Chapter Three: Found Out
Layla struggled furiously in her uncle's grasp, Hedwig's cage clamped tightly in her arms as the disgustingly obese man dragged the 16 year old by her hair down the stairs, her wand stowed away in the back pocket of her jeans.
It had been three days since her sixteenth birthday, three days since the dark-haired girl had discovered her creature inheritance, and her situation couldn't possibly get any worse.
Just a few hours earlier, Dudley had accidentally walked in on the young Shadow Veela attempting to control her appearance by continuously shifting back and forth between forms.
The overweight boy had immediately ran screaming to Mummy, resulting in the situation that she found herself experiencing now.
Opening the door, the beefy Muggle violently shoved his niece out onto the front lawn, the impact causing her wand to snap in two, before tossing her trunk out after her.
"Don't you ever darken our doorstep again!" Vernon roared furiously before slamming the door closed and locking it.
Wincing painfully at her scraped palms and bruised hip, the raven-haired teen gingerly got to her feet before setting off down the street.
The night sky was sprinkled with stars and the nearly-full moon shone down upon her as she strapped Hedwig's cage to her trunk before heading off down the sidewalk.
As she walked, she wondered what was going to happen to her, now that her relatives had kicked her out.
Obviously, the Blood Wards were no longer in effect.
Turning the corner of Magnolia Crescent, she collapsed tiredly onto a low wall.
There was no way she could make it much farther without help, her trunk was simply too heavy and her body was still recuperating from the stress of her creature inheritance.
All of a sudden, a powerful wave of adrenaline coursed through her body and the teenager felt stronger, more energized.
Her rapidly diminishing energy now fully restored, and, from the feeling of it, with some extra to spare, the 16 year old immediately resumed her journey, shivering slightly in the cool night air.
After a few hours, however, it began to rain and Layla was soon drenched to the bone, her dark hair plastered to her scalp in wet, tangled clumps.
Passing a dark alley, she saw a group of four seedy-looking men standing just outside a bar, smoking cigarettes and wolf-whistling as she passed.
"Hey, baby," one of them called after her, "wanna meet a real man?"
Layla just sped up, desperate to get away from those men.
The raven-haired girl didn't know why, but they scared her.
"Come on, Sweetheart, don't be like that!" the men protested, chasing after her.
She broke into a run but one of her shoelaces came untied and she tripped, her head bashing painfully against the concrete.
The men caught up and the teenager kicked out furiously, but the injury to her head had caused her vision to deteriorate into a gray haze and she missed, blackness dancing around the edges of her vision and she missed.
The men just laughed at her, pinning her to the sidewalk as she kicked and thrashed violently.
Her creature attributes came out and she lashed out viciously with her claws, gouging one man's arm and catching another across the cheek.
"You little bitch!" her captor cursed, backhanding her roughly and sending her crashing back to the ground.
Darkness swam before her and Layla struggled desperately to remain alert.
The next thing she knew, however, one of the men had kicked her roughly in the head and her eyes closed against her will.
The last thing her fuzzy brain registered was a furious snarl, quickly followed by multiple dull thuds before her injured body was suddenly cradled protectively in a pair of warm, muscled arms.
Then, nothing.
