3

It's an unnerving display of power, opening us to the bright sun overhead as the canopy above us suddenly clears. Making us blink as our eyesight adjusts, but it's not awe I feel when watching this display; it’s a gurgling-up sense of unease. Eve worries me.

Seeing her so easily use this gift and thinking nothing of clearing a massive forest out of the way is as unsettling as watching a huge storm gather overhead.

“Mom said you weren’t allowed to use your gifts unless you were with them or Rema.” I scold her, the internal ripple of fear driving up whenever Eve uses her powers. Nothing good ever happens when she flexes them. She has no sense of boundaries.

“Oh shut up…I’m only enjoying the view. I’m not breaking them, just moving them a little.” She scoffs at me, a flick of a glance back my way to show her defiance as her eyes glow a little red with the peeking of her inner wolf. Her mood grows more arrogant and hostile as she is chided.

“If you turn, we don’t have extra clothes to get you back home unseen.” I remind her, knowing fine well Eve wouldn’t care. It’s not even a good reason to deter her.

“If I were going to turn, I would have done it already. I’m not in the mood. Besides. I like this outfit. I would take it off first.” She smirks at me, shrugs with zero care over my concern, and turns back to release the forest of her grip. Clenching her hands as though to break the spell, the entire surroundings about her snap back to their rightful place in a terrifying groan and violent rustle.

It’s not as gentle as moving them was, but more of a snap back in anger. The air and greenery shift as though struck by a turbulent wind, then right themselves in a terrifying collision overhead, causing branches to snap and a torrent of leaves and insects to rain down upon us. Making us all flinch in instinctual fright, and we move back into a little huddle as though we’re safer together.

Birds scatter, animals run, and what was a gentle bending out of our way becomes a sudden release like she popped a balloon. Her temper simmered in that action, and my questioning her about using her gift.

Her ability always unnerved me. Perhaps because when we were too young to understand what she could do, she hurt many small animals and other children while learning to harness it. She broke my arm when I was four because she wanted my glass of milk. She didn’t mean it; she just couldn’t harness it.

I guess it makes me nervous because I know how unintentionally she can cause harm.

“I hate when she gets like this.” Maisie moves closer to me again, her own sense of insecurity for our safety peeking, as she re-latches to my arm and whispers in a hushed tone. Obvious nerves at the change in my sister's mood and the appearance of her gifts. Eve knows how to instill fear by just being herself, and I smooth a hand over Maisie’s to soothe her.

“It’s fine…. we’re going back. There’s no point being here anymore.”

No will to be if my sister is turning sour.

“I can hear you, you know…I have wolf hearing….” Eve’s sarcastic, droll, and huffy manner as she leaps down from her high perch sets my teeth on edge. I can feel her getting moodier at this turn of events. Disappointment biting at her that our little adventure didn’t give her the thrill she had been seeking. Annoyed, we are so willing to give up and retreat, and she has that atmosphere of restlessness growing around her again.

I genuinely think she wanted to find bones or weapons, or some buried dark secret, because she was forbidden from coming here. Nothing but the forest and blocked caves has killed her mood. Eve can ruin everyone's mood when she gets into a sulk. She becomes unbearable.

“We should go back. This place may not be open to explore, but it still feels weird in the air…. eerie.” Simon, who had been ambling around our perimeter and moseying, comes back, a little more sheepish than before, and I can tell my sister's change in atmosphere has gotten to him, too. “Maybe there's a good reason it’s out of bounds.”

We are all moving into ‘walking on eggshells’ mode because Eve is in a bad mood.

“You’re all boring…. I don’t know why any of you came if you were going to become butt-hurt little girls wanting to run home again because of one little detail. I should have known, you yellow-bellied turncoats, would go crying back to the manor to hide under your beds…. Sure, we can’t get in…. who gives a fuck…. but we can go up.” Eve points up towards the upper peaks of the mountain, some of which are fogged out into oblivion due to its sheer height and the cloud cover today. Rain is moving in; there's mist in the air, and it only makes the mountain seem so much more forbidding. Its tip is hidden from view as if it reaches into the heavens.

“I’m not climbing a mountain. Why would we do that?” Toya is bored with this. She has ‘done’ written all over her. “Do I look like a crazy person? I’m a wolf…we don’t climb… I’m not a mountain goat.”

“Because if the history books are accurate, that Witch created a huge hole up there and brought down the ceiling on so many feral vamps. If we climb, we can get in.” Eve hasn’t lost all her sparkle yet, and I guess when she pushed the trees out of the way, it was so she could scan the mountain and see if that hole still exists. With her wolf sight, her senses allow her to see what we cannot.

“No. Eve…. we’re just kids. We don’t have powers; we could get hurt. None of us knows how to climb a steep incline like that, and we have no ropes to help us. We’re not doing it.” I butt in, knowing this is going nowhere good, and another great idea my sister has is always a stupid one for us.

“Except you do… You have a power. You heal… like a good little nursemaid. All the good girls get the good girl gifts to help weaklings like them. If they get hurt, you can patch them up.” Eve mocks me like she always does. Shrugging like it’s no big deal, and I'm being a monumental drama queen. Anything to gaslight me into agreeing to her stupid endeavors.

Eve's greatest skill is bullying my friends and me to do her bidding, but not this time, when it risks their safety. And Eve loves pointing out my weaknesses compared to hers.

Ironically, because of the one gift she never inherited from our parents, but I did in droves. I can heal almost anyone and anything around me, to an amazing extent, more so than my Father or Rema, except myself.

I can’t heal my own wounds, and I don’t know why. A gift so strong that I can bring someone back from near death, but I can't even heal a scratch on my own hand.

So even if we did follow her…if I got hurt, I would be screwed.

I was born with glowy blue eyes, and hers were red, but unlike hers, mine didn’t change. Mine still have an ethereal, almost unnatural blue glow in human form, whereas my sister's eyes darkened to brown and only burn red when she's a wolf.

Because of my noticeable eyes, most kids avoided me growing up, as if I were some kind of freak in the wolf pack. They avoided Eve because she was crazy and used her powers to scare them.

My Rema told me it's because my witch power is strong and shadows me in mortal form. Maybe that’s why I still haven’t turned yet. So I spend my life honing my witchcraft and learning some spells, even though my heart isn't really into becoming a magic weaver.

“I’m going home. I don’t want to play with you anymore.” Maisie loses all courage and tugs at my arm the way a child who is frightened would, urging me to go with her. Looking painfully young like this and begging me with her little crushed expression to save her from this torture.

Another crazy Eve plan is taking shape, and Maisie is almost always the first one to suffer when they come about. I don’t blame her.

That girl has been hurt, maimed, and almost died because of the stupidity of my sister in her short life. It’s by sheer good fortune that I can heal so well, and my parents don’t know half of what Maisie has survived. They would lock Eve up and bind all her gifts.

“Yeah, I'm out.” Simon turns towards us and beckons Maisie with him. “Last time we followed one of your reckless plans, I ended up sick for days. Poisoning by that damn lethal plant you made us eat, even after Eden healed us. And I can’t keep covering for you when you get more reckless, the older we get.”

“I'm not climbing. I'm tired, and I want to eat.” Toya is less harsh in her refusal because she knows Eve has a temper, and, for some weird reason, she always picks on Toya the most. Maybe because of the five of us, Toya is the next strongest compared to my sister, and that threatens her. Toya is tough, boyish, and athletic. Even without her wolf, she is strong, energetic, and pretty fearless. Without tribrid breeding, she will make a great femme guard one day. A real warrior who wants to follow in her mom’s footsteps and train to be in the elite guard. Maybe even the sub-pack.

I think Toya will turn soon. All the signs of her wolf restlessly peeking have been showing of late. I think her awakening ceremony might be on the next full moon.

“You’re all pathetic. Losers and scaredy cats. I’ll go myself. I am not going back until I see what I came here to see. You can all go running back home like sad, weak-ass, pathetic wannabe wolves…. Scared of a hill…you make me laugh.”

Eve stands firm, hostility oozing and growing, and I can tell she's working herself up into a temper tantrum. Pissed at us for not doing what she wants. My sister has always had a major control freak streak and hates it when people don’t do as she says.

“Maybe it's best if you go and we wait here for you, then we can all go home together when you’re done…. We won’t leave. We’ll wait.” I intervene to try to smooth over the growing argument. Trying to appease her mood while still standing up for my friends without making it worse.

“What? Are you mad?” Simon snaps, wondering why I would even suggest such a thing, but it's logical to me. “She can’t go by herself…she should come home with us. Right now!”

“Eve is turned…. she has her gifts, her power…. her skills. She can run, climb, and move in ways we can’t. She also can’t get hurt or die. She wolves and heals. We can’t do that, and we both know she isn’t going to back down and leave. She’s too stubborn to change her mind. ….. So it’s best if she goes herself and we wait for her. Nothing can happen. The worst outcome is us going back without her and getting caught that way. It's better to wait and follow the plan of being home by dinner.”

I’m not worried about my sister. I’m worried about us.

She is too strong and too protected for anything to happen, but I am concerned about the fallout should we go back and get questioned about her. None of us can lie. We’re all terrible at it, and Maisie would cave so fast. Only Eve would have the ability to undergo an interrogation and lie smoothly and flawlessly. We’re not like her.

“You all suck…losers… I should have known you would all bail. Weak and scared….. sad.” Eve sighs loudly and dramatically, but she knows my idea is the best for all of us. We would slow her down or get hurt if she could even convince the other three to try at all. If we stand here arguing, we’ll be here all night.

“I’m ashamed to be related to you.” She points a venomous glare at me that pierces my heart, but I stay quiet. Hiding the hurt she inflicted with her words and staying completely blank in my expression.

I know she wants a reaction. I’m used to this. She lashes out at me when she's emotionally frustrated.

“Fine….” She finally exhales in annoyance, seeing no change in my decision. “I want to explore if I get inside, so you better not go anywhere, even if I take ages. Look after my clothing.”

Eve doesn’t wait to think it over but starts stripping off immediately.

Simon shakes his head at her because now he knows she’s wolving up and she's in stubborn mode. This has a bad idea all over it, and I want nothing more than to have never agreed to come at all. Anytime I listen to her and give in, something stupid always happens.

“This is dumb.” He hisses under his breath, more afraid of getting caught than of my sister's safety, and I watch with a heavy heart and a sense of dread.

I know nothing can happen to her. But I can't shake the sense of foreboding that even without getting caught, she's going to get us all into trouble somehow and in some way because she always does.

That’s what Eve excels at.

“It's fine…. It's a better idea than us going with her. I don’t want to die today. My Mama would kill me.” Toya gets comfy again and watches as my sister transforms into a giant, black, foreboding wolf. As black as the darkest hour of the night, as though not even an ounce of light could penetrate. With glowing blood-red eyes, somehow more striking when set in darkness. Always impressive, no matter how many times we see it.

For such a small, frail girl, her wolf form is almost as huge as my dad's. Large, terrifying, and fierce looking, with the added demonic hint of rage those red eyes bring. As a wolf, you would never know she was just a little girl.

“Besides…” Toya breaks in again, this time with less conviction in her tone. “What could possibly go wrong?”