After the brush with the Alpha, and several hours spent in the woods waiting to heal, I was finally able to get myself home. The sun was just barely rising when I pushed open my front door. Normally I would've just swung into my bedroom window, but my shoulder was in no condition to do anything like that. I usually tried to avoid getting caught sneaking out at all costs, but today I didn't care. I knew my mom would jump into "Mama Wolf" mode and frankly I didn't care. I felt like I'd been run over by a Mack truck. I stepped into the foyer and listened for my mom's heartbeat. It was racing. I could hear here in the kitchen, and she was pacing. I stumbled into the kitchen, the pain and exhaustion finally becoming too much for me. I may be a werewolf, but even we can only take so much. My mom finally glanced up after I plopped into a chair groaning as I did so. "Nora! Where the hell have you-My God what happened to you?!" My mother rushed to me, she gripped my face, checking me all over as she took in my ripped and bloody clothes. I didn't even know the extent of my injuries, I'd been too pumped up on adrenaline to truly notice. "Baby, what happened?" My mother asked again quietly. Her eyes shined with concern. She was very protective over me after what happened a few years ago.
A few months before the Hale fire, which claimed the lives of eleven innocent wolves and humans alike, my father and younger brother, Wesley, had been training in the woods when some rogue Hunters tracked them down. They chased my family members deep into the woods, before my brother set off a trip wire which sent 9000 volts of electricity through his young body. My father, fed up with running, attacked. He killed one of the hunters, and within moments my brother and father were dead. Wesley was nine, I was fourteen. We knew my father had died, when my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table and suddenly she let out a pained howl and her eyes flashed blood red. It was an extreme shock, and then with the Hale fire not even 3 months later, my mother has been ultra-protective. And quite frankly I didn't blame her.
The Hunters have a code, they don't attack unless a wolf spills human blood. They broke the code when they attacked my father and brother. The Hales tried to help us, but that went nowhere fast. It was rumored that Derek, who was 19 at the time, had a thing going with the Argents 20 year-old daughter Kate. No one would ever place blame on him, but he did bring her into our lives. Even though we had no proof it was actually Kate who did anything, deep down, we knew. Shortly after the fire, Derek and his sister Laura packed up and left Beacon Hills. They checked their uncle, Peter, into a long term care facility, where he would be for the rest of his life. The fire had left him scarred on 60% of his body and a vegetable. I never thought I would see the Hales' again, that is until about a week ago when I caught Laura's scent. I'd been doing my daily run through the woods, when I suddenly caught the scent I hadn't smelt in the last five years. I changed direction and ran for the Hale house. She must have sensed me coming because she was waiting for me at the front door.
"What's up Miller?" Laura smirked at me. She had gotten a little taller, and her once long light brown hair was cropped short and dyed a deep reddish-brown. Her blue eyes were the same as always though, just like Derek's.
"What are you doing here?!" I jumped with excitement. Although I was closer in age to Derek, Laura had always been my favorite Hale. Laura laughed and pushed the door open a little wider, allowing me inside.
"Something's going to happen. I'm not entirely sure what, but I want to be ready when it happens," she explained while preparing some tea. I looked up at her, another question burning the tip of my tongue. "He's not here, and I don't think he'll ever come back," Laura said solemnly. I gasped at her sudden answer to my unasked question. I missed Derek. It'd been a very long time.
Earlier tonight, I was supposed to meet up with the elder Hale sibling. She told me she had something to tell me, something that would change everything. That's why I had gone into the woods tonight. But when I was making my way to her home, I smelled fresh blood. And there was a lot of it. I quickly ran towards the smell, and I felt nauseated with what I saw. Laura Elizabeth Hale was lying in a huge pool of her own blood, her lower half detached from her upper half. I had felt hot tears spring to my eyes, when I sensed him. The man who killed my oldest friend, a girl who was like family to me. He growled viciously, his eyes burning red, and that is when our game of cat and mouse began.
I felt my mother nudge me, bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked into her eyes and saw all the questions swimming around them. I pulled myself out of her embrace and headed for the stairs. I was in desperate need of a hot shower. I turned back to my mother, "Laura's dead. There's a new Alpha mom, get ready," I whispered before heading up to shower my horrible night away.
