7 years ago
"Darling, you are not really a wolf" Diana desperately whispered in her daughter's ear "Those are just stories they are not true". Diana hugged onto her daughter tight. Tonight was the last night she would have her child home and it took everything in her to pull her emotions in.
"YES, I AM!" Ricki yelled in frustration "I am a protector of the tribe".
"I believe that you believe you are" Diana replied to her thirteen-year-old. Tomorrow they were driving her to California to a hospital where she would stay in a mental health ward with other children her age. The doctor recommended she needed in patient treatment which terrified Diana. She had never spent a night away from either of her children. The doctors had said that Ricki suffered from psychosis, Diana remembered when Ricki had first told her she was a werewolf-she was seven. What was once a cute anecdote has now become a scary blaring red flag that was missed.
"Would you like to stay up late tonight?" Diana asked. Ricki bit her bottom lip, a new habit formed at school that usually was discouraged at home, but Diana's guilty conscious couldn't bring herself to tell Ricki to stop.
"Can I watch tv?" Ricki asked.
"Of course," Diana gently replied stroking her daughters dark brown hair.
7 years later
"Are you excited to be going home Ricki?" Liam stood at the door of Ricki's shared room.
"I'm excited to see Embry" Ricki replied, "I'm not sure how I feel about the rest to be honest".
"You are so lucky" Liam smiled "I wish I was going home"
"You have people who care about you" Ricki looked up at Liam "I was abandoned here"
Liam frowned "your family visits you every weekend"
Ricki furrowed her brows in anger. She knew her friends didn't understand. To leave this place she had to lie, and she felt very isolated from everyone. She's scared to leave the hospital; this place is all she's known for the past seven years. And she's hasn't lived with her family in a very long time.
"I guess" Ricki mumbled "I'm just scared to leave"
"you will do great!" Liam cheerfully said.
"Ready to go home Ricki?" The cold gaze of the blue eyes of her treating doctor peered at her from across the hallway.
Ricki grumbled and then kicked her suitcase. Why'd people keep asking her that. Ricki looked over at her now fallen suitcase, she was frustrated. She didn't want to go home.
"You have to go home now Ricki" Dr Michael said flatly, he then turned around and started walking left towards the cafeteria "Two hours to go Ricki then the nurses will drive you to the airport"
"UGH!" Ricki loudly grunted.
Liam pursed his lips "Well I'm going to get lunch I'm hungry".
"Okay well I'll leave my home number with you" Ricki frowned.
"Okay let me get a pen and a piece of paper" Liam said frustrated.