Page 28 of Rejected Exile

I reject you!

You are exiled.

Taking a long, deep gulp of the cocktail, I find a place in the living room and curl up on the carpeted floor. Sobs wrack my body. Deep, wrenching gasps are torn from my lungs. The tears pour down, one after the other, my nose running so much that I grab one of the nice pillows off the sofa and wipe my nose on it.

"Why?" I lean my head back on the wall and stare at the ceiling, like it might give me some sort of answers. "Why would you do this to me?"

Memories tear at my mind. I drink as much gin as I possibly can to make them go away, but that only makes them bigger. Kieran's face earlier today. The sound of his angry voice in my ears, hours ago and seven years ago. Every bit of pain and agony I felt when I was out on the streets, alone and far from home, with no one to help me.

The social workers who turned me away because I didn't have a human social security number. Kind-looking people who refused to even glance in my direction as I became no one in their eyes, because I no longer had a home. The unbearable itch of filth on my skin in the days I spent bumming it from park bench to outdoor tent, searching for a place to belong, only to find that even among the houseless, exiled werewolves are still on the bottom rung.

A werewolf without a wolf inside.

Useless. Undesired. Broken. Unwanted. Rejected.Exiled.

But it was all a lie.

Crying out, I tear the bandaid from my neck anddigmy fingernails into the chip beneath my skin. I want nothing more than to tear it out and throw it away, but my soft rounded fingernails are useless against it. I need claws, sharp and built for ripping skin. Or maybe a kitchen knife would do the job.

Stumbling to my feet, I drain the last of my double cocktail and head towards the kitchen. A woozy feeling starts in my body as my alcohol-filled stomach makes its need for food known, and I belatedly remember the pizza I threw in the oven. The timer is blaring when I make it to the kitchen. Grabbing oven mitts, I tipsily pull the oven door open, yank the rack out, and slide the pizza onto the counter. More than once I nearly singe my hair or my face or my skin in the oven, but I don't give a shit—it doesn't matter.

What am I if I'm not a shiftless, not a werewolf, and not a human?

I'm no one. Nothing.

Grabbing a knife from the block, I hold it over the pizza—then reconsider. Glancing towards the mirror on the living room wall, I shift the blade in my grip and hold it near my neck. The scarred skin is already bleeding again from my earlier scratches. It hurts a little as I put the tip of the knife against it, but I'm too full of gin to really care.

As I dig the knife tip in, a little voice whispers in the back of my mind:This is a bad idea, and you know it.That voice sounds suspiciously like Cat.

Thinking of her, tears well up in my eyes again, and spill down my cheeks. I thought I was wrung out and dry before, but apparently not. My body seems prepared to cry for a thousand years if need be.

This time, though, the tears are for someone who loved me. Whocaredfor me. When my father turned me away, declaring me broken—yet another lie—Cat is the one who took me in. She saw a filthy teenager on the streets, my hair rumpled from another bad night's rest on a bench, and she took me in.

Cat didn't care that she'd get no money from the government for harboring a pack's exiled teen—it didn't even occur to her to expect payment. She fought hard to get me enrolled in the local public high school, and made sure I received grants and scholarships for an associate's degree in hospitality. When the whole world turned against me, including those who were supposed to care for me the most, Cat was the one to turn my life again. She proved that love is thicker than blood alone.

And she'd be mad at me for shoving a knife beneath my skin. Hell, she'd counsel me to spend a few days figuring this thing out before I make any rash choices. She would probably even advise me to try to give my father the benefit of the doubt, though I wouldn't listen to her.

I yank the knife away from my skin. Turn back to the pizza on the counter, and slice up a large, thick piece. The cheese is hot enough to sting as I chew my first bite, but it settles my stomach. By the time I've had three slices, I feel a little more centered—though still thoroughly, and thankfully, drunk out of my mind.

My father put a chip in me, or let someone else do it for him. He made me weak with it. Then Kieran rejected me, and I grew weaker—because of the rejection and the exile. I feel the weight of it in my chest, and despite the food in me, the alcohol takes over.

I won't cut the chip from my neck, but I don't want to wake up tomorrow and remember tonight. I'd rather wipe from my mind the evening when I discover my father betrayed me.

A few more cocktails should do it.

Setting the rest of the pizza aside, I head for the bar in the dining room. No matter what tomorrow brings, I don't want to live in tonight for one moment longer. Oblivion awaits, and I'll welcome it gladly.

* * *

There's a ringing in my ears.

I put my pillows over my head, blocking out the sound, along with the sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window.

The ringing won't stop.Brrr-rrring! Brrr-rrriiing!It gets louder and louder.

Then suddenly fades away. I sigh, burrowing down into warmth and comfort, my head still spinning from whatever I drank last night.

But just when I'm about to drift off into sleep again, a new and terrible sound ricochets through my head.Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Di-di-ding-dong!The doorbell.

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