AN: hi, this is a story by F (not A, because this is a shared account). I don't own anyone that you recognize from the movies (Fury, the Avengers, etc.). Please fav or follow or review this story if you like it, I really appreciate that.
ALSO: I KNOW THAT THE AVENGERS DON'T COME INTO THE FIRST COUPLE CHAPTERS, BUT THEY DO LATER SO JUST BEAR WITH ME, HERE.
You've probably heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is not always true. Actually it rarely is. But for me, it was true. I never meant to hurt anybody, never meant to get involved, but here I am. Because sometimes you get started on the road to hell without even meaning to do it. Sometimes all it takes is for a man with an eye patch to show up and ask you a question, or for you to lose a game of chess. And sometimes it's not even that. But you're probably getting bored and considering putting this down, and the sooner I get started the sooner I'll be done writing this stupid book. So let's get going.
November eighteenth, 2000
Saint Helena Hospital
The woman sat in the hospital bed, holding a sleeping baby in her arms. In the chair next to the bed was a tall man. The man and woman smiled at the baby as she slept. The baby was young, but already had wisps of blond hair like her mother, and her father's soft round features. And both parents knew that when she opened her eyes they would be the same dark hazel as her mother's. She was swaddled in a pink blanket, and was resting peacefully in her mother's arms.
"Our poor girl." The man said, reaching out and brushing the baby's cheek with the back of his finger. "Our poor baby."
"She'll have to be so strong." The woman said, smiling teary-eyed at her daughter. "She'll face so much pain through her life. Everyone will want to stop her from living and being happy the way she should."
"Yes, they will. But she'll be safer this way." The man said, squeezing the woman's free hand. "She'll be safer far away from us, without knowing what the beast inside of her is. Without knowing what she comes from."
"I know she will." The woman was near tears. "She'll figure it out on her own one day, but this is best for her. Poor baby."
"What should we name her?" The man asked, trying to cheer her up.
"I want to name her Audrey, after my mother." The woman said. "But she'll be safer if she's not called that. What should we call her?"
"Dria. She'll be known as Dria." The man said. "Audrey Dria Lane. The wolf girl."
"Our child." The woman started to cry. "Our daughter."
"I know," The man rubbed her back. "I know. She'll be okay. She can do this. She'll be our strong baby girl. But we have to let her go so she can have her best chance at happiness. So she can become the beautiful brave wolf-girl I know she'll be. Dria can do this."
"I know she can." The woman nodded. "Okay, take her now. It's time." The man nodded, and the woman leaned down to kiss the sleeping baby on the forehead. "I love you Dria. Remember that."
The man reached out and scooped the baby out of his wife's arms. He gave his newborn baby daughter a watery smile and said, "I love you too, Dria. It's a big bad world out there, and it's going to try to stop you whenever it can, so you'll have to be strong. You'll have to be so so strong. Good luck, Dria."
The man left the room, carrying the baby. The woman watched her husband carry her daughter away, and let out a long sad sigh. "Goodbye, my darling girl. Good luck."
That night, a blond newborn baby girl with dark hazel eyes, swaddled in pink blankets, was found on the doorstep of the McCartney Home For Girls. She was found the next morning, a white paper card with the words, Dria Lane printed on it in black. The people who ran the home carried the newborn baby inside, cooing as she cried for her parents that she didn't remember and never would.
Dria Lane grew up there, living with no memory of her parents or knowing where she was from, or even that her name was Audrey. She made friends there, but life doesn't like letting people be happy. Life doesn't like to let people just live.
Dria Lane was cursed. Is cursed.
My name is Dria Lane, and this is my story.
September second, 2010
McCartney Home For Girls
"Dria!" Lucy burst through my bedroom door, a huge grin on her face, her brown hair in pigtails. "Dria, guess what!"
"What?" I asked, looking up from my math homework. "What's up, Lu?" Lucy Bond is my best friend. Her name isn't actually Lucy Bond-we don't know what it is. She's an orphan, just the way all the girls here in the McCartney home are. She was brought by the hospital when she was a toddler, after her parents died in a car crash. We were best friends from the start. We named her Lucy after the youngest girl in the Narnia series, because she looks just like the book Lucy does-long dark brown hair and dark brown eyes.
"I'm getting adopted!" She squealed. I felt my heart sink. I tried to smile, but Lucy can see right through my lies. "What's wrong? I thought you'd be happy."
"I am, really," I said. "But…. will I get to see you again when you go? And I'm not adopted…. I'll still always be here."
"Of course you'll still see me!" Lucy sat down next to me on the thing creaky cot, and smiled. "We're best friends. And you'll get adopted one day, too. I know you will." That was just how Lucy was-always positive, and kind, and friendly. In most ways, we were polar opposites. She was a loyal jokester, and I was the stubborn troublemaker with a big secret.
I shook my head. "No, I won't. Nobody wants to adopt a monster." I looked back down at my homework, and at the doodles in the margins. Wolves, with dark eyes and snarls on their faces. Why had I drawn those? I crumpled up the page and tossed it into the trash.
Lucy winced. "You aren't a monster, Dria. You have an amazing gift. It's not the same thing. And anyone who tells you otherwise is just being dumb."
I gave my best friend a small smile, her big brown eyes meeting my own hazel ones. "Lucy, are your new parents nice?" She nodded with a big grin. "Then I'm happy for you."
"Thanks, pal." She hugged me. "You can come visit whenever you want, I promise. They live here in the city, so we won't be far apart. And you have to call me Lucy Greene now, that's my new name." She giggled a little, and I nodded. "Friends forever?" She stuck out her hand in a fist. I grinned and we fist-bumped, then stacked up our fists and cracked up laughing before we could finish our secret handshake.
"Friends forever."
July 25, 2010
Abandoned warehouse
"What are we looking for, anyway?" Lucy Greene groaned. She pedaled her bike along behind me, looking bored, her long brown hair in a fishtail braid and her plaid skirt making it hard for her to ride. "Can't we just hide in the basement the way we always do? Mom and Dad will expect me home soon, anyway."
"No, we need somewhere new." I said, stopping and frowning at the buildings around us. "The wolf is getting stronger." Lucy stopped next to me and put a hand on my shoulder, pulling me around to face her. Her kind face was creased with a worried frown, and her brown eyes fixed on mine, prying into my thoughts.
"What do you mean?"
"As I get older and stronger, so does he. He's getting more powerful and he's just as angry as always. I'm barely keeping him in check when I get angry, and he never shuts up. The full moon is tomorrow, and I don't think I'll be able to control him anymore. You know the moon brings him his strength."
"Yes, I know. I'm your best friend, I know all this stuff. The wolf gets more powerful when you feel a strong negative emotion, mostly anger. And that he gets more powerful when the moon is full, but we don't know why. I get that. But if he's that strong, will you lose control tomorrow night, when the moon comes out?"
I nodded. "Maybe."
"Okay, so what do we do?"
I could tell from the hoarse undertone in her voice, and the way she was biting the inside of her left cheek, and fixing her eyes on the horizon, that she was scared but she didn't want to show it. She was trying to keep a brave face on for me, which I appreciated.
"We chain me up the night of the full moon." Lucy didn't seem to like that plan, but I started to pedal my bike again before she could argue. I stopped again in front of a tall abandoned warehouse, and poked my head inside. It was two stories tall, but missing the floor of the second story. There was nothing here but dust and old planks. "This is perfect. C'mon." Lucy followed me in. I stopped in the exact middle of the warehouse floor and pulled two iron stakes out of my backpack. Lucy pedaled in behind me, panting, and her eyes widened when she saw the stakes.
"Why did you bring those?"
I didn't answer, instead finding a crowbar in a pile of boards in the corner. I used it to pry up the floorboards in the middle of the room, revealing the dirt. Lucy handed me the stakes, and the hammer I had brought, reading my mind again. It took an hour between the two of us to drive the stakes into the ground, and then attach a chain to each of them, with a handcuff attached to the end of each chain. The chains were only about six feet long, so that there was no chance of the wolf getting onto the street and hurting someone.
"This should work." I sighed finally. Lucy glanced at her watch.
"Mom and Dad will be worried. I have to go, and you'll be in trouble at the home for being out late."
"Yeah, but its worth it to not hurt anybody." I said, following Lucy to the door.
"Right. Meet back here tomorrow, sunset?" Lucy said, swinging one leg over her bike.
"Um, no. You're not coming. It'll be dangerous." I said, crossing my arms over my battered dark blue hoodie. That was another difference between Lucy and I-she wore white shirts and plaid skirts, I wore jeans and hoodies.
Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? I'm your best friend. There's no way I'm not coming. You'll need help with this, and I'm the only one who knows. Friends forever, right?"
"Friends forever." We did our secret handshake, and biked away in opposite directions. She went towards her home, and I went back to the McCartney home for girls, and the lonely attic bedroom where I slept because I had nightmares that scared the other kids if I slept in the dorms.
Lucy and I weren't similar in any way, but we were drawn together almost magnetically. We were best friends, and that was the way it was supposed to be. There was no Lucy without Dria, and no Dria without Lucy.
We came back the next day for the full moon, and Lucy chained me up and stayed up with me all night. It hurt terribly, when the wolf took over, like my soul was being pulled from my body, and my head pounded as I fought against him. Like everything that made me me was pulled out of my head and I was replaced with someone else. My head pounded as I battled him.
But Lucy told me stories and jokes and sang songs, and did everything she could to help me remain sane. She read me my favorite parts from her copy of The Chronicles of Narnia, and the football the stats and the comics from the newspaper with different voices for the characters. I focused on her voice, and that helped me keep going.
We didn't know then that we would be back to that warehouse every month for the full moon for the next four years. We didn't know that the wolf would become a bigger part of our life then either of us would want. We didn't know, couldn't know, that our time together was limited. We were young and naive, and we didn't know that all things end.
Until the horrible night when everything changed.
Thanks for reading this story! Please leave a review in the handy-dandy box below, or click on the thingy that lets you fav or follow this story (or me!). I know that the avengers haven't come in yet, but they will probably chapters 2 or 3, believe me.