Chapter 24 Kelsey

"Mama,” I cried, laying my head on her lap. Blood was everywhere, and I could hear the snarls and growls outside as my father fought valiantly against the rabid wolves attacking the house. "Mama, please don't go. Stay with me, mama."

The howl from outside the house nearly caused my heart to stop.

"Kelsey, run. Run, baby, and don't look back. Don't ever look back...."

I woke with a start, a cold sweat giving me goose bumps all over.

"Mama," I said aloud, letting it sink into the night air.

It was only a dream. The nightmare that still haunted my every sleep. It had been worse since coming to San Marco, since I finally stopped running away.

For six years, I ran from foster home to foster home, never allowing anyone to get close enough to know what had happened to me that same night, the night the wolves attacked and killed my parents, leaving me with a ragged scar across my upper thigh. Werewolves, not wolves, I corrected my memories. I knew they were werewolves, because that very night I changed into one too.

I was so numb from the pain of watching my parents die before my eyes that I don't remember the feelings or the pain of that first change, but I remember running through the woods with the wind in my face. I remember cowering under a fallen tree while the rain beat down on me, and I remember waking up one morning, naked at the edge of the woods where I was found. I was twelve years old.

Before the next full moon, I ran away from the home for girls they had put me in, terrified I would change again with the moon. That's what they tell you in the movies, but the movies are wrong. I didn't change that night or again for a long time, but after several months in human form, I grew impatient and short tempered and my skin itched all over. I knew something terrible was wrong. I've since learned that's the sign that I've been in human form for too long. That's when I would run away into the woods and never return to the home I had been in. I would always wake up naked and alone and they'd always find me and put me in another new home. That was the cycle of my life for six years until I finally turned eighteen and they could no longer hold me prisoner

My parents hadn't had much, but on my eighteenth birthday I was handed documents upon my release from the foster care system that contained a small trust fund they had left me. It was enough

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Chapter 24

few years, but not enough to pay for college and a place

I couldn't risk being stuck with humans all the time. It was too dangerous. I was too

it, a small one bedroom cottage sat on the edge of a large forest for rent. And the best part of all, the house had an unfinished basement that the owner said I could do whatever I wanted with. I immediately set to work fortifying a safe room where I could change without worrying about what I did in wolf form or who I came across. I never wanted

by the Westin family, including the property behind my home that I had planned to occasionally allow my wolf

new venture, and as soon as I was settled, I began searching for work in the area. I wasn't very comfortable around people, and at first no one in town seemed all that comfortable around

hire me. I was turned down more times than I could count and worried that if something didn't come up soon, I'd have to leave the little house that felt like home. Desperate not

"Hello," I said hesitantly.

bubbly

hesitant, but something about the friendly voice put

ease.

are currently studying business online and looking for full-time work. It doesn't really tell me what kind of work you're looking for,

They were going to give me

of course. What

enthusiasm, but I could hear the smile in

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Chapter 24

information.

be there. Thank you so

suit I had bought just for interviews. It was dark brown and looked great with my long blonde hair, which I left down, and accentuated my brown eyes. It also highlighted my long legs perhaps

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