impetere | Entries tagged with entry}: fiction

“Cora.”

She’s sitting on the stairs that lead up to her room, arms looped over her knees and a very determined look on her face. She may be the smallest of the Hales, tiny for her age even at eleven, but she was twice as stubborn to make up for it. She glances up at the sound of her name, but she doesn’t move from where she’s sitting. She can already feel the itch of the moon under her skin and while there’s still a lot of it that’s new, she’s already become an expert at pushing it back. Keeping in control. Or, at least that’s what she’d like to believe which is why she’s staring down her uncle at the base of the stairs, who has his arms crossed in front of his chest and is looking at her with an expectant expression.

“What are you doing?”

There’s a look of grim determination in her eyes as she keeps eye contact, giving him a nod of certainty as she does. “I can do it, Uncle Peter.” One eyebrow raises in a look that’s part curiosity, part amusement. She just keeps eye contact, willing to do whatever it takes so that she doesn’t have to go down into that basement. “I can control it.”

“Can you?” Peter doesn’t sound convinced, and he’s teasing, but it’s a bit gentler than he would do with Laura or Derek. “Eleven years-old and you have complete control of your shift. That is impressive.”

Her eyes narrow and she straightens up a bit. “I can. So I don’t have to go in the basement.”

He sighs, watching her for a moment before moving up the stairs so that he can sit on the one beneath her. “You’re still a kid, Cora. I have no doubt that you can keep control of your wolf, but there’s nothing wrong with being careful.”

She makes a face. “Derek and Laura don’t have to be careful.” They were both out

“Derek and Laura have been doing this longer than you have, little one. They’ve had a lot more practice.”

Cora looks skeptical. “Derek almost lost it at his basketball game.”

“All the more reason we should be absolutely sure before we unleash you on the world.”

Cora’s face fades to something a little more frustrated, a scowl that comes with being severely displeased with the situation. Peter chuckles softly, before holding out his hand to her.

“Tell you what. You make it through this month all on your own, and I will talk to your mother about keeping you out of the basement next month. Deal?”

She looks a little dubious, almost as though she isn’t sure she can trust this just on Peter’s word alone. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Do you need me to pinky swear too?” He thinks she’s being ridiculous. She’s not kidding. She holds up her hand, little finger out, and gives him a very expectant look. His eyebrows go up in return before he sighs and does as she requested, linking his finger around hers. “The things you get away with for being the runt of the litter.”

She beams up at him, letting him take her hand and pull her towards the basement. As they get close to the door, they pass by an open window and Cora stops, catching an unfamiliar scent wafting in from the outside. She stops short, squinting at the window for a moment, before glancing back to her uncle. “Uncle Peter, what’s that smell?”

His head snaps towards her, and the next thing she knows the room is a tidal wave of light and heat. Peter scoops her up off the floor just in time for the fire not to singe her. He presses her face down against his shoulder, moving quickly to the opposite wall but before he can get there, another wall of fire rises up around then and they’re trapped. She’s clinging tightly to his shoulders, trying not to be scared but the moon is cresting and those urges she was trying to press back are starting to rise to the surface.

Eventually they wind up somewhere dark cooler than the fire in the rest of the house and she pulls back just enough to see where they are. It’s the downstairs bathroom, but she can smell smoke and hear screaming and on instinct, her hands come up to cover her ears, but Peter catches them before she can.

“Listen to me, Cora. I need you to listen very carefully. I know you’re scared but I know you can do this.” Her hands come up to rest against the side of her face to keep her eyes on his. “I’m going to put you out this window and I need you to run. Run as far and as fast as you can and hide.”

“What about you?”

“I’m too big, sweetheart, they’ll see me. And I have to go find your mother. But you run and hide and I will find you when this is over, okay?”

She stares up at him for a moment wide eyed and scared. The smoke was starting to gather and she knows that they don’t have a lot of time. “Promise?”

He watches her for a moment, before leaning forward and kissing the top of her head. Then he pulled back to force the window open and scoop her up to place her outside. “If they catch you? Don’t hold back.”

Cora glances back at him and nods, before taking off and running as fast as she can for the woods. Once she hits the tree line, she never looks back.

947 words

Current Mood: scared

Neither of them trust her. She honestly doesn’t blame them.

She’s not really sure she trusts them either.

They say they’re from Derek’s pack, and that makes sense. She heard the rumors that there was a new Hale alpha and he was building a pack, and she knows that Deucalion wants Derek to be part of his. He wants to complete his patchwork pack of the rarest and the strongest, and if he can’t have their mother, he must believe that Derek is the next best thing. And if he has to use Cora to do it, so be it. Cora wants to tell them all to go to hell – and she has – but she also hasn’t done anything either. It’s a fight she knows she’d lose.

If anything, Cora knows how to survive. If she’s angry enough, she’ll run at any obstacle that comes her way. But this, right now? This isn’t a fight that’s going to get her anywhere. So she sits and she waits, feeling them strip more and more of her control away with every full moon, and yeah, that made her angry, but she was saving it, hoping that the one moon they let them loose will be them time when they’ll be able to strike first.

The problem is, Erica and Boyd aren’t good at playing a long game, especially Erica. They’re impatient teenagers who haven’t been on the run for most of their lives and know the value of time. The distance from the full moon doesn’t help that either, making them all increasingly more twitchy and agitated. They want out, wolf and teenager alike and that makes things harder to control.

(It’s also probably part of the fact that Cora is trying to control them too. She’s trying to take charge, use her experience over theirs and there are times when Erica looks at her with a look that says she’s handling things the way Derek does – though she won’t really understand the full extent of that until later, when she has her brother again. Right now, all that matters is that they’re her friends – probably one-sided – and they’re her brother’s betas and she wants to make sure that they get back to Derek safe. Kind of like a peace offering or a coming home present. She probably shouldn’t be the one giving them but she’s also been an omega for most of her life. She’s gotten used to being the one having to prove her worth, not the other way around.)

Today’s worse than normal, though. Erica is sitting across from Cora, with her back against the security gate. Boyd is temporarily out of the vault – the bathroom is the only small bit of privacy they’re allowed, so long as it’s not a full moon. Erica is twitchy, antsy, her eyes tracking each of the alphas like she’s sizing up the competition, and Cora intends to cut this off at the pass.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Erica turns on her with a glare, eyes sharp and shrewd as she watches her with that same calculating gaze. “I’m not going to be their cannon fodder. I wasn’t going to do it for Derek and I’m sure as hell not going to do it for them.”

Cora grits her teeth as she shifts closer, dropping her voice, even though she knows this vault transmits sound like a giant megaphone, and the alphas can hear every word. “They will kill you. They don’t need all three of us to get to Derek. Kill one of us, send a message to the rest that they step out of line, we won’t go home.”

“So we just sit and wait for the full moon and tear each other apart then?” Her voice is low and calm, but Cora can hear the determination in it as Erica shakes her head. “No. I’m tired of waiting.” There’s another pause as she turns to look at Cora again. “Maybe we can do it together. They can’t kill all of us, they’d have no leverage over Derek.”

Cora could see the logic in it. Bum-rush the alphas, try to get out, try to get home, and when the full moon comes, they’ll deal with the fall out, but at least they won’t be trapped in this box, where the only people for their wolves to tear apart would be each other. But Cora knows that’s not how the game will end. She knows that for better or worse, they’ll be dead and she hasn’t come this far to die on an alpha’s claws. Die at the hands of people who used to be her mother’s friends. She wants to see her brother, not be another body he has to bury. She doesn’t want to have come this far for nothing.

“It’s a dumb plan.”

That’s the last words she’ll say on the matter as they bring Boyd back into the vault again. Kali follows soon after, with the tray of minimal food they get every day, just enough to keep them alive, and Erica’s eyes still track her like a hawk. Cora hopes that it’s mostly out of self-preservation, but that all flies out the window when she starts to speak, loud enough that she knows Kali can hear her.

“Boyd, what do you think will happen to us on the lunar eclipse?” Boyd glances to her, confused, not privy to the conversation she and Cora had had moments prior. Erica ignores the questioning look and continues. “They last for hours, you know, cuz it’s just the earth’s shadow. I wonder what will happen to us. Maybe it’ll make us stronger.”

Kali turns back at that point, glancing over her shoulder with a look that isn’t as much curious as it is meant to discourage whatever plan Erica was looking to make. Erica’s eyes flash gold, bright and challenging, and there’s that determination in her jaw that tells Cora how this is going to end long before she gets to her feet.

“I hope it’ll make us stronger.”

The words are an open challenge and Kali knows it. She turns, eyes red as though to say back down now but Erica won’t. Boyd starts, making as though he’s going to try and get between them, but Cora’s hand finds his shoulder to pull him back, knowing what’s coming but unable to look away or try and shield either of them from it. It doesn’t even last that long, either, not with a fight that’s so mismatched. Erica charges at her, eyes glowing and claws out but two well-placed slashes from Kali and she drops to the ground, the smell of blood permeating the air far too quickly for it to be something she can heal from.

Cora can feel the tension in Boyd next to her, fingers gripping tightly against his thighs as she did her best to use that hand to keep him in place. He wants to go to her, help her, but there’s nothing they can do and she won’t let Boyd die here too.

(Erica’s still alive though. It’s in her eyes, and the way she reaches out her hand to the both of them, calling for Boyd. It doesn’t last long after that, though. Her head drops and her hand stills and then death hangs in the air, thick and cloying.)

Kali just glances over at the both of them, proving the point that Cora knew she would make. They aren’t strong enough to take her. She then turns away again, claws clicking against the floor as she steps out of the vault and back into the bank itself.

“I’ll send someone to clean that up.”

She’s proud of them for keeping out of hearing distance before they break.

1295 words

Current Mood: scared

She’s been hanging out on the outskirts of this pack for a couple weeks.

They know she’s there but they don’t really acknowledge her outright. It’s better for them if they don’t ask questions, and they know it. They know who she is, can see her mother in the angles of her profile and they want her to stay away. If word got around that they had taken in the last of the Hales, the Calaveras would probably come and tear through their pack to get to her and Cora doesn’t want that for them either. As it is, she won’t be staying much longer than this – she may only be thirteen but she knows enough to know that staying still for too long is making herself an easier target to shoot, and she doesn’t intend to die anytime soon.

She’s been pulling this kind of game for years, only staying long enough to get rid of any scents on her tail and then moving on again. She hates it, never really settling, no family, no pack, but it’s what she has to do to survive. It’s what she has to do until she can find Laura.

(And Laura has to be alive. Her mother’s power had to go somewhere, and since it didn’t go to Cora, one of her siblings had to have survived. She’s banking on Laura, hoping against hope that the person who was being trained to be an alpha is strong enough to push through, but she’d take Derek too. Anyone, so long as they were family.)

Valentina is a wolf about her age, with long dark hair and a sunny smile. She’s probably the closest thing Cora has to a friend, even if they’re not actually friends. She works in a bakery in the middle of the city and will sometimes bring Cora fresh bread and occasionally even something sweet so she has something to eat. Between that and occasional meals she’s able to trade for, she has a pretty decent life. She also still winds up stealing, but it’s only what she absolutely needs that she can’t get anywhere else.

And the hunters still come. The hunters always come. It’s why Valentina is there with her now, even though she shouldn’t be. She is the one who dragged her to one of the pack’s safehouses, hidden away from the eyes of hunters so that they can treat a bullet wound that Cora should have been fast enough to miss. The hunter got lucky, and that only serves to piss her off more, even though she’s in pain. The pain is fading, though, along with the smell of ozone and burning skin, and Valentina is placing the cooling blowtorch to the side.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Cora shifts into a sitting position, one hand resting against her side. “If they find us…”

“They won’t find us.” Valentina stands, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she leans against the far wall. There’s a distance there that comes when she has to say something she doesn’t want to, and Cora already knows what it is before she says it. “But my abuelita says you need to leave.”

Valentina’s grandmother was the alpha of the pack, and had been eyeing Cora warily for some time. Cora’s honestly surprised this hadn’t come sooner, but she hadn’t been a direct threat before. She just hopes that none of the other pack members had gotten hurt in the crossfire. Cora nods, agreeing because she had to, because those were the choices an omega got, but still sad all the same.

She had liked it here. She wishes she could have been here longer.

“Okay. I’ll head out in the morning, once I pack my stuff.”

“There’s something else you should know.”

Cora turns and blinks at her, surprised. She isn’t sure what exactly it is that, unless it’s hunter recon or hazards about another pack, but this didn’t feel like that. The way Valentina is looking at her, it almost seems hopeful. Like what she has to say is good news. “There is?”

“There have been some … rumors. I don’t have a lot of details, so I don’t know how true they are but it’s about the Hale alpha.”

It almost seems too good to be true. In recent months she had started to think that maybe she was making it up. Maybe there was no chance that her family was out there and something else had happened to cut off the line of succession. She’s been looking for this news for so long, and she drinks it in like a man in the desert, dying of thirst.

“What about her?”

“I don’t know if it’s a he or a she, but there’s rumors that they’re in Beacon Hills.” There’s a pause an Valentina takes a few steps closer, taking Cora’s hands in hers and giving them a small squeeze. “They’re building a pack. You can go home.”

Cora isn’t really sure how much of a home Beacon Hills is anymore, not when the city stood by and let the Argents destroy its protectors. But at the same time if the Hale alpha, her alpha was already there, then that’s exactly where she should be.

“Are you sure? Are you sure it’s not the hunters setting a trap?”

She shakes her head. “No. I heard it from one of the visiting pack members from Guadalajara. Then there was some news a couple weeks before that. It’s coming from the wolves, not from humans.”

The news bowls her over a bit, hands coming forward to brace herself against the table she’s sitting on, but Valentina is there to catch her, sliding her arms around her shoulders and pulling her in tight. It takes her a moment to even really respond to the hug, but when she does, she’s hugging her back just as fiercely.

“Thank you,” she murmurs against her shoulder. For protecting her or for giving her this last bit of hope, she isn’t entirely sure, but she does know that she won’t forget this, even if she never sees her again, and the odds for that are high. And while she is sad about that, losing the first real friend she’s had in a very long time, she can’t help but feel joyous all at the same time, because Valentina has given her one of the best gifts she could.

Cora’s going home.

1044 words

Current Mood: hopeful

“Hey.”

Her nose is clouded with bleach and her brother’s blood that she doesn’t scent him coming. Derek’s made himself scarce again which she’s starting to realize is the new normal for him. She isn’t sure if it’s the need to lick his wounds in private or just the fact that he doesn’t know what to do with her any more than she knows what to do with him. Things have been tense and awful ever since the night before and she doesn’t know how to fix it. She’s just coming at the problem like a battering ram and Derek is slamming back just as hard.

The pieces that are supposed to fit together just aren’t and they don’t have the time to figure it out. The parts that made them DerekandCora have burned away in time apart and trauma they don’t know how to process. The brother she wants to reach is locked away, hidden behind walls she can’t break, no matter how hard she tries.

As long as the alphas are around, Cora is being kept at arms length and that’s worse than not having Derek at all.

She’s sitting on top of a table in the middle of the preserve when Boyd finds her, and she glances up with a small smile, probably the first anyone’s seen in days. Not that anyone is paying attention. No one in this town but Boyd actually gives a damn.

“Hey.”

She inches over on the table to give him room to sit next to her, but it’s not really a lot of space. There’s so much of Boyd that he makes her look miniscule in comparison, but it’s not as though he’s causing her to shrink. He presses his leg against hers, giving her that connection to ground herself on, which she’s grateful for because it’s the only real thing she has.

“Derek know you’re out here?”

“Don’t really think he cares.” She glances down at her hands, picking at the sleeves of her shirt as she keeps her eyes focused on the ground. “Plus I think he knows that if he tries to keep me in the loft any longer I was going to claw his face off.”

Boyd chuckles next to her, a warm soft sound, before shaking his head. “Is that how you’re supposed to treat your alpha?”

She snorts. “No, but it’s an acceptable way to treat your older brother.” She pauses for a moment, before shaking her head. “He was never supposed to be an alpha, it was always supposed to be Laura.”

“Yeah, well, he is one now. And you were the one who spent most of the time in the vault telling us we had Derek all wrong.”

“Yeah, well, you totally downplayed what a colossal ass he was being.”

“More like you didn’t think he would be one to you.”

She falls silent the moment after that, trying to avoid letting it show how on the nose he was in that respect. Instead, she covers by changing the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“The Crucible seemed really unimportant with everything going on.” She’s heard bits and pieces of things. More dead bodies, some of them students. She probably should feel bad about that, but it’s not like she knows anyone here. “Besides, I keep seeing Erica everywhere.”

She glances up at him, her face softening for a moment, before she reaches over to take his hand gently. She misses Erica too, but she knows Boyd misses her more. They were friends longer than Cora has known them and she knows how much losing her has hurt him. He feels alone and isolated, even with the pack, and it’s a feeling she knows all too well. His fingers curl around hers, dwarfing her hand in his grasp and squeezes it gently. Even if they don’t really have a place with anyone else, they were still together. They still had each other.

Before she can say anything, her phone goes off with a text. She sighs before pulling it out, but her hand stays in his, letting her ground him for as long as she can. She rolls her eyes when she reads it. “It’s Derek. He wants me back at the loft.”

“You should go.” Boyd releases her hand slowly as he moves to stand up and climb off the picnic table. “I should get back to class anyway.” He takes a few steps away before glancing back to her with a smirk. “Also you do know normal people sit on the benches, not the actual table, right?”

She glares at him – not seriously, but enough – and he just laughs, shaking his head before walking away.

786 words