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  Cursed Blood

  Wolf Rage Book One

  Ashley Marie

  Cursed Blood

  Copyright © 2007 Ashley Marie

  All rights reserved

  Formatting by: Type A Formatting

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without proper written permission from the author.

  To all the dreamers.

  Never stop dreaming.

  Contents

  Cursed Blood

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Dear Readers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Avery

  “HEY, LOVE BUGS. Break apart.”

  I blush and pull away from Evan looking over my shoulder. Jules, my best friend stands beside her sister’s Toyota with the passenger door hanging wide open.

  “Ignore her.” Evan’s deep voice whispers in my ear.

  I shiver and smile.

  “I can’t. They’re my ride.” I stand up on my tiptoes and peck Evan on his smooth cheek.

  “I got to go, but I’ll call you after.” I smile softly and turn away.

  I rush to the silver car and climb in the backseat, avoiding the messy floor boards. Sara squeals out of the schools parking lot.

  “Hey!” Jules screams at her sister who just laughs taking a sharp right turn on Main Street.

  “Hey, Ave. Tell me something.” Sara says.

  My eyes flick up to the review mirror seeing that devilish look in her dark brown graze.

  I groan, “What?”

  “How in the hells did you catch all-star Evan Parker?”

  “My smile.” I answer with a mock smile upon my pink lips. She asks this every couple of weeks.

  She’s not the only one. I see the looks of hate and envy the other girls in school shower me with.

  Jules bursts out laughing. “Oh, yeah and it doesn’t have anything to do with that ass of yours in our dance uniforms.”

  Sara snorts taking another sharp turn and I just shrug my slim shoulders. Yeah, that could be it.

  “I still can’t believe you guys live so far out of town,” Sara grumbles taking a left turn.

  Jules and I look at each other, at the same time in a deep voice we say, “The city is crowded and it’s hard to breathe.” We both bust out in a fit of giggles.

  Don’t get me wrong living twenty-five minutes from town is aggravating some days, but I really do like it. The air is cleaner somehow and its quiet. Sometimes that’s a nice thing to have.

  “Are you going to pass?” Sara asks, taking the curvy uphill climb way to fast.

  I look to Jules out of the corner of my eyes. My smile grows bigger as I see the pout on her face.

  I turn fifteen today. I hit a milestone. I’m no longer just a teenager. I’m on the verge of adult hood and everything else. Fewer restrictions. Longer curfews. I’m so excited. Giddy. My dad and I are going to have dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. I’m going to get my learners permit. I’m growing up. Jules is jealous she still has three months to go before she turns fifteen.

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t get me wrong or anything.” Sara says, “How are you possibly going to take the test when the DMV closes in like ten minutes.”

  “Avery’s Dad has something going on with a worker.” Jules cackles and I reach up hitting her shoulder making her go off even more.

  “That’s not it.” My face turns beet red, “Dad’s not like that and Pam is our neighbor. She’s just a nice person.” I grumble.

  “Uh what neighbor?” Sara asks as she pulls into the long drive leading up to my one story blue house.

  “She lives further down,” I say making sure nothing slipped out of my bag.

  Jules snorts, “More like twenty miles away.”

  “More like six.” I gripe climbing out of the car.

  “Good luck girl!” Julie yells at me as they pull out of the drive way and I skip my way through the white front door. Full of jittery excitement.

  It’s here! I can’t believe this day is finally here. I never thought I’d make it to fifteen. Time goes by so slow sometimes.

  I drop my gold dance duffel bag and pink book bag just inside the front door. I slip my shoes off and rip off my socks. I smile down at my green painted toe nails and wiggle them in relief. My feet can finally breath. I hate wearing shoes. It should be against the law. I could call it Avery’s law. That makes me giggle, as I skip into the light green kitchen with a goofy grin splashed across my face.

  I look at the strawberry clock hanging on the pale green wall above the table.

  5:01. Ah, I’m officially fifteen. I’m so excited. I squeal, bouncing on the tips of my feet.

  Grabbing a soda from the black shiny black fridge I chugged half of it making my way towards the backyard. Usually I can find my dad out back meditating. It soothes him. His words not mine.

  I tried it a couple of times. Meditation is so not my thing. I can never sit still long enough to accomplish anything.

  When I step out onto the back patio I look down feeling something cold seep in-between my toes.

  I pick my foot up and grimace at the small pool of red. What in the world?

  My breathing picks up and my heart starts pounding as I spot another puddle of red.

  “Dad?”

  At first, I didn’t know what I was seeing. Maybe my brain just couldn’t process it. I felt a wave of sickness roll over me. My heart is like a sledgehammer in my chest. My breathing becomes fast and uncontrolled. Sweat starts beading on my face.

  Red. Red everywhere. A pool of it by the grill. Shiny in the afternoon sun. A think line smeared across the stepping stones and grass. Like something was being dragged. The blood looks dark, black on the green grass. Black and oil
y. It is everywhere. My eyes widen with fright and flit from bloody spot to bloody spot. Like a can of crimson red paint exploded all over our backyard.

  I think my body knew what I was seeing even if my brain didn’t. Some primal part of my soul knew what my brain refused to acknowledge. I felt this dread bubble up in my belly and into my throat making me want to gag. That thing that tells me something is just not right. Something screaming turn around and run. I step off the patio further into the yard. My mouth goes unusually dry.

  “Daddy?” My voice comes out in a childlike whisper as I slowly move about the yard. Being very careful about where I place my bare feet.

  It doesn’t make sense as my eyes flash around our yard, from one red puddle to another.

  These red pools of blood are everywhere. The dark red spots, turning the green grass black.

  “Daddy?” My voice came out a little stronger, a little louder.

  My pulse pounds painfully in my ears and I gulp in the coppery scented air.

  I moved further into the yard. My breathing coming out in fast panicky gasps. I avoid the red, moving around the glistening patches and continued further into the yard toward the huge willow tree that borders the edge. It was a trail of red, dark and oily. Leading me. I felt tears brim my eyes.

  Fear and dread over take me. My body shakes and trembles. My muscles feel tight and strained. Tears fall from my eyes. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it deep in my bones. In the air, that felt too thick to breathe.

  I walked out towards the side of the large willow tree that stays shaded and stopped. Red pools in the yard. Dark, soaking into the ground and the roots of the willow. The biggest wet patch so far.

  My swollen, blurry eyes move from the huge puddle to a grey-tinged hand that lays in it. Red splattered on the fingers. I follow the hand with my eyes, my chest hardly moving, towards the arm to the vacant blue eyes. When my brain finally registers what, my eyes are seeing. What my body knew all along. I fall to the ground and just let out a blood curling scream after scream. It feels like my heart is splitting in two. Tears and snot cover my face. I didn’t know what to do. Just scream and cry and stare. And scream some more.

  That’s the last thing I remember.

  My therapist filled in the blanks.

  Pam, my neighbor found me at dusk laying on my stomach, my pale hand stretched out towards my fathers. My fingertips touching the tip of his covered in dried blood. I was barely breathing and unresponsive. The Police and ambulances were called in. As the paramedics checked for my pulse, my screams started again. Their touch sending me into blind hysterics. I was rushed to the hospital and was sedated. Two days later, finding nothing physically wrong with me I was released into the care of Green Bair Psychiatric.

  I remember little things in those first few months at Green Bair. At first, I didn’t know where I was or who I was. It was like little blips on a tv screen that my mind seemed to capture. That seemed to come in go. Sometimes in color. Other times in shades of grey.

  The small white bright room that I was in 24/7. The lights always kept on. The buzz a constant drone in my ears. The small hard bed with a thin mattress that made my body sore and achy. The ruff leather straps around my wrist and ankles. That chaffed my skin and sometimes made me bleed. The white coated people always in and out. The brightly clad nurses with them. Everything I remembered was seen through a haze.

  When they slowly weaned me off the sedation medicine. I started to remember more. To soon I remembered everything.

  There was nothing left of me. I am a shell of my former self. Grief consumed me. Tore at my heart and devoured my already broken soul.

  Then the emotions came the next day, but not mine. Every feeling you could possibly image was raging through me. I could feel not only my own but every single person in the ward. Fear. Pain. Anger. Sadness. Grief. Madness. Lust. They weren’t the good kinds of emotions. These where the bone scaring kind. It was sensory overload on my already broken mind.

  I went back to the screaming that could make a grown man piss his pants. I even started pulling my hair out. Scratching any skin, I could dig my nails in, leaving blood trails across my body. I thought maybe, I could pull the feelings out, bleed them out. Get them out of my head, out of my body. I was a mess. Mind and body. I could not function and don’t know why I could feel others emotions and still don’t know why. I was put back on the sedation medicine and other cocktails of drugs. I was insane. But blissfully empty. Like a zombie. An emotionless drooling zombie.

  I don’t know how many days or weeks pasted. Time meant nothing to me in my slavering state. The world flew by without me and I was okay with it for once in my life. I was okay with not being the center of attention. I was okay with not knowing what was going on around me.

  I was slowly weaned of the medicine to where I no longer screamed myself mute or hurt myself anymore.

  I learned very slowly how to block those emotions that kept coming to me wave after relentless wave, even my own crushing emotions got blocked and the ribbons that seem to come and go out of know where, to an extent.

  I am a void. Not letting myself experience emotions of any kind. It is marvelous.

  My dad’s brother, Jeff petitioned for my release into his custody immediately after finding out about my father’s brutal murder or how my therapist Miss Theresa likes to refer to it as the incident. I was deemed functional two years later.

  Chapter One

  Avery

  I TAP MY long plain finger nails on the chair arm, staring out the wall of windows to the forest beyond. What I wouldn’t give to be out there. To be around the trees and smell the woody scents. To have the wind flutter across my face, through my dark hair.

  I lost the privilege, though.

  “Avery, are you listening to me?” Miss Theresa asks with a placid tone.

  I nod watching some type of black bird take off into the blue sky.

  It was a year before I was allowed outside. That first time they allowed me outside, I took off into the woods. A big no-no. I wondered around not really doing anything when I found this giant boulder. I’m not talking big like the size of your hand I’m talking about it being a small mountain in its own right.

  I climbed up there. Scuffing my hands and arms in the process. I stretched out on the warm rock laying on my back just watching the clouds come and go. It wasn’t my fault they didn’t find me until the stars were shinning bright in the night sky.

  “Avery, we’ve talked about this.”

  I slowly turn my head away from the window towards Miss Theresa and my eyes flick down to her pen tapping away.

  “You need to stay here in the now. Not the past.” Miss Theresa says sternly.

  She gets confused. When I zone away from her she thinks I’m going back into the past. Reliving the memory of finding my dad, but that’s not the case. The past is just the past. Nothing to relive or remember. I just don’t care what she has to say. I don’t seem to care about anything anymore.

  “How are you feeling today, Avery?”

  My gaze snags on the bright red lipstick smeared across her overly white teeth.

  My head tilts a little bit to the side. See I’ve come to this conclusion that Miss Theresa has an odd obsession with Alice in Wonderland, mainly the Red Queen.

  Her office is decked out in white and black checkered carpet. The window drapes are a dark red. The chairs for people like me to sit in is red leather. The walls are painted white except for the one behind her black desk that always seems to hold my attention. It’s a shiny blood red.

  I bring my eyes back to her and clear my throat. I don’t speak much. Not anymore anyways.

  “Fine.” My voice comes out eerily calm, muted.

  I watch as a strained smile crosses across her face.

  “How do you feel about leaving the Institute?” Tap tap goes her pen.

  “Fine.”

  I’ve learned the word fine works in a lot of ways.

  How are you doing?
Fine.

  How was your day? Fine.

  Was the food good? It was fine.

  I could go on and on, but Miss Theresa pulls me back from my thoughts.

  She lets out a frustrated sigh, dark eyes narrowed on me. She’s been working with me since the beginning. How could a girl who seemed to be hysterical for three months straight, just shut down completely to what I am today. She asked me that a lot but I never answered, so instead she tried to get me to show a spark of emotion, any emotion for the past year and nine months. She hasn’t succeeded yet.

  “Avery.”

  My eyes flick back up to her and snags on the light red ethereal ribbons dancing lazily through the air. It twists and turns around and through-out her body.

  My nails pick up their tapping. No matter how hard I try, I still can’t seem to block out these ghostly ribbons that seem to pop out of know where. I watched and watched for months when they’d come and go and figured out that these colored ribbons that danced around people are their emotions. I might not get to feel people emotions any more but I sure get to see them now. When someone’s emotions flare up with a great amount of strength is when these ribbons come out to dance. To taunt me. At least it doesn’t last too long. A couple of minutes at best.

  I look out back towards the trees. I don’t like seeing the ribbons with their teasing dance saying look Avery look you really are a nut case. Normal people don’t see them, but I do.

  The tip-tap of a pen moving too fast has me snapping my gaze back onto Miss Theresa.

  A smile slowly stretches across my face. It’s for no reason other than it brings forth a dark grey ribbon around Miss Theresa. Fear. Her Fear. It seems causing fear in others seems to be the only way to get my blood pumping through my veins and my heart pounding in my chest. Making my body buzz with a high.

  She shifts in her white leather chair, shuffling papers around and flickering her eyes up to mine and back down. Only when I drop my smile does she hold my gaze but never for very long. No one likes to consider my cold ice blue eyes. I wonder what they see in my ice filled depths. Is it their own fears? Maybe their deaths? I think it would be nice to be able to read people’s minds instead of sense and see their emotions.