Wild and Free

(Auden’s POV)

I don’t know what I was thinking.

My plan had been to leave the boys because they were safe. But I didn’t. I waited, and Mason being Mason spotted me. And even then I didn’t leave. What was wrong with me? I knew better than that.

Just that split second he saw me, could’ve given me away. Alphas have even more heightened senses than the average wolf, I know that. Even something as simple as a scent lingering on my coat could lead him straight back to me.

I shouldn’t have even gone as close to the pack grounds as I did. They would eventually catch some kind of scent of a patrol or something and they could follow it back. Oh god that could not happen. There was a mile long list of terrible things that would follow if that did.

What was wrong with me? It wasn’t like me to get so attached or be so reckless. Even that day on the rocks, I had been careless just because I was curious. And with Ben and Chris, I shouldn’t have kept them for so long, even if it was the right thing to do.

I was just glad that no one else saw me because now even Mason probably thought that I kidnapped the boys. I would be a prime suspect. Now I could only hope that he’d keep his mouth shut about it and not follow me.

When I saw him, after a split second hesitation, I jumped out of there so he couldn’t track my scent. My mind was completely blank the whole way back to my apartment.

I had to stop thinking about the boys and the Royal pack for a second, just long enough to think of a good excuse for when Cassie came and busted down my door.

Pacing in the forest in the early hours of the following morning, I thought hard. Cassie Carlyle was my best friend, she and Holden would know for sure if I was lying or not. It was inevitable.

They totally wouldn’t believe me if I told her I was sick and stayed home or that when she showed up to see where I was, that I was out running or something. I had to think of something that would excuse the fact that I hadn’t answered my phone or come to school. That was mission impossible.

Perhaps she’d believe me if I told her that I went to the city for a college interview. Cassie and Holden both had always been hopeful about me going to college with them and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I didn’t have that future. I might be intelligent and good at art but White Chapel was the only future I had and nothing was going to change that. Maybe if they thought that I was really “researching options” they would be excited rather than worried.

As for the others, hopefully if they saw that Cassie and Holden believed my story than they would do the same. Even if they thought it was a load of bullshit. Which it was.

I wanted to believe that the plan would work but it seemed too far fetched and something told me even if they did believe it, someone with Mason and Kenzie’s skills would see right through me as if I was clean glass.

God, I just needed to get home and clear my head. Nothing good would come to me if I just sat there and stress over everything.

The trek to my apartment was longer than I expected. I guess I hadn’t realized how far I had jumped to get away from Mason and his Royal pack members. Even then I hadn’t gone home straight away. I needed time to cool off and had been pretty much wandering aimlessly around the forest all night.

When I got home, I climbed the rickety stairs to the third floor and pulled my key from my pocket. But the very first thing that caught my eye when I stepped toward my apartment door was the the lock was broken. And I didn’t mean it was old and dirty, even though it kind of was, but it looked like someone had repeatedly beat it with a hammer until the weak mechanism seemingly fell apart.

I looked up and down the hallway and saw the building owner, Dmitri, heading for the staircase, looking tired and bored as always.

“Hey!” I called getting his attention. “My lock is broken, did you see anyone up here?”

He knit his eyebrows but shook his head, “I’ll fix it in the morning,” he called back, turning and heading down the stairs before I could reply.

I sighed and rolled my eyes but remembered that someone might have broken into my apartment. And it was very clear that my lowlife building owner wasn’t going to do anything to help me.

Hesitantly, I pushed the door open, the breath catching in my throat at what I saw. To put it simply, it looked like a hurricane had swept through my house.

Everything thing was trashed, I didn’t think there was a single piece in the entire place that hadn’t been ruined in one way or another. My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach.

The cushions on the couch were strew across the room, the kitchen table and chairs were overturned, and the curtains that weren’t even mine had been ripped from the rod. Even the very few dishes that I owned had been taken from their cabinets and shattered on the floor and counter.

I didn’t want to look in my room or the bathroom but I forced myself to move my feet, cringing at the sound of more glass breaking underneath them.

The second I stepped into the bedroom, I regretted my decision to leave the forest earlier.

The lamp from my night table had been smashed, the broken lightbulb filament lying on the floor. My bed dressings and blankets were taken from the bed and practically shredded while the mattress had been slashed also, probably with some kind of knife. Or claws.

I didn’t usually bother with decorating but I had two pictures that hung in my room.

The first was of me, Cassie, and Holden from the end of our last day of junior year. We all had goofy smiles on our faces and that light in our eyes because in that moment we didn’t have anything to worry about. Look at us now.

The second was one that I had actually taken a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t in it but Cassie, Holden, Greyson, Riley, Kenzie, and Mason all were. It was a pic I’d snapped when none of them were looking. In the image, they were all frozen mid-laugh at some stupid joke that Greyson had made.

Each was a memory captured on paper and I’d intended to cherish them forever. But looking at the two of the frames broken, glass shattered, and photos ripped in half, I was suddenly aware that that wasn’t going to happen.

I tore my eyes away from them, my gaze after falling on the open door of my bathroom.

From where I stood in my room, I saw the shattered mirror and decided that I didn’t need to see anything else.

I tried to calmly make my way back to the main room but it was like seeing it for the second time was somehow worse. It was the kind of scene that you see in the movies. And it terrified me.

Not only had I worked so hard and spent so much of the tiny amount of money that I have to get those things for my home, but it terrified me to think that someone had penetrated the only place I’d felt really safe in so long.

I covered my mouth as a strangled breath caught in my throat. My mind could not help but think about only the bad things that would be the cause of the situation.

Had the people who destroyed my pack come to get me? Word had gotten around pretty fast of their demise even after I had been cast out. I never got the chance to get any details about it but I knew that some kind of enemy had intervened in the problems and the control had just torn at the seems. I’d wanted to ask Mason or Mackenzie because their pack was pretty powerful, surely they would know something else. I guess something had stopped me every time I thought about it. But I didn’t know whether that was because it wasn’t important to me anymore or because I really didn’t want to know.

Either way, the thought that maybe I’d been discovered by one of them made me want to pack up what little I had left and run again.

My mind had been so occupied on not getting caught by the Royals and keeping my trail clean of anything that could possibly give me away. All of it had distracted me so much that I hadn’t even considered the chance that someone else might find me.

I stepped backward, trying to get a little bit of space between me and the wreckage. Just as I did so though I tripped on the remnants of a previously in tact plate and a scream escaped my mouth.

The door busted open just as I fell to the ground.

“Guys she’s here!” Kenzie’s voice said from the door behind me. Hers and probably two other people’s footsteps were heard from behind me but I was paralysed where I sat, just a helpless heap on the ground.

I heard her gasp, “Auden? Oh my god!”

“Shit she’s bleeding what should we do?” I think Greyson asked, his voice sounding panicked. Sure enough I looked down and my palms were covered in big cuts and blood poured from them freely. But I hardly felt a thing.

Right then I think was the first time I’d felt myself break. My body was numb, all the feeling in my body had ceased and I had to wonder what was keeping me from collapsing back onto the rest of the broken glass on the floor.

“Hey A, can you hear me?” Kenzie asked, she tried to get me to look her in the eyes but I couldn’t. “Who did this?”

I shook my head back and forth as she persisted on trying to get me to speak. My eyes could not stop darting around looking at the wreckage that used to be my apartment. My home.

“I don’t know what to do! She’s not responding,” Kenzie said, her hands shaking nervously. “Should we take her to a hospital? She’s losing blood.”

“N-no, please,” I managed to choke out quickly, covering my eyes with my hands.

All the stress from school and work and staying hidden, it had been bearable for so long that I thought I had just gotten used to it. I mean my life had never been easy before, all of that just told me that I was getting used to it. Never did I really think that it had just been building up until something made me crack. This was it.

“Call Riley tell him to get Cassie ASAP,” Greyson suggested. “Maybe she’ll know what to do?”

My friends voices grew louder but I felt like I had cotton in my ears. I knew they were trying to help me in some way but for some reason my head just wasn’t registering any of it.

Was this really it? Had I finally reached the end of what I could handle before I went crazy? No that wasn’t fair. I had never done anything that I didn’t need to do to survive and after all the hell I’d gone through, it wasn’t fair for me to shatter just because someone had destroyed my safe haven. It wasn’t my time yet. There were things I need to do and I would need to be fully sane to do them.

I needed more time...

“Auden look at me,” A different voice said. It took me a second to realize it was Mason. Nevertheless, I kept my eyes closed.

I hated this. I wanted nothing more than to get up and run away or sink into the floorboards, never to return. If there was one thing I hated more than pity, it was looking weak. It wasn’t only a pride thing but breaking down like this, I would never hear the end of it from any of them. They’d never believe me if I tried to lie about it.

Kenzie shuddered behind me, “Oh god there’s so much blood.”

“Greyson get Kenzie out of here,” Mason said. “Give me a minute to talk to Auden alone, she’s probably just overwhelmed.”

Oh yeah sure just overwhelmed.

Greyson seemed to agree because I heard him and Kenzie walk away, leaving just me and Mason in the room full of broken glass and broken people.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

Oof yes more drama. So wow, this is a big thing for Auden, we’re finally realizing she’s not invincible. For probably the thousandth time, I know there is a lot of drama in this story and it’s not going to lessen as it progresses further. Everything, especially now, is very important to the upcoming chapters that are huge parts of this story. If you don’t like the amount of drama that there is as of now, feel free to stop reading, I’m not pressuring anyone just be aware that you’d be missing out on a lot of good content. Some of the best writing I’ve done is coming and I’m very proud of it.

Thank you for all the support and I hope you enjoyed!

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend