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Long ago, when I was just a small girl, I heard someone say that your life flashes by your eyes when you die. I laughed. 'That sounds super dumb.' I had told my grandma. When she died, she had a smile on her face. Still, I never allowed myself to believe it. Which in itself, is dumb. How am I a druid, an emissary for a pack of werewolves, and still sceptical of things old wives told each other while brewing beer in a shack?
I knew that my death was coming. Deucalion had started a massacre in his pack, his new pack, and I had felt it then. When a wolf died, their power always returned to the currents. Beacon Hills was surrounded by them. When the first wolf died, their power did not return. It was the first sign. The second was Talia Hale seeking Kali out. But, by then, it was far too late.
When I first met Kali, I was twenty. Four years later, she had become an alpha and, somehow, I became her emissary. We talked late into the night sometimes. Other times, when she was particularly stressed, I took her, forced her really, to go out with me. Mostly clubbing. Sometimes to a rage room. Sometimes, to a secluded cliff I had found on a very unfortunate day.
It was there, under the stars, that I confessed my feelings for her. She smiled at me, wide and toothy, and told me it was mutual. She felt warm as she held my face in her beautiful hands and kissed me. Gently. Softly. Like she was afraid I'd disappear. Like the sun's rays would melt me into a puddle. So, we sat. We talked. We laughed. We kissed. She held me. All night. Until the golden rays caressed her golden skin. Until we stumbled back to my bed and slept like the dead.
I had advised her against going back to Beacon Hills. Something felt off. Deucalion had the best intentions at heart, that much was true. But, they were dealing with hunters. Argents. The worst of the bunch. Something was bound to go wrong whenever they were involved.
I was right. Ennis couldn't get his vengeance. Gerard blinded Deucalion. Decimated his entire pack. And now, Deucalion was out for blood.
"We should leave." I told her.
"When the time is right, Julia." She responded. I didn't need to hear her heartbeat to know she was lying.
Something awoke under my skin that day. Something dark. Something I couldn't, wouldn't, let myself feel.
"Talk to your Alpha." I told the betas.
They laughed. Jeered. "Julia thinks she knows everything."
The darkness grew. Just a smidge. Nothing too drastic.
Kali stopped talking to me about pack business. What I knew, I found out whenever someone said something under the assumption that no-one else was there. But I was always there, wasn't I?
Just like the darkness.
Ennis had tried turning a teenage girl. The bite didn't always take. She died. Talia Hale was not on the same page as the other Alphas, it seemed. They were making an alliance. Together, they'd be stronger. Together, we'd all have a fighting chance.
Until, one day, the betas started disappearing. One by one. "Mutiny." Kali had said when I questioned her. Back then, I refused to believe. All power came from the earth. Wolves drew some from the moon too. Whenever they died, their power always returned.
Always.
No exception.
"Something's happening. Something wrong." Marin felt it too. Her brother, Alan, shared our sentiments.
"Kali, please. We should leave." I cried one night, in her arms after we made love. "This place feels wrong. The power lingers. It concentrates. It's unnatural."
"All in due time, My Love. I promised to take care of you. I will."
I nodded at her. Let her kiss me. The darkness laughed. It knew the truth I wouldn't let myself believe.
I let her comfort me, time and again. When her toes nicked my feet, I assumed I had imagined it. I should have left. I should have run before the last of our betas died. I should have listened to my head and not my heart.
But, I didn't. And, when we left the apartment that morning, she had said we would leave.
"One last walk, dear Julia." She kissed my hand. And, for the first time in a very long time, everything felt okay. The darkness was quiet. Everything was fine again.
The late summer sun was high in the sky. She stood taller than me still, even now after she had stopped wearing her shoes. I didn't care. Wolves weren't governed by the same laws that bound humans. If her feet got nicked, she'd heal. If someone attacked her, she'd be comfortable in her element.
I didn't care for much at that moment. All that mattered was that we would be leaving.
Once we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, she kissed me. She kissed me like she had never kissed me before. There was a sort of finality in her kisses. Guilt. Remorse.
Grief.
"I'll always love you, sweet Julia." Tears streamed down her beautiful face. "In the next life, let us be flowers. A dandelion next to a rose bush in the wild. Unbothered. Unchained."
"Let's, my beloved Kali. I love you too."
I closed my eyes. I knew what was coming. No amount of pretending everything was fine would push it any further away. I was content.
But, was I?
I didn't fight her. No point in prolonging the inevitable. Besides, I wasn't strong enough to put up a fight.
She cried as she slashed. Skin tore. Blood burst out of every exit point that was created. I felt chunks of flesh get ripped off bone. I kept my eyes closed. I would never let my last image of her be the thing Deucalion had tuned her into.
At some point, she stopped. I heard her sob. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus on her. I watched flashes of my life like one of those old movies where someone cranked the reel and the film moved.
Oh, they were right.
Most were of the two of us. I wondered if I should have pushed her. Have asked more questions. Have been more stubborn.
But, I would still have been overlooked. I felt it in my bones.
"Rest well, Julia. Haunt me, if it makes you happy."
She left me. The dry air barely filled my lungs. I felt the earth beneath me. The trees around me. The wind in its everlasting dance. And something else. A tether. A faint glimmer of light.
The darkness exploded inside me. Rage. Hot and searing. How dare she? Who did she think she was? Who gave her that kind of power over me?
Perhaps it was my fault. I had let her toy with me for years.
I latched onto the faint light and dragged myself towards it. My body no longer burned when stones and fallen branches scrapped against it. I felt nothing when dirt got into my bloody wounds. All I cared about, all I focused on, was that light.
She wanted me to haunt her?
I'd fucking tear her apart!