Forever in the Past and Forever in the Future by Neener Chapter 3
I hear Alpha Graham’s footsteps walk back down the hallway as he leaves the dungeon. Ryan tightens
his grip on my neck, extending his wolf claws, making me yelp.
As soon the door slams, Ryan releases my neck and kneels in front of me. His face is contorted with
anger. His eyes flicker black as his wolf, Dagger, comes to the surface. He grabs my shoulders,
shaking me roughly, “What the Hell did you do to make him so mad?”
Why isn’t he beating me like he told Alpha Graham he would? I stiffen my whole body, avoiding eye
contact with him. I’m shaking so badly, I can’t even speak now.
The thought of two people beating me regularly for the rest of my life…it just can’t be real. Can it?
How can the Goddess allow this to happen? I want to die.
That’s not an exaggeration. That’s not me being
dramatic. Please, Goddess, don’t let this happen. Just let me die.
I shake so badly that I fall to my knees. I start to sob hysterically and my brain shuts down from being
able to think rationally.
Ryan grabs my chin and forces me to look at him in his cold gray eyes. He looks at me in horror for a
moment, “Wh-what happened to your eyes?”
He moves his hands up from my chin to just below my eyes. It feels like his hands are trembling
against my face.
“A-are you a hybrid or something?”
All I can manage is to shake my head no between sobs. As I shake my head, I feel him starting to
press his thumbs against my lower eyelids obstructing my vision.
Oh no no no, he’s going to poke my eyes out. Holy crap, he saw the violet color. He was going to blind
me. I place my hands on top of his trying to pull him away. I hear
myself screaming, “NONONONOOOOO! STOP!! Don’t take my eyes ouuutttt! PLEEAASSEEEE!!!”
For just a moment, time freezes. I don’t mean like it feels like time is standing still because I’m in the
middle of a traumatic situation. No, time is actually frozen. Well, frozen for everything except for me I
should say. I can feel it in the air.
It only lasts for a moment. I pull Ryan’s hands away from my face easily. The look of anger combined
with confusion is stuck on his face. Next to him, a fly is suspended in mid-air. The second hand on the
clock has stopped on the wall behind him. Drips of water aren’t finished falling, leaving umbrella-
shaped splashes in the puddles on the floor.
What the…Hell? Did the Moon Goddess hear me? Did she have mercy on me? Did she let me die?
I look back at Ryan with wide eyes. My hands are glowing purple. As quickly as it stopped, time starts
again. Ryan starts screaming and pushes himself away from me. The tops of his hands where my
hands were touching him are red and swollen.
I look down at my hands. They are normal again, not glowing purple. Seriously though, what the Hell
just happened?
I shut my eyes tight, waiting for Ryan to retaliate. “If you tell anyone, I will kill you,” he says in my ear.
Then he punches me in the stomach, knocking the air out
of my lungs.
I hear his footsteps running down the hall, then out the door. I don’t know how long I sit like this but
when I finally open my eyes I breathe a sigh of relief.
I lean against my bed for a while longer, sobbing,
shaking, and trying to catch my breath. He didn’t hurt me? Surely he was coming back. I sniff the air
but his scent is gone. I listened carefully but there were no
sounds in other parts of the dungeon. I’m alone.
“Goddess, thank you for saving me. Thank you,” I say out loud, just in case the miracle I just
experienced was because of her.
I feel exhausted, but starting to feel calmer. Okay Kas, focus. I need to make dinner for the pack or
Alpha Graham will find me and murder me. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, either. Even if I try to run
away, either he or Ryan would find me before I could get off the territory. I think he really would kill me
at this point. Speaking of which, it was only a matter of time before Ryan comes back to beat the crap
out of me like his father told him to.
I take a few deep breaths and make myself go down the hall to wash up at the sink. I splash cold water
on my face and look in the grungy mirror. Both of my eyes are pure violet now. The silver streaks are
starting to take over my hair now. It isn’t like an old person’s hair. It is silvery white that almost
shimmers, even in the low light of the dungeon. So weird, there’s no way I’m going to be able to get
used to this new look.
I go back to my room and get dressed in leggings and a t-shirt. I put on the baseball cap Diane gave
me, pulling the brim low to hide my eyes. Throughout dinner, I receive murderous glares from Alpha
Graham. I make
sure to keep my eyes to the floor so Alpha Graham would avoid seeing the color. Ryan glares at me
every chance he gets. After dinner, it takes longer than usual to stock pantries because whoever did it
while I was in the hospital had no idea what they were doing.
It is well after midnight when I flop down on my bed and close my eyes. June 20th, I think to myself. It’s
the last day of school. Well, for other people anyway, not me.
You don’t need an education to cook and stock pantries, Alpha Graham’s words ring in my ears. Just
another day for me, I suppose. I wallow in self-pity for a bit before I roll over and try to fall asleep. I’m
almost asleep when I hear a woman’s voice.
“Hello!”
I quickly scramble to my feet, looking everywhere for who it could be. I’m the only one in the room. I
peek into the hallway and look around but no one is there either.
“Hello?” I whisper loudly down the hallway.
“Ugh, Kas. This is no way for a warrior to behave. Get your shit together,” the voice chides. I realize the
voice is coming from inside my head.
“A-are you my wolf?” I ask hesitantly, worried that I’ve gone insane.
“I am. My name is Elexis. You can call me Lex.”
“Oh, Elexis. You woke up a day too late. Our Alpha just turned us into a slave less than twelve hours
ago. We have no way to escape now,” I feel tears welling up.
I explain everything to her. How the Alpha killed my father, how the Luna made me live in the dungeon,
the beatings, all of it. I sob through the whole thing.
“I’m here now, Kas. Don’t worry. We are a child of the Moon Goddess, we are a warrior. Which means
we are strong. We will get through this.”
“Lex, earlier, when my hands turned purple and burned Ryan. Was that you?”
“Sort of. That was you, but my waking up helped activate your power. I can explain more later. Get
some sleep for now.”
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