd be able to shift into a wolf. Wolf-shifters were supposed to be born with that, she'd heard. She wasn't, as far as she knew.

On that track of thought, she might have gotten onto something - this was all a dream.

None of it was real.

What if, her adoptive parents were alive, she and David were still best friends and adoptive siblings, she had never met Xander, Nyx and Laurelyn Karesol and she was not the daughter of Alpha Aurelios and Luna Vayna Reone?

The faint hope glittered.

Aurelia looked at the sand. It was golden again. She smiled, suddenly pulled to the floor. She fully embraced the feeling, digging into the sand like her life depended on it. Maybe if she died here, she would wake up again.

Her hope shone.

The hole in the sand slowly grew bigger and bigger, until a whirlpool suddenly formed there.

It sucked Aurelia in, and the last two things she knew were that she would wake up soon, and that she was happy.