Chapter 3

You May Experience some Changes...

Fareeha had been mowing the lawn of their small garden behind the house when she'd heard the doorbell rang. She stopped, confused as to who could be at the door. Angela was still in the lab until midday. Lena had gone jogging, but she usually wouldn't be back before midday as well, especially if she'd stumble on Emily on her way, and she had her keys. And Sombra was somewhere, Fareeha didn't really know. Either sleeping or on the lookout for something.

Fareeha shut the lawnmower and rubbed her hands. She passed through the door, entering the dining room, and glanced toward the garage door. It was still shut tight, meaning if Sombra was there she wasn't moving a muscle to answer the door. As she approached the door Fareeha asked:

"Lena if you lost your keys again we are not spending the entire afternoon looking for them."

Though somehow, as she was about to open the door, she felt she knew who was on the other side. Indeed, as she slowly opened the door, she found her father on the other side.

"Dad?" she asked, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled, though Fareeha noticed it was a tense smile.

"Hello, Fareeha! I was hoping we could talk, if it doesn't bother you, obviously..."

Fareeha was finally passed the surprise of finding her father on the other side of the door, and stepped aside, still a bit wary as to why he was there.

"Sure, come on in."

Her father smiled again, still as nervous as before. He was a mountain of a man, taller and larger than most. His arms were strong, and his jaw squared. His face was circled by white, from his thick beard to his ear length hair. Finally, he had a large scar over his right eye, which was probably how he'd loosen sight with it, leaving only a blind milky orb. But most importantly, her father was usually a loud man, rarely afraid of anything, and they hadn't spoken in almost two years.

He stepped inside, a wary expression on his face. He had to hunch a bit to fit inside the dining room.

"It's very nice." her father declared as he glanced around the room.

"Thanks. We're alone, I think, let me just check."

Fareeha quickly trotted to the garage door and knocked loudly on it.

"Sombra, you in there?"

Since she heard no answer, not even a sleepy grunt of agreement, she assumed the garage was empty. She double checked, throwing the door open. Once again, no reply. She closed the door and returned to her father, who was still awkwardly hunched over the table in the dining room. As she stood beside him she felt once again like a child, so small and kept out of all the conversation her parents had.

"You can sit down," she said, indicating one of the chairs.

He obliged, carefully sitting in one of the chairs which were just a bit small for him. She hesitated, first wanting to sit beside him before she decided to take the seat across from him. Her heart was beating louder and louder in her chest, afraid of what her father might have to say.

"So, why did you come? You could have just called, you know..."

He sighed.

"I don't believe this is a conversation to have over the phone. Alright. Hum... Where to start..."

Fareeha felt herself shaking. She knew in her gut what her father had to tell her was important, and would change her life, but she wasn't sure she was ready to take it.

"Okay, let's start with the easier part."

He took in a deep breath and let out:

"I am not your father."

Fareeha almost fell out of her chair. Her heart stopped completely. She was glad she'd been seating because she knew she would have fallen had she been standing. She felt her breath catch in her throat.

"What?"

"I adopted you when your mother and I got married. You were one, and you don't remember it, but I felt you should know it now. Since I'm supposed to tell you about all of the family secrets... well..."

Fareeha felt her head turning. She couldn't even look at the man in front of her. He wasn't her biological father, and it suddenly opened her to a new array of questions. Who was he then? Why hadn't her mother ever tell her before?

She gulped down before trying to speak. She wanted to tell her father that it didn't really matter, but she found she couldn't. Instead, she blurted out:

"This is the easiest part?"

Her voice broke. What could be harder to tell than that?

Her father cleared his throat.

"It is the easiest to believe, really. Even I don't really believe it, sometimes."

Fareeha felt a cold sensation bubbling in her stomach. The revelation that her father had adopted her was already mind-blowing enough, and she wasn't sure she was ready for something even more unbelievable. She took a deep breath and said:

"Shoot."

"There is a curse on the Amari family."

Fareeha frowned.

"A curse? What do you mean?"

"I don't really know all the details, but your mother told me a long time ago one of your ancestors was cursed to become some kind of werewolf. The curse has been passed down from generation to generation. Your mother was determined to find a way to break it."

Fareeha couldn't help but interrupt him:

"Wait a minute. Is that what mum has been doing this whole time? Trying to break the curse?"

"Yes."

Fareeha suddenly felt her anxiousness melting away and being replaced by boiling anger.

"Why hasn't she told me anything! She could have told me about all this before she left!"

Her father sighed.

"It's more complicated than that. At the time the curse was beginning to affect you too. She'd found a way to delay it on you, but it still wasn't enough, and soon it will work its way onto you too."

Fareeha crossed her arms. She couldn't believe it. Not the curse part, that she could completely see her ancestor being so stubborn that they would be cursed, but the fact that her mother had never told her about it, it was baffling.

"So this curse then, what does it do?" she asked, barely containing the anger in her voice.

"Well, just like I said. It should turn you into a werewolf come the next full moon. Which is tonight. It's why I couldn't delay this conversation any longer."

"And what if mum was wrong? What if the curse had been broken, or it didn't affect me."

"It is already affecting you, but you don't know it. Your mother always said it began with the ears. Hasn't your earing gone better the past few weeks?"

Fareeha tried to think about the last few weeks, whether she did hear things better, but couldn't think of anything.

"No, it hasn't," she replied, sure of herself.

"Well, be careful anyway. When the curse will take over you, you will lose complete control over your body. You could harm your friends or a passerby outside. You should try and hide in the forest tonight, far from others."

Fareeha shook her head.

"I don't need to since this curse is not affecting me."

She wasn't about to go camping suddenly when it was movie night, the only excuse she had to hold Angela a bit closer than she should.

Her father sighed. She really was as stubborn as her mother.

"Alright, but please, be careful. If you feel anything strange going on, call me. I'll stay in town for now."

By the time Angela had returned, Fareeha had played her conversation with her father in her head about a dozen times. She was sure this curse wasn't working on her, and yet she also knew how wrong she was. She quickly noticed how her hearing had improved, like suddenly having the knowledge that it was supposed to made it even more obvious. She could hear perfectly Lena coming home even though she was still mowing the lawn outside. She could hear Sombra typing on her computer when she was seating on the couch in the living room. But somehow, she hadn't noticed Angela coming home, and talking to her.

"Fareeha? Fareeha?"

The dark haired girl had been pushed out of her thoughts by Angela's voice. The blond was standing in front of her, concern written on her face.

"Fareeha, are you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry, I was just a bit out of it..."

Angela's smile made her heart beat just a bit faster.

"It's alright. Lena told me you mowed the lawn this morning?"

"Oh, yeah. I know Lena was supposed to do it, but she's still playing her spider bite as an excuse not to do her chores, and I was a bit bored, so..."

"It's alright. It was very nice of you. You must be exhausted. Let me take care of lunch."

Fareeha frowned. She wasn't tired from pushing the lawnmower, actually, she felt just fine. Why would Angela assume she was tired?

"I'm fine, actually. I can set the table if you want."

"Are you sure? You look a bit paler than usual."

Her heart sank in her chest. Could it be the curse? Fareeha decided it wasn't. She would be fine, she knew. It was probably nothing.

"I swear, Angela, I'm fine." She said as she stood up.

"Alright... but if you don't feel okay, tell me instantly, alright."

Fareeha replied with a smile, charmed by the concern Angela felt toward her. Then she had to hold a frown. Was it her own heart she was hearing, or Angela's?

As the blond walked toward the kitchen, Lena walked happily out of her room.

"Oh, hi Angie! What's cooking?"

"For you, nothing, since you didn't mow the lawn and let Fareeha do it."

"Oh come on! I'll... clean the bathroom this afternoon."

"You better."

Fareeha decided that this particular afternoon was the weirdest she'd ever experience. This assessment would actually change over the next few months, but at the time it really had been Fareeha's strangest afternoon. She'd spent most of it laying on her bed, trying to figure out whether the curse had begun to affect her or not. She didn't really know how cruses worked and didn't want to ask Sombra because she knew if she did Sombra would know something was up.

Her hearing had improved, at least she was fifty percent sure it did. Sometimes she could hear Angela scribbling her notes in the room across the hall, and sometimes she barely noticed Lena yelling from the living room that the video game she was playing was the worst. She'd looked on the Internet what else she could find on curse, and found that the majority of sources said that each curse had a different result, which didn't help her much.

She'd then tried to think about how this curse could affect. It was supposed to turn her into a werewolf, wasn't it? Then her smell should improve too, and it didn't. She wasn't tired, but she didn't feel like running around either. Her nails hadn't grown either, nor did her teeth. By the end of the day, she'd convinced herself she'd been imagining everything, and this curse wasn't affecting her at all.

After dinner Lena, Angela and Fareeha all sat on the couch and began arguing about which movie they should watch. This night, Lena wanted to watch a superhero flick, which Angela wasn't too fond of. So Fareeha suggested watching a comedy, which Angela wasn't too fond of either. By the end, Sombra had opened the garage door, picked up the first DVD case she'd found, put it on, and sent a pointed glare their way. Usually, she would have walked back in her room, but this time she stopped on her way there and frowned.

"Fareeha, are you alright?"

Fareeha felt her blood freezing over. Was something going on? Had Sombra gotten wind of anything? Maybe she had really been in the garage while she'd been talking with her father. Or perhaps Gabriel had heard everything and told her about it? Usually, Sombra took him with her when she left the house, just because he was a massive pain, but maybe she'd forgotten him this time.

"I'm fine, why?"

"Don't know. You look a bit pale."

"See! I'm not the only one thinking it." Angela declared.

"I swear I'm fine. I'm not feverish, I'm not tired, it's probably a trick of the light."

Sombra shrugged and returned to the garage. Lena sat on the big puffy armchair in the corner, leaving the couch free for Angela and Fareeha. They always did the same thing during movie night, beginning at a relatively good distance from one another, and slowly inching closer to the other, until the met silently in the middle. As soon as Lena had figured it out she'd decided to never sit on the couch during movie nights.

Angela and Fareeha met in the middle of the couch about an hour into the movie. As usual, Fareeha couldn't really tell what it was about, because Angela's presence and body-heat beside hers were very distracting. Even more so than usual. Fareeha suddenly felt hot, as if she'd been under a boiling shower for the past hour or so. Quickly the heat evolved into a serious headache, which had her convinced that rather than being cursed she'd caught the flu. She wasn't the only one to notice it, as Angela moved just enough to feel how hot the air around Fareeha was.

"Fareeha, are you sure you are okay?"

But before Fareeha could try to deny it Angela placed a hand on her forehead, only to pull away immediately.

"Wow, you're boiling."

"It's nothing, I must've caught something..."

"Then you should rest."

"But it's movie night!" she protested, as if it meant anything.

"Fareeha, you are literally melting right now. Go to bed, and I'll bring you something for the fever."

Fareeha was about to protest, but the stern look Angela gave her was enough to dissuade her. She stood up, still feeling mostly fine and not as feverish as she knew she should feel, and walked to her bedroom.

It was only when she reached the door to her room that Fareeha finally felt it. Something deep within her twisted, prompting her to quickly get in her room and slam the door behind her. She thought she heard Angela asking her if she was okay, but wasn't sure of anything anymore. Her head began to spin as if she were about to faint. The heat in her body became unbearable, and as she tried to move toward her bed she fell forward. She caught herself just in time before her head hit the ground, but it seemed useless. The next second pain began to rack her body, every single one of her cells feeling as if they were being destroyed. She felt her eyes shutting, tears rolling down her cheeks, and the instant her eyes fully closed she lost consciousness.

Waking up had never been more painful. Even waking up after her motorbike accident hadn't been this awful. Fareeha tried to open her eyes but felt her entire body was still burning, as if she'd run a marathon during the night. When her eyelids finally rose, she had to blink multiple times, as her vision slowly adjusted to the scene in front of her. First, something which she was sure of, she was standing up, though her feet weren't really supporting her, because her legs felt like jelly. It was dark, with a bright light coming from the left, but she couldn't really look there, because it hurt her eyes.

Finally, as she tried to move her hands, she heard the clicking of metal. It took her a good five minutes to understand that the metal sound came from chains, and those chains were holding her up. When she began to struggle to untie herself, a soft voice compelled her to stop.

"Sshh, Fareeha, it's okay. You're okay."

She looked in front of her, only to find her friends staring at her. Angela was trying to reassure her, but she was still visibly quite afraid. So was Lena, who also seemed to be impressed with the complex set of chains holding her. Sombra was sitting against the other wall, blood seeping out of the wounds not yet bandaged.

"What happened?" Fareeha managed to ask. Her throat felt like sandpaper.

Sombra stood up, still holding a bloody towel on her right arm.

"The curse took its effect on you."

Fareeha growled. Of course it had.

"Did I... What happened?"

The three girls exchanged a glance before Angela explained.

"After you returned to your bedroom I was afraid you had fainted, so I opened the door and you were turning into this..."

"Technically it's a werewolf, but I would assume were-jackal should be more accurate," Sombra explained.

Angela nodded.

"So I called for help and Sombra told Lena and me to hide in the bathroom."

Lena continued:

"So we waited there until Sombra told us it was okay to come out, and then we helped her carry you into her sex dungeon."

Sombra hit Lena's rib with her elbow so violently that Lena almost fell to the ground.

"You were lucky I managed to knock you out. You should have listened to your father."

Fareeha frowned.

"You know my father?"

"He came to see me this afternoon. Told me about the curse. So I set those chains up, just in case."

Fareeha tried to move her hand once again. The chains were heavy, so much so that Fareeha could barely raise them

"Well, thank you Sombra. I didn't know this cruse thing was so serious."

"Curses are always serious."

Fareeha nodded, and a strange silent settled for a few seconds, during which neither of the girls knew what to say. Finally, as Fareeha tried to move again, she decided it may be time to be untied.

"So hum... Now that I'm human again, can you free me?"

"Not yet. First you need to make a choice."

Sombra took off the bloodied cloth from her arm, revealing a long claw mark which continued to bleed out. Angela quickly took another look at it, while Fareeha couldn't help but avert her eyes.

"It's going to need some stitches."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it. You should get some rest. You too, Lena, before you say something stupid again."

The short Brit huffed.

"Yeah, whatever, I'll see ya' in the mornin'!"

She exited the garage. Angela hesitated, glancing first at Fareeha, then at Sombra, before she decided to follow Lena out. Once the door had closed behind Angela, Sombra went over to her desk to pick up her chair and make it roll until it was in front of Fareeha. She then opened one of her cupboards, and pick up a small box with three drawers. She sat in front of Fareeha and opened the first drawer, containing a needle and some purple tread.

"I tried not to harm you too much, but you should regenerate quickly anyway. I'm pretty sure your calves are already almost healed."

Fareeha tried to move her legs, but the heavy chains kept her from checking whether her calves had really been slashed.

"Cursed beasts are a nightmare to fight, especially when they're friends. So I hope I won't have to stop you from mauling Angela to death again."

Fareeha almost strangled herself gulping down. She chocked on her own spit, while Sombra ignored her, and nimbly began to pass the thread through her bloodied skin like it was nothing.

Once Fareeha was finally done chocking, she asked:

"You can help me, right?"

"I can help you control it, yes, but not undo the curse."

"So help me control it then."

Sombra smirked but didn't reply until she was done sewing her arm back to normal. She bit off the rest of the string and watched as the purple thread quickly turned red.

"You need a mark. The closer to your brain the better. I'll use this to draw it on you. It's going to hurt a lot, but after that, you'll be able to control it. Stay in control when you transform, even transform whenever you want."

Sombra took a strange black charcoal stick from the second drawer of the box. Fareeha nodded. She finally understood her mother's tattoo and realized it had never been one to begin with.

"Do you know the eye of Horus?" she asked.

Sombra nodded.

"Can you do it? Under my right eye?"

Sombra smirked. She found an old dirty shirt in the laundry basket next to the washing machine and placed it between Fareeha's teeth.

"Just in case you bite off your own tongue."

Sombra then took the charcoal pencil in hand and found a small stepladder on which she could stand to be high enough to reach Fareeha's eye.

"You can scream if you want to." Was all Sombra said before placing the pencil under Fareeha's eye.

Reinhardt had been seating in the park for a while now, reading the newspaper. He liked to take his time when he was somewhere he didn't know, and he had decided to go visit a museum once he was done reading.

"Hey dad."

He lowered his newspaper and smiled. Fareeha was standing beside him, unsure whether she should sit down or not. He instantly noticed the bandage under her right eye.

"Hello Fareeha. How are you doing?"

"I'm alright. Still limping a bit, but that was to be expected when you've had both of your calves slashed."

Reinhardt grimaced at the thought. Fareeha finally decided to sit down beside her father. Silence fell between them for a few seconds, before she declared:

"Thank you for warning Sombra."

He smiled.

"Dealing with Amaris and their stubbornness is a hobby of mine."

Fareeha laughed.

"I see you have a mark now."

Fareeha self-consciously passed her hand over the edge of the bandage. Angela had rushed in the garage to see why Fareeha had been yelling like she'd been dying, and had bandaged the mark as soon as Sombra was done. It wasn't very useful, but Fareeha had found that for now, while the mark was still raw, it was better to avoid it being too exposed to fresh air.

"Sombra said it will look nice. I don't know, I haven't seen it yet."

"I'm sure it will look very nice." her father reassured her.

Fareeha crossed her arms with a smile. It had been such a long time she hadn't had a tense conversation with her father.

"How did you know Sombra?" she asked.

"Your mother gave me her father's name. Apparently he helped her a bit in the past. I didn't know he was dead. This isn't going to be a nice conversation with your mom."

"Where is she now?"

"Last I knew she was still in Egypt."

Fareeha nodded. She glanced over at her father, and his dead eye looking ahead.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How did you lose your eye? You never told me."

Her father smiled sheepishly.

"Well, let's just say I was attacked by a mother wolf when I tried to protect her baby from her."

A/N: Hi guys! I hope you are enjoying the story so far! Like I said I'm not posting on Sundays so you'll have to wait until Monday for a new chapter. Until then don't forget to follow if you haven't already, so you won't miss a thing! And please, leave a review, tell me what you thought of those first few chapters! As usual, I would like to thank RenatoDias for the review, I hope this chapter didn't disappoint! I'll see you all on Monday!