FATED: 2ND BOOK OF GRAVITY

4. Midnight Sun

Sana

At midnight, with most of my family drunk and passed out around the house. It’s where I sit on the porch swing where the beautiful yard that my Mom painstakingly dedicated her time and energy to flourished with all kinds of plants. I help her out and my part time job comes in handy with that.

We’re planted more flowers than anything on the garden and during spring it blooms with life. It’s not often where you can spend your days gazing into the bright night. Living in Finland is perhaps the best decision my Mom ever chose.

She moved the three of us here from Japan, when my real mother died, and my father was just out for blood every time he drinks. She adopted us and we fully embraced everything to escape the horrors of our past. I’m truly glad that she got here.

“Little one” Grandma closes the door behind her and smiles at me. “What’s in your head?”

I smile at her. “Nothing”

“Ah, that is a lie, but I would go with it” She chuckles. Sitting beside me on the swing. I can’t help but lean towards her and she engulfs me in her warmth. One arm around me as I lean on her chest like I was eight years old again. “It’s a good Midsummer, yes?”

I nod. “Uncle Tapio pissed Papa off again”

“Like always, you know he has the gift of mischief and knows how to annoy everyone. I pity the fool who is mated to him” Grandma laughs, rhythmically patting my side as she held me. “I can’t believe that you’re 18, now”

“Still smaller than anyone in the family”

“Stay that way” She smiles. Her eyes look as if she’s going to cry. “I can’t bear the thought of you growing any more than now. Stay as you are, and it would be fine with us. You can live forever in the safety of our home and we’ll be so happy if you choose to do so”

“Grandma, that would be a very brief time”

She shakes her head. “I’ll take what I can with you and Yume”

“I’m sorry that we’re human”

“don’t apologize for that” She kisses my forehead. “No matter who you are, you’re still my granddaughter”

“We’re going to have to wake them all up for the gathering, don’t we?” I feel the wry smile erupting from my face at the thought of waking those drunk werewolves out of their slumber.

Grandma laughs. “We have to, it’s the law”

The law of Midsummer where any nearby packs would have to congregate with the other packs after Midsummer. It’s when Papa and my whole family shifts to go to the border near Sweden and werewolves discuss about their packs together. Yume and I would obviously have to drive, but Papa would never let us drive on our own. Mama couldn’t shift into a werewolf either even though she gets everything else as being mated to one.

That means Dad is driving us all to the meeting. Every year it’s the same meeting of discussing rogues around the border of every pack. Papa was the first pack to ever refuse any rogues to join the pack under any circumstance and he received such hard backlash from it, still, but recently there have been a lot of rogue attacks and Papa doesn’t sound so crazy now.

Grandma and I woke the whole family up and with a quick nap, the werewolves are up and perky like they haven’t drunk enough to kill five humans. Yume is the only one sluggish from drinking so much, but he inherited our genes of no hangovers and no vomiting. We’re well accustomed to alcohol.

“Go on” Papa urges Yume to the rover.

Yume nods and sits beside me. Mama sits in front with Dad and the twins are going to be taken care of by the shifting adults. It’s a five-hour drive at most, and we’re just going to be in time for the starting ceremony.

We’ve already packed a day before this and I packed some extra clothes, a pillow and a blanket for me to share with Yume in case we get too cold. Mama packed some winter clothes for us and we’re good to go.

Yume yawns “Going back to sleep” he leans on my shoulder and snuggles even closer to me as I wrap the blanket around us.

“Get some sleep too” Mama says. Smiling at me “It’s going to take a while”

I nodded.

“How long would this meeting go?” Yume asks Papa

“Er, about a day or two this time. Don’t worry we’re going to set camp and you can just imagine it as a family outing if you want” Papa scratches his beard.

Yume sighs. “Well, that beats having to deal with school”

“although you have to deal with your overbearing grandparents and uncle” Mama smiles at us. She’s wearing light make up as well, a little bit of rouge and some mascara.

“don’t forget about Papa” I elbow Yume

“Hey” Papa playfully growls as he looks at me through the mirror. “I’m not overbearing”

The three of us laugh.

“I’m not!” He whines.

“Yeah, that’s an understatement” Mama pats his shoulder comfortingly. “You’re so overbearing you put Mama bears to shame”

“Are you calling me a bear?” Papa shivers in disgust.

“Ugh” Yume groans beside me. “This is going to be a long couple of days”

I give him a wry smile “Well, no school?”

He gives me a look that says he’d prefer it.

When I open my eyes, we were still driving but there were wolves running on either side of us the size of horses. They’re huffing so loudly that I dreamt of it before I woke up. They don’t look like from the family and I’ve guessed that my grandparents were already there since they’re faster in wolf form.

Papa looks tensed and Mama is too. She’s holding on to the door and looks back at us with deep lines on her face. The tension in the room is palpable and I feel everyone’s nervous energy except for Yume who is still sleeping beside me.

“What’s wrong?” I can’t help but put my hand over Yume’s head to steady him on my shoulder. He’s still asleep from the even breathing and I’m not sure whether to wake him or not yet.

“Rogues” Papa says in his low voice that scares most of the pups in town. “Wake Yume up, right now”

My heart leaps up to my throat as I gaze at the rabid look on the wolf’s face. They haven’t done anything other than follow us with their mouths foaming. With shaky hands, I shake Yume up till he stirs.

“what?” He groans.

“Rogues are following us” I say.

“What?” He says alert now.

The blanket falls to our feet and he whip his head around to look at the wolves. There were about ten of them just surrounding us and looks as if guiding us somewhere. My throat gone dry as I tearily look at Papa.

“Are we going to be okay?” Yume was the first to ask him, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and he doesn’t bother to set them back up. That’s a sign that he’s nervous.

I smile for him even though everything in my body wants to shut down and go back to the cold closet all over again. I breathe in as deeply as I can and nodded. Yume holds my hand as tight as he can, and I squeezed back.

“The others are too far ahead” I hear Mama whisper. She looks around, her dark hair pinned to her head in a bun and in one of her summer churches dresses. “They’re turning back to get us”

I fear that it was too late. The wolves were just beside us and closing in on the rover. They don’t seem to tire or care what direction where we’re going but they’re there to follow us. Papa swerves harshly to the right, hitting one wolf and throwing them off. The seatbelt digs on to my shoulder and chest as the whole side of the car goes into midair before leveling back to the ground again. Running down the dirt track of the road as Papa steers us into a clearing.

Yume and I held on to each other as tight as we can. The seatbelts were the only thing that kept us from going any closer, but for once I’m thankful for Papa’s stupid rule. He punches in as hard as he can as the rogues caught up to us again and hits us with his whole body.

The rover feels like it’s going to topple over before it levels back again, the tires screeching on to the ground and even I smell the burning rubber. The urge to cry is burning my throat and lungs and my own movements were antsy. I meet eyes with one stark black wolf, and it grins at me.

The horrifying image reminded me of my father. It chills me to my bones, and I wanted to scream but my voice is just gone. Snatched away from me like a ghost choking my vocal cords.

“It’s okay” Yume suddenly cups my cheeks. Forcing me to look him directly in the eye. His own brown ones look scared and desperate. “We’re going to be okay. You’re here with us and nowhere else”

“Sana?” I hear Mama call me. her own voice laced with fear and worry. “Baby, it’s okay we’re going to be okay”

The rover is hit again with one of the rogues and Papa manage to steer to the opposite direction of the force to keep us on the ground. He curses at him and flips him a finger before kicking the pedal all over again.

“Sana, my pup, listen to me. Papa has it handled” Papa says.

I clutch on to Yume’s wrist and nodded. Closing my eyes to ease my own panic.

I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone, He’s dead and he’s nowhere near us anymore. He won’t hurt you. He won’t hurt you. He won’t hurt you. I chanted it again and again in my head till I drown myself out. My body still won’t listen which means I need to convince this stupid mind that everything was going to be okay.

The sound of metal bending with such a large force made me open my eyes in shock. the car topples over and we’re spinning. It was so fast that everything was a blur except for the pain of the seatbelt digging into my body. My hands look for Yume, but they suddenly felt too heavy as the car rolled a number of times.

My breath keeps knocking out of me everything we turned, and everyone is just a blur. I couldn’t get any image towards my brain at all other than the sun lighting up the sky even though it’s dawn.

Then everything went dark.

My heavy eyelids open. The smell of smoke and gas violates my nose to the point that my aching head already felt like it’s getting high. The ringing in my ear wouldn’t stop. my whole body feels too heavy to move, and all of these feels incredibly familiar.

“Sana! Wake up!” Mama’s voice sounds like I’m underwater. The ringing in my ears are drowning me.  “Damn it! I can’t rip the metal off!”

“Yume! Are you awake? Check your sister!—” The screech of metal bending and the sound of feral wolves slowly came when the receding ringing in my ear was gone. Papa is gone from the driver seat, but I see so many wolves fighting something.

Yume? Where is he? Everything is too much of a blur, but I can see him. His glasses are broken and he’s slowly moving his head upright. Mama is on his door with the window shattered and littering all over the leather.

He’s okay, I thought in relief. Mama and Yume are okay.

“Sana! Don’t you dare close your—"

My eyelids close again without my permission.

“Hey” his voice was just a whisper. So soft and filled with emotion it made my heart leap out of my chest. Something is trickling down my arm and I don’t know what it is. “Sana, can you hear me? Please open your eyes”

Albie? I thought, but it can’t be. He hates me.

“Sana please open your eyes.” The voice says again, it breaks at the last word.

I don’t think I can even though that. The only thing I could do was let out a small sigh.

He lets out a sigh of relief. “Let me get you out of here”

Something snaps and I feel the top of my heavy body fall on to something soft. Arms that are warm and strong, but I quickly hiss as pain on my side and leg pierced me awake. I gasp. My eyes flying open and I meet the familiar blue eyes that I dreamt of.

“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay” He says. It’s really him.

“My…Mom” I rasp. “Yu…me”

“They’re okay. Let’s hide first”

“What?”

He doesn’t answer me as he carries me in his arms. My head is too heavy, so I lean on his shoulder. I couldn’t really feel everything on my body yet, but I’ve been through this before to know that I’m still in a bit of shock. It’s masking every pain in my body even the function of my limbs.

There are still wild feral sounds of wolves fighting and skin ripping that it made me want to vomit, but I don’t know which is first the pain or the urge to vomit. His steps are far too quiet for someone his size to be able to do. As injured as I was, he’s too quiet in walking in the forest floor where sticks and leaves were everywhere.

“My…fami…ly” It took a lot in me to pull my hand and land it on his chest.

“There were too many rogues and no back up. Your Mom was able to pull Yume out before more rogues came and your Dad was forced to take them with him after he knew I was there”

They’re safe, I cry in relief. Thank God

I sob.

“Hey,” he coos. A soft expression in his face that I didn’t know he was able to do. He looks so young then. “Don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart here Sana”

I couldn’t stop it. I feel my bottom lip shaking but also the sting of it when I felt my tears touching a wound. “Thank…you”

“Ei si mitään” he says in a soft voice that it breaks my heart. don’t mention it. “Just get some rest, I have you now”

I stare into his deep blues and wondered. Does he really?

The sun is high, and the light bounces off his blonde hair. It looks like wheat in this lighting and it’s truly beautiful to me. He gazes at me so softly that it’s a complete opposite from the flower shop and I feel like crying even more. Although, if I’m this much of a mess then I can’t help but wonder about my brother.

“Is…Yume…okay?” I can’t help but ask him.

He nods. “I swear Sana, he’s okay. He was able to stand and be stubborn. He didn’t want to leave you”

I smile. I feel a few hot tears rolling down my face again. That sounds like him.

“Hey, I really don’t like the crying” He sounds like he’s pouting. I wasn’t sure if he was because I can’t open my eyes anymore.

“Yeah…” I breathed out. I feel the darkness calling out to me all over again.

“Oh, s**t!” he says before I’m knocked cold again.