Page 8 of When Embers Become Ashes

CHAPTER Three

Ember

I won’t bore you with every group home and crappy placement I ended up in after I left the Hounds. We drove 6 hours to a group home. It was never a short drive between places. I realized when I was older, he was keeping me away from certain people, and if my name was flagged on a system somewhere, I was quickly moved again.

I was at the group home a month, before an 18-hour drive to the Twin-Trees pack. Again, when they realized I was 'human,' I was dismissed, given a room in the servant quarters, and put to work. By April, I was back in another group home. I met a boy called Creed; he was the first person since Ren and Jenson I told the truth about my 'sight.'

He was another new I didn’t understand. One night, I found him sitting on the roof, watching a group of teenagers hanging out.

“Hey, mind if I sit? I can’t sleep.” I ask him, hoping he won’t care. He just shrugs, so I sit with my legs hanging over the edge like his are.

We sit in silence for a while before I speak again.

“I know everyone thinks I’m human, but I just think I’m a broken supe. I can see auras kinda, no, that’s not right.” I hum an unknown tune, trying to think how to explain it. The easiest way, in the end, was to show him. I get my notebook out and draw him how I see him.

Half his face was him in his human form and how most of the world see him; the other looks airbrushed with wolflike features, sharp canines, pointed furry ears, a more pointed angular face but smooth, almost seductive even at 7 years old. When I was finished I hand him the pad

“This is how I see the world, but I’ve never seen anyone like you before.” He stares at the drawing for so long that I start to worry, I made a mistake by asking him, showing him,

“Is this why you don’t make eye contact and don’t look at people's faces often?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“Yes, it makes me dizzy sometimes, especially hybrids when their dual natures are fighting for dominance,” I say as he gives me the pad back before sighing.

“I’m a wolf/incubus hybrid, but my wolf side just changed my features. I can’t actually shift.” he starts to tense, then carries on,

“I come up here to feed on the older kid’s emotions. I don’t really like being touched, so I feed from residual stuff.” I hum, not really knowing what to say.

Sometime later, as we head back inside, one of the orderlies tells Creed he will be moving to a pack tomorrow and his brother will meet him there. Then, with a smirk, he informs me that I will be heading to the Den, a facility that only a few people came back from.

I was in the Den from May 1st till December 25th. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, not good by any stretch of the imagination but not as bad, dry bread and a plastic cup of water twice a day and flavored water masquerading as soup in the evenings, weekly communal showers, as in we stand in a room with tepid water rained on us then given a clean scrub.

8 years old

I move to the Sharpe family in January. I may have done housework, including cleaning Mr. Sharpe’s poop-covered pants by hand, but I got to go to school and two hot meals a day.

It was a 10-hour drive to the Claw Fang Pack, which had a similar situation, school, and food. However, it was a pack school, and because I was not able to shift, I was bullied a lot; even though I knew how, there was no point in fighting back. I was punished for losing, punished for fighting, or even punished for not trying to fight.

Ren would be pissed as he taught me how to do enough not to be killed, so did the Hounds, but it just didn’t matter. By November, I had been to another group home, and now, with the Lane Family, which is where I learned to keep my bad dreams to myself.

The wolves I always saw in them were now a nightly occurrence. They changed my bad dreams or even good dreams, so they were present. So instead of Ren’s Wolf being the only one to save me and keep me safe from Gerald, my dream wolves Dex, and Levi, were there to help, or a day I spent baking for the club BBQ with Nonna, the wolves joined the Litter with taste testing.

While I was in the Den, Dex and Levi, my dream wolves started teaching me standard school lessons, similar to a school timetable. In the evening, they taught me to speak Russian, an odd language choice, but they must have a reason.

They recently moved on to Irish. They regularly call me Deirfuir but won’t tell me what it means. I need to get into the school library and see if I can find out.

9 years old

My 9thbirthday was last week, and I did not get a cake or presents like the other kids. I’m hoping I get moved soon. Mr Lane keeps stroking my back, getting closer each time to my bottom.

On 22nd January, my wish comes true. It seems Mr. Lane and a few other locals, including the gym teacher and deputy Headteacher, had an auction set up for me and a few others around the area. The local cops arrested ten people, and CPS took me, and another boy called Paxton, to a local group home as we were the only foster kids on the list. The others were just from rough families.

Paxton is nice. He will be 13 in a few weeks and is a Basilisk shifter. He wants to be a mechanic when he’s older, specializing in custom motorbikes. I tell him a little about the bikes I saw when I was with HellBlood Motorcycle club, not that I gave him the club's name.

Jameson turns up at the group home before I’m even given a bed; thankfully, we had already eaten something and he ushers me out, muttering about getting me out before Michaels turns up. The name rings a bell, but I can’t place it.

We have a 5-hour drive before he leaves me with the Armitage family. They are nice, and I stay with them until April, when they find out they are expecting their own baby and need the bedroom.

It was a 7-hour drive to another group home, and then an 18-hour drive would have been 15 hours, but SJ got lost to the Tracy Family, who were okay. They were rich-rich. I was basically an accessory. 'Look, we have a poor soul we care for. Aren’t we kind?'

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