InsaneJournal

Bless me, father, for I’ve made a horrific mess of things. Since your death, the pack remained in a state of leaderless disarray.  If I had know what Axel and the Five were going to do- kill those girls – that brought the hunters down on us, I would have done-

No.

Even now I can’t sit here and honestly claim that, looking back, I would have done something. Only you know how much I was childishly smitten by Axel. But I would have like to admit that had I known I would have said something. Anything to stop the bloodshed.

You would have stopped them.

You were so brave- many lives were saved by your hand alone- I’ve never been prouder and more terrified to be your daughter. But as I watched the burning house crashed down around you, so did our world, and part of my soul died with you.

I think part of Esmé’s heart and soul died. But years have come and gone, sympathy has given way to disgust; I can barely look at the woman I once called “mother.” You wouldn’t know *your* Esmé anymore. Since the fire, she’s become a disgrace: she stays out late, tossing back one drink after another, chases tail, coming home in the early hours of the morning with bite marks and bloodstains from fights with Astrid that old cougar took Rafe as her new lover! Rafe! Her son’s best friend. The slut is old enough to be his mother for Moon’s sake. Poor Ulf. and the Moon knows whom else.

In this new city, the pack’s priority has been to obtain stability- relocate, obtain steady jobs, and a safe places to stay- but usually it deteriorates into petty squabbles and snipes. Esmé and I are staying with Uncle Rudy until something better comes along.

I felt so displaced. That’s when I met Aiden...

I’ve broken our laws. I've betrayed us.

He knows. I loved him. I told him, I showed him, and he hates and fears me now that he knows the truth.

And what’s worse, I think… I may have killed. I don’t remember anything. But by the light of morning, twice the grotesque evidence stares me obscenely in the face, telling me that whatever the violence that occurred by moonlight: it was bloody, it was savage, and it was sure-as-hell final. ‘Cause quite frankly, I doubt someone could continue living with a hand torn off. Not like that.  Am I killer... a monster? The question haunts me.

With the victory cries, Gabriel’s smug look, and Astrid’s limping off with tail tucked and twin trails of blood and urine staining the ground behind her, the Ordeal was over. I never meant to enter the Bitch’s Dance. But when I saw that conniving bitch sneak attack Esmé, hear her screaming, and no one moved to help her--- your wife, my mother, their fallen leader-- I lost it. It was a white-hot blur. Like all the fucked up things in my life were gather and rolled into a singular assailable form: Astrid. I’d bit down and held on, riding her for all she was worth, and she screamed, and when my teeth popped her eye like an overripe grape and I tasted blood… If it wasn’t for intervention of the others, I could have, and would have killed the bitch. She would have deserved it. She would have killed Esmé. By the Old Ways, I’d unwittingly named myself Queen Bitch. I’d named myself Gabriel’s mate.

Fuck.

I don’t want Gabriel. I want Aiden. I love my pack, but how can I stay when I don't trust myself anymore? 
I want my life back dammit!

I will not submit. Not to this. Not to any of it.

I ran. For my sake and theirs, I ran.

Even as I write out these words, I’m not sure what I hope to accomplish. In a way, I’m tossing this confession words into the cosmos hoping-- that speaking them will somehow alleviate my guilt, but I know that nothing will absolve my hand in them-- that in our absence things will right themselves, but all I can feel is the loss.
I’ve fucked it all up. I’m lost and I don’t know if I can be found again.

I miss you, Daddy.


Vivian