The Wolf Series #3: Between Two Worlds

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

(Adrian)

(France, four and a half years ago...)

She has bags under her eyes. I glance at the Priest beside me, but he makes no comment. He simply nods at me and puts his veil back over his face. Its clad with silver chains that cover everything below his eyes, like chainmail on a medieval knight's helmet.

"You have ten minutes with her," He says as he turns on the ball of his foot. The man is large like me, and I suspect he would have been larger if his growth hadn't been stunted by the silver. The only Wolves I knew that were that size were from a Brazilian pack called the Selenian.

I waste no more time on the Prophet though, and quickly make my way to Amelia. She's hunched over the bench and staring at the spot just in front of her feet. They're are bloodied and bruised—her nails cracked and torn up like she had been kicking and thrashing against something solid.

My first instinct is to wrap my arms around her. I drop to my knees and pull this little girl into my embrace, where I hope to give her some comfort. She looks so broken—so fucking sad.

But I pull away as a pained wince passes from her boney form to mine. Blood. It coats my palm as well as the white robe she wears. It seeps through from the skin of her back like crimson ink. I take a long time to study her again—closer than before.

Her cheeks are gaunt and the sockets of her eyes poke out. Her lips are cracked and raw. Her hands are covered in bite marks, scarred over now but the indentations are starkly pink against her ashen skin. It's like staring at a zombie or a living corpse. Her hair is frail and whitening, and her eyes are bleeding into a piercing blue color now.

"What...what have they been doing to you?" I cup her face. She shouldn't be this weak—there is no way she could be this skinny after only ten months here. I had seen plenty of Prophets before during their training, but she had been through more than just that. "Why—why are you bleeding—"

"Adrian," She clears her throat and looks up at me. No. She looks through me. Her hazy stare is cold and empty, like stone, "Why are you here?"

She's confused. So am I...But I nod and lay my hand on her knee. She looks down at it like its offensive, but I won't move, "Amelia—I came here to check on you...but...I will take you from here if that's what you want."

I initially had no intention of becoming an escape artist, but I can't stand for the state that she's in. She is too young—too beautiful a person to look this...miserable and dead. This was exactly why we had all tried to keep her away from The Order. It's a bitter, humbling realization that washes over me—we never prepared her properly for the life she would face in The Order.

I was too busy fighting against this...buzz between us.

"You can't," She laughs bitterly, "They got me once—in Diurnal, and you couldn't stop them—"

"We will protect you—"

"You didn't last time," Her words slice into me like she's sunk her teeth into me instead. Echoing the same belief that I had failed her. I was meant to protect her—and even if I had prevented them from taking her, I still failed to do so. Suddenly, it's her hand over mine. Those splintered nails burrow into my flesh, "You think that even if you can protect me that I want you to?"