Chasing After Ashes

Chapter 10: Flaming hair

“No! Stop it!!” I couldn’t help but yell, my voice quavering at the gut-wrenching knowledge of who she was.

Her. It could only be her. The woman whose voice and words had constantly been at the back of my head. Her red hair which resembled raging fires, flowing down her back—it was all I could see then in the faint memories I continuously failed to recall. Yet I knew it was her.

It wasn’t anything significant. Maybe it wasn’t just about the hair or maybe it really was. But the moment I saw her, that flaming hair that was such a distinct color, I knew it could not have been anyone else. Even Lilian’s copper hair, a darker shade of rust, couldn’t compare to hers.

Tate’s body which had shifted into an almost half-and-half form as he

battled the woman suddenly stiffened. Following his silent orders, Lowell who was mere inches away from ripping her legs off; Quentin who had turned into a wolf and was about to charge from the corner of the room; and Mark who had turned into a wolf as well and had just bitten her on her arm, all stilled.

It was all the distraction she needed.

The woman merely glanced at me for what seemed like less than a second before moving. She grabbed Mark at the scruff of his neck and with her other hand, tore away his whole right paw. Mark whined loudly as his blood splattered the floor. As she moved to do the same to his other one while the others were confused by my request to them, Tate seemed to wake up and wrapped his hands around her neck.

“Evangeline,” his voice was as dark as I had ever heard it, seeming to have come from the core of the earth. It was echoing, thrumming deep into our bones and souls until we felt his anger resonating in us like it was ours.

My breath hitched as I watched Tate’s hands around her neck tightening with every second that passed. She was gasping for air as the pressure around her neck became stronger, her eyes fluttering close. Her right hand which still held Mark suddenly opened to let him go. Struggling, she moved her hand on the one which held her hostage, trying desperately to open it. For Tate to release her. But it was to no avail.

The iron grip Tate had on her would not budge. And guessing the hurricane of emotions he was feeling, where rage was at the center of it all, he would not move his hand away from her. Not if it meant granting even a breath of fresh air, something his father would not be able to do anymore, to the woman who had slaughtered his father.

I understood how he was feeling. Hell, I knew he had a right to do this. We had caught her right as she was beating Elizabeth up, moments away from doing to her what she did to Hans. There was no sort of reason she could say to excuse what she was doing.

Yet I couldn’t stop the sinking feeling I had of succumbing to the depths of abyss my family had entrenched in me when I knew who they were. That I was being dragged down and I would not be able to get out, not if I just stood by and watched this woman die.

There was no hint, clue, or anything at all that I could have based my feeling like this for a woman I did not know. Yet despite how surreal and unfounded it was, the thought of Tate killing her even if she had committed a horrible crime, filled me with a dread. The kind which started on the ends of your arms and feet, little sharp ants whose bodies were dipped in poison, and quickly covered you. Consumed you.

“Please!” I yelled, unable to take seeing her be hurt anymore. “Just stop it!”

“Please?” Tate repeated as if he couldn’t understand what I was asking of him. It was unfair of me. I knew but I really couldn’t have just stood by and done nothing. “You must be kidding Evangeline. Only a fool would let his enemies free.” As he said free, he tightened his grip around her neck until I heard a faint c***k.

My eyes widened, thinking he had killed her. But it was less than a second later that she gasped for air desperately with her throat being crushed shut in each millisecond. Probably broke some bone in her neck but hadn’t crushed it. Not yet.

“Please, I’m begging you.” Please listen to me, I thought, desperately hoping he could hear the truth in my words, the truth singing in my heart to not kill her. It wasn’t a ruse. How could it have been? I had been constantly watched these past few days I had been back and functioning since my break from reality. And I had been out of commission for months because of what had happened. So there was no way they could think this was just an act of betrayal to the Alcatrozz.

“And why should we?” he growled, turning to face me. As he did, I noticed his eyes were no longer the obsidian orbs they had been whenever he was angry. He was way past it now. Instead, his eyes resembled black holes who will absorb anything and everything, breaking them into tiny little pieces until nothing existed. As if nothing had existed in the first place.

I couldn’t seem to breathe like I had forgotten to as he was looking at me. The heavy power he had surrounding him were coated by the rage flowing in his blood and driving him forward. This was a whole different him. I was able to find my words, my voice cracking in the end at the emotions swirling inside me, the moment he turned his head away from me. “Just please, Tate, listen to me. I would not ask this of you if it was not important.”

Tate stopped tightening his hand around her neck. But he didn’t remove it nor loosened the pressure he had on her. “Do you know what you are asking of me?” He didn’t yell. He didn’t raise his voice. But when he spoke, his words were clipped because of the anger roaring inside him, I felt a seemingly never-ending stabs of pain in my heart and an all-consuming darkness that was enveloping me quickly.

The soles of my sneakers squished on the carpet as I purposefully walked closer to Tate. Quentin had found a blanket somewhere and had pulled it to the floor, far away from the woman and their alpha. As Lowell was the only one of them who had not fully changed into his form, he carefully lifted Mark and gingerly placed him on the blanket.

As I got to Tate’s side, feeling the scorching heat of his anger on my skin, I knew exactly what he meant. I was asking him to not only abandon his duties of avenging a fallen member of his pack, but also to spare the life of the woman who mercilessly killed his father. It was a bold move, one I hoped he would understand without my explaining what I thought just yet. Next time or after I have confirmed what I only knew in my heart was right.

My hand reached out to touch his arm, feeling like my skin was about to be burned off by his heat, but I continued to touch him. Slowly and gently, I moved my hand under the arm which held her tightly around her neck. “I know I am being selfish. I know it is stupid to even ask this of you, but please let her go for now. Do not kill her. Not yet. I just have to ask her something.”

Each second passed feeling like they were each their own infinity as I waited for Tate’s answer. Several nerve-wracking infinities later, he gave me an answer without saying a thing. He rigidly loosened his hand around her neck, making her fall to the floor, breathing in harsh breaths.

“Thank you,” I muttered to Tate as he stiffly stepped away from her so I could pass through. I kneeled in front of her, watching her whole body shake as she coughed. Tate really must have broken quite a few bones around her neck.

“What’s your name?” I asked her after several seconds. She promptly ignored what I said, continuing to face the floor as she coughed. Thinking she needed a couple minutes before she was fully well and able to answer a few questions, I sat cross-legged in front of her.

I blinked like an i***t as I felt a stinging pain high on my right cheek, almost close to my eye. It took an embarrassingly long second for me to understand what she just did. Only because I didn’t think she was dangerous to me.

She had shifted her nails, making them sharper than it should have been in her human form. As she used the force behind her first attack, shifting it to my stomach, I grabbed her hand tightly to stop it. I couldn’t feel anything but disbelief, unable to comprehend why I had expected her to treat me differently.

Tate grabbed the arm I was holding and I let him, still completely dumbfounded at myself. He pulled her abruptly to him, kneeing her hard in the abdomen that she gasped. Tate immediately released her arm like he didn’t want to be touching her for long. He gestured to Lowell who was a few paces away from us. Lowell quickly secured her hands behind her back.

As I was no longer distracted by her cough and her fiery hair which covered her eyes, earlier I was able to notice more details about her. Her eyes were a huge contrast to her hair, I thought.

If her hair was the blazing fire that could have burned me, her eyes resembled snowy banks that could have frozen you if you weren’t careful. It was especially chilling as it was completely devoid of emotions, like she wasn’t a person. As if she felt nothing despite the injuries she had already suffered from the assault Tate and the others had done to her.

She stared at me as if she would have burned and frozen me from where I stood. And for a moment I felt it was possible because the power surrounding her was tantamount to her intensity. It wasn’t much, too little in fact that it would have been easy to think she was weak. But she was far from it, I could tell from the strength in her eyes.

Also, she had killed Hans as if he was nothing. He may have been the worse with his delusions but he still had the strength of an alpha. His power was nothing to scoff at but she looked far from ragged when we came in.

“Who do you work for?”

She stared at me blankly. There was no hint of acknowledgement in her eyes that she even heard me ask the question. Can she not hear me? It was possible because not even werewolves were able to escape from having physical problems upon birth.

However, just to be sure, I repeated the question a couple of times to her until I saw her eye twitch. It was small, barely noticeable. Had I not been looking at her intensely for the past few minutes then I would have not even noticed it. Although it meant she was just deliberately ignoring what I said. “If you would not answer that then maybe you can answer this. What’s your name?”

A few long seconds continued to pass with no word or any sound coming out of her mouth. Starting to feel annoyed at how she continued to remain mum about her personal information, I loudly grunted in frustration. Her eyes followed me as I stood and started to pace in front of her, wanting to remove the annoyance I was feeling because I knew it wouldn’t help me one bit.

“You don’t have to go to whatever kind of trouble you’re getting into. We can t*****e the information out of her if she does not want to talk,” said Lowell with a grin I would not have expected to see from him—like the devil had taken over him and he couldn’t wait but do whatever he was thinking.

“Just give us the signal, Eve. So, this is all over soon as well,” added Tate, crossing his arms in front of him.

“No, I need to know,” I told them before facing her again. “Do you remember anything from 16 or 15 years ago?” No answer. I continued, “Do you know me? Do you remember saying that I am the hope of the Rosewood pack?” Still no answer.

Grunting with all the frustrations in the world, knowing I would not get the answers I needed, I turned to Tate. “Even if push comes to shove, do not give in to your urges of killing her. No matter how long it takes, please get her to talk. I really need to know these.”

Tate glanced down at me and jerked his head into a nod. “Thank you,” I whispered to him, briefly touching his hand.

“You will need to explain this.”

“I know. I will explain later,” I promised him. “Now I need to go.” I told them before turning away and heading back to Elizabeth’s side. She was still not completely healed as I did the best I could of only patching her up on the immediate danger areas I had gone to before. This was why I needed to keep an eye on her because at any time her wounds might suddenly reopen.

“You heard her. Carry her to the lower ground floor of this house. And make sure you will be able to make her talk.” Lowell nodded, firmly holding the woman’s hands behind her. As Lowell moved, Quentin quickly changed back to his human form and helped him.

She was struggling. Kicking and trying to scratch up anyone who was near her. The two stumbled a little as the woman pushed herself to the end of the wall and kicked hard. Without a moment to lose, she elbowed Quentin and Lowell in their stomachs. Had the injuries she had suffered from the pain of the other two really were nothing to her? It was plain impossible.

Annoyance built up inside me again. No, I thought. The never-ending sea of anger inside me had never been truly calmed down. It was merely suppressed, pushed down to the deepest parts of my mind, and covered with other things so I wouldn’t pay attention to it. But no more. I had already been acting pathetic by asking these guys a favor. I had already hurt them by asking them to do this for me no matter how they didn’t have to.

I still wanted to know the answers to the questions pestering me in my mind. However, I couldn’t, wouldn’t stand her hurting any more of the people I like.

I stopped suppressing the anger until it roared to the surface, filling my body completely until there was nothing else that mattered besides the fury. My steps seemed to be louder, booming in my ears as I walked towards her. Yet the fury didn’t consume me like it did before. My mind was clear, seemingly more alert as I noticed the specks of dust floating in the air.

Lowell had successfully secured her hands again and placed it behind her back while Quentin wiped his bleeding mouth. Tate was kneeling down beside Mark who was moaning about his legs being pulled apart. He glanced at me when he saw me coming back towards the woman but turned back to Mark again.

There were no words I could have said to hair which would make her stop. I knew because whoever she was working for was most likely holding something huge against her. It was the only reason why she wouldn’t be able to say anything. Although there was a possibility of it or even magic at play, there was also a chance that she was working alone. But for what reason would she do this if it was really the latter?

She stared at me with eyes devoid of emotion as I stepped in front of her. Breathing in, I touched her arm and started pulling in her energy, if it was the right term for it. More like I was sucking in her energy, carefully making sure I wouldn’t inadvertently cause her lungs, kidneys, or other organs to stop. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. Never had I done something like this before. But it felt right.

Moments later she sagged, feeling weakened with the energy I had taken from her. The only thing holding her upright was Lowell who raised his brows at me in question. The fury which had filled my body slowly was pushed back down as her energy, it was the only way I could describe it, filled me to the brim. It felt like I could have reached for the moon and broken it to pieces if I wanted to.

In this rush I was in, I shrugged at Lowell and said, “She would be easier to deal with now.” However, as I spoke my voice seemed unfamiliar to me as it sounded like it echoed all around the room. Or were my ears not working properly?

It turned out it wasn’t the case when Quentin gave me a weird look and I saw Tate glancing at me worriedly from behind them. When I saw Quentin looking at me with judgment like how the rest of the Alcatrozz used to, I wanted to take his head into my hands and crush it like a grape. My eyes widened a little at where my thoughts were going. I cleared my throat, hoping I wouldn’t have to think about something like that next time.

“Just take her downstairs. She will be too weak to fight you off now.” Lowell and Quentin immediately moved and I went towards Mark.

There was too much energy in my body that as soon as I touched Mark’s fur to heal him, it jumped to him immediately like electricity. I blinked as his wounds knitted together and his whole paws which were ripped off, grew back. It wasn’t supposed to do that. Healing werewolves or anyone from my experienced was taking what was there and making sure it was fixed.

It wasn’t supposed to regrew body parts which were completely removed from their bodies. Even a wolf’s quick healing didn’t cover something like that. If it was gone, it was gone. All the body was going to do was to heal what was left of it, because we weren’t at all like how humans portrayed us.

“Were you supposed to do that?” asked Tate slowly, lightly touching Mark’s completely healed paws to see if what he was looking at was real.

“N-no,” my voice wavered in shock. The energy which placed me in such a high earlier quickly dissipated in my surprise. “I just wanted to heal him, not do this.” I gestured to Mark’s paws.

Mark shifted in the next second, making me quickly turn away because he was as n***d as a new born. “Ain’t that a shock. But thank you, I thought I’d have to live without the use of these babies,” he said grinning as he stared at his arms.

“Do you think…” Tate started, his eyes never moving away from Mark’s hands. “No, even your powers wouldn’t be able to do it.”

I was about to open my mouth and ask him what he was talking about when I got it. I lightly touched his arm and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t think it would be possible at all.”

“Why not?” snapped a familiar voice from behind us. I turned and saw Elizabeth was standing, her legs shaking from the effort it took her to do so.

“Because Mark is still alive when I did this. Even if I was able to fix Hans’ body, it wouldn’t be possible for me to bring him back alive.” And I said this, I knew it was the truth. I didn’t know I could have done what I did to bring back Mark’s arms, and maybe it was just a one-time thing, but I knew it was beyond me to bring someone back. If I could, I would have because I knew these two were going to suffer for years and Hans didn’t deserve to go the way he did.

Nobody deserved to die like he did.

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Hey guys! Sorry I know I was supposed to update daily but I had been really sick this week. I'll upload tomorrow again!

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To reiterate for those who don't know:

Book 1 of the Rosewood Trilogy - Alpha, Do I Know You

https://www.dreame.com/novel/1964802.html

Book 2 of the Rosewood Trilogy - Chasing After Ashes

Have a nice day everyone! Toodles! :)