Two years slipped by, each day folding into the next like grimy, tattered pages of
a book no one wanted to read.
Jade survived them all.
The bruises that once painted her skin like brutal constellations faded only to be
replaced by new ones. The aching hollow in her chest deepened until she wondered if she was made entirely of emptiness. She was no longer the girl who had stepped into Shadowfang Pack with guarded hope and Caden's promises tucked in her heart. That girl had been bled dry, her hope beaten into dust.
Now, she was a shadow.
She moved through the grand halls of the pack house with her head bowed, invisible
yet always visible enough for someone to sneer at, to shove, to punish.
Two years of existing like smoke, like something half-forgotten and unwanted.
It hadn't always been like this.
A year into her silent suffering, she had dared to hope for escape. It had been a night thick with rain, the world outside the pack house a blurred mess of grey and shadows. She had timed it carefully — memorizing the guards' rotations, counting the seconds it took them to circle the grounds. Her heart had pounded
a wild rhythm against her ribs as she darted through the rain-soaked courtyard, the cold biting into her bones, the scent of freedom sharp in her lungs.
She had almost reached the treeline.
Almost.
Hands, rough and merciless, had seized her before she could disappear into the woods.
They dragged her back, kicking and screaming, back into the heart of the pack
house.
Her trial was swift and brutal. There was no need for words; her "crime" was evident.
She had challenged the Alpha.
She had dared to defy the natural order of things.
For three days, she was paraded in front of the pack like a lesson written in blood and bruises. They tied her wrists to the courtyard pillars, her body exposed to the harsh sun by day and the biting cold by night. Hunger gnawed at her belly, thirst turned her mouth into sandpaper, and the whispered jeers of the pack were knives against her already torn spirit.
"This is what happens to traitors," they said.
"To those who forget their place."
Not even Lucan, Caden's old friend, spoke on her behalf.
He watched from afar, a stone carved from grief and resentment.
When they finally cut her down, Jade crumpled to the ground like a discarded rag. No healer was sent to tend her wounds. No food was offered to her parched, cracked
lips. They left her to crawl back to her duties, broken but breathing.
The message was clear: survive, but on our terms.
After that, the cruelty sharpened into something almost methodical. Omegas treated her as a blight among them. Warriors sneered as they tossed their filthy boots
at her feet, demanding she polish them until they shone. Children learned quickly to point and laugh, mimicking the disdain of their elders.
Jade endured.
She became air.
Silent. Invisible. Necessary only because someone had to do the tasks no one else
wanted.
And yet, even air can crack under pressure.
One night, when the weight of existence became too heavy, Jade decided she could
not take another breath inside the gilded prison they called Shadowfang Pack.
It was not a decision born of weakness.
It was a decision born of exhaustion.
She fashioned a noose from the remains of her worn bedsheets, her fingers trembling
but determined. She tied the knot carefully, methodically, almost reverently.
In the laundry room, where the scent of soap and dampness clung thickly, she
climbed atop a rickety chair and slipped the noose over her head.
There was no grand farewell, no tears.
Only a quiet sort of relief as she stepped off the chair.
For a heartbeat, the world squeezed into a sharp, burning pressure—then began to
fade into blessed darkness.
But even death, it seemed, was not her right.
Hands yanked her down. Voices shouted. Someone slapped her face until she sputtered and gasped, the noose cut away by rough blades.
"You belong to the pack!" they screamed. "You don't get to choose!"
The punishment that followed was crueler than anything she had yet endured. Not
because of the physical pain — though that was plentiful — but because of the lesson drilled into her with every blow:
Her life was not hers.
It was theirs to command.
The bruises from that night lingered for weeks, a testament to her failed rebellion. The looks the pack gave her after were worse than hatred; they were full of disgust. She wasn't even allowed the dignity of despising herself quietly.
Still, Jade endured.
She folded in on herself, becoming smaller, quieter. She perfected the art of being nothing more than a pair of hands to scrub floors, a pair of feet to run errands. She kept her eyes lowered, her voice muted.
But some wounds ran deeper than the skin.
In he stillness of the nights, when sleep refused her and the only sound was the
lonely howl of the wind through the trees, Jade would sometimes press her hand
to her chest and wonder if there was still a heart beating inside.
Sometimes she imagined it had shriveled into something small and cold.
Other times, she imagined it was still there, stubborn and aching, waiting.
Waiting for what, she didn't know.
She had stopped believing in miracles. She had stopped believing in promises whispered under starlight by boys who had meant well but had ultimately lied.
Yet somewhere, deep inside her, a tiny ember smoldered.
The pack hadn't snuffed it out completely.
Not yet.
It was that ember that kept her breathing, kept her moving one foot in front of the other even when every step was agony.
Itwas that ember that whispered, on the darkest of nights, "One
day."
One day, this would end.
Maybe not with her freedom. Maybe not even with her survival.
But one day, the suffering would stop.
And on that day, whether in death or something greater, she would finally, finally
be free.
Until then, Jade remained.
A ghost among wolves.
A whisper in a house built on cruelty and blood.
A reminder that even in the cruelest cages, something—someone —could endure.
And perhaps, one day, that endurance would set the whole world on fire