Chapter 1 - Part 2

After a long day, Elisabeth dreaded the night to come. Her body ached painfully in the joints and she could feel the sore drooping of her own eyes from lack of sleep. Dreams had haunted her since she was twelve and as time went on, instead of being more in control, she lost it as they grew more vivid. Sara, her mother, could see things like she did, and although she had done her best to help her daughter, nothing had come of it except frustration and less sleep, most likely not helped by her heart defect.

She remembered her very first prophetic dream. It was about a young girl named Lucy Hart and she was sixteen years old. In the dream, Lucy had run away from home which housed an abusive father and an alcoholic mother. But as Lucy had climbed out of her window and ran across the street in the direction of an old graveyard, a group of young boys, about eighteen, way sided her in the street.

Elisabeth remembered standing there, right behind the suffering girl with a black eye and screaming at her, "Run!", but the girl wasn't aware of her. Instead, she could only stand and watch as the boys grabbed her and each had their way with her.

She awoke to her mother comforting her and asking her what the matter was. Elisabeth had simply shook her head and hugged her mother hard, shaking uncontrollably. The feelings were not merely false emotions conjured up by the mind and brought to life with images but true feelings from the heart that longed for the girl to be safe. However, that was not to be as the next morning Lucy was on the news. She was found raped and murdered, dumped in an alley a few blocks from her home.

At first, Elisabeth had hated them; the dreams that haunted her sleep every hour of every night. The inability to help those poor souls, who told them her stories through an open, unworried mind as she slept, was unbearable and drove her to near madness. But the years had passed and she'd learned to deal with it.

Pushing the memory from her mind, she moved faster down the dark street and turned back to other issues. Such as the Council. She knew Charles meant well but she hated it when any mention of the damned group was brought up. The Council of Twelve. An almighty group of rich, fat men who did nothing but make up the rules as they went along, calling on others to do their dirty work in case they got their poor hands covered in the blood they helped spill. They killed innocents and condemned even more. There was only ever twelve and those who either died or stepped down would be replaced by their sons, never women, and thus the line would carry on as so. One screwed up bastard after another.

Zach had joined the Council, having been offered a job to work in a pack as an investigator for them. He knew how much she despised them but he didn't let it stop him from agreeing to the job. As a young pup, he was eager to prove himself in the world of men. She was a young pup too but they didn't see her wagging her tail excitedly to prove she could be just as good as anyone else. No. She wanted the simple, quiet life like her parents had built though a lot of that was tied to the fact that she couldn't shapeshift, even if she'd wanted to. Her heart condition was a serious one. If she were to attempt to shift, she may very well die trying. Her heart wasn't strong enough and even after the surgery, which she was on a waiting list for, she would still be at risk. It wasn't worth it. So every fortnight, she received an injection from a specialist doctor to inhibit those genes which caused her to shift.

Faint unseen footsteps echoed behind her and she stopped to see who it was, snapping out of her troubled thoughts; no one. Her eyes locked on the shadows, willing some form to appear but there was nothing. She pricked open her ears but again, nothing, the only sound the faint rustle of leaves in the cold autumn wind. Thoughts of the wind made her turn quickly and pull her jacket tighter around her shoulders and move a little faster towards home. Feeling the hairs on her nape stand on end and a chill run down her spine as she felt someone following her, she moved as fast as she could and didn't look back until she was safely behind her front door, with all the locks in place.