Chapter 4
Daymond
Last Year
Daymond’s gray jumpsuit was loose around his legs and a little too long. His spirits had arisen as he saw Camille standing on the other side of the glass window. He walked faster, but like everything else, he failed — tripping over his pant legs. Daymond looked up to meet her gaze. She winced but soon began to smile through the pain. He hasn’t seen her laugh in a while.
Since he’s known his big sister, they’ve been inseparable. But it takes one wrong misstep; one wrong will never make a right. He limped to his seat, not wiping away his smile. She looked tired, sad even, but better than what he expected. It didn’t matter how much they fought. He would take a bullet for her when the time came. It just came sooner than expected.
The first words out of his mouth when he picked up the phone were, “I’m sorry, sis.”
“I know.”
Now
Daymond grabbed Camille’s arm and pulled her back. “What the hell is going on!”
She ignored him and instead pestered Antoine to move out of the way.
Bernard began to scream and point out the window, chanting, “Look, look, Antoine, please.”
Begrudgingly, Antoine backed up and allowed the siblings to witness the scene before them. Their father, Robert, howled the loudest of the lot, his fingers digging into the dirt, invading his fingernails.
Daymond was terrified. As he looked at his the others to see their expressions, he knew they shared his sentiments. What the hell was Robert doing?
And then it happened. The wolf-people that had surrounded him began walking closer to Robert. Frozen in place, no one uttered a word in that cabin. They were sure their father had gone mad and would soon succumb to death. Camille was the only one willing to break from her dazed spell and leave her spot. Antoine gripped her wrist, restraining her.
“Let me go!”
“The door is locked anyway! What the hell are you even going to do?”
Daymond’s sister needed him. Before thinking, he stepped back and grabbed one of the dining room chairs.
Lifting it over his head, he hurled it into the window. Glass sprayed across his cheeks, and the rest spilled outside – the rain mixing with the fragments.
“What in the hell is wrong with you!” Antonie screamed, grabbing at Daymond’s shoulders in a tight squeeze.
Camille stepped forward, readying herself to jump out the window, but Bernard held her back.
“Let me go!” She thrashed against him, kicking her feet in the air.
“Are you crazy! You’re going to die out there!” Bernard held on with all his might, but it was much harder than it looked; Daymond would know firsthand.
“He’s our dad!”
Then it happened again. The low howl sprouting from their father grew louder and louder, stopping each sibling in their tracks. They stared out into the stormy night. Robert, still squatting, began producing hair under his shirt. It eventually ripped free, mixed with burnt-like hair and black strands covering his chest and legs as they twisted into the same kind of strange body as the creatures. He was no longer human—or perhaps he never was. His teeth were yellow from stain and age, matching his eyes.
The wolf-people around him growled in unison, and as one step forward, their father took a step as well. He was fearless in his fur coat, strong-willed, and not daring to stand down. It took a blink, but the five werewolves began closing around him within seconds. Two were gray ash brown. One was white, with blueish undertones that matched their eyes. The last one, the largest out of the lot, had a black coat and was dirted from the mud. They began circling Robert faster, howling, growling, and barking in his direction until, eventually, Robert sprung up in fury.
The siblings couldn’t tell who was winning. Instead, they stood in awe, mouths wide open.
Daymond frowned and tilted his head to the side. His mind was barely catching up with his body. “Wait, so does that make us werewolves?”
Bernard, Antonie, and Camille looked at their youngest sibling.
“The correct way to react to this is,” Bernard cleared his throat, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“Screw this!” Antonie screamed before making his way through the broken window. Stumbling over his loose shoelaces, he slit his palms open as he climbed into the stormy night.
“What? Antonie, you can’t just leave us here!” Camille cried, threading her hair into her honey-colored braids.
Daymond was frozen, unsure what to do – especially with Bernard’s continuous screams. But Anontie’s shrieking in the distance snapped him back into reality. In the distance, deep in the woods and meadows, he screamed bloody murder.
“Where did– where–” Camille could barely piece any words together as she raised a finger to the open field that once held the creatures.
They were nowhere to be seen.
“Antonie,” she whispered.
She began to climb out. Daymond was a step behind, begging her to stay put, but as expected, she didn’t listen, so he followed her as usual. Bernard finally cooled his screams and replaced them with whimpers. Their knees and hands soon scraped beyond repair. The three siblings stood together, terrified, cold, and out of options for what to do next.
Camille cupped her mouth and began shouting Antonie’s name. Their only response was a low growl.
One Year Ago
Camille had that look in her eye — of disappointment and amusement. It was constantly mistaken for either from time to time.
“That was stupid of you to do.”
“I know.”
It appeared Daymond never did anything right. How could he? He was made out of sin, destined to fail upon his first breath—the last of the litter – and the first to fall into the pit of danger.
“To be fair, Cam, if you hadn’t told me about Bryce, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
She sighed, looked past him, and repeated what he had heard the past three days, “You broke a bottle over his head. It got in his eyes, and now he’s blind.”
He didn’t understand why he did it either. The only thing he could rationalize was his love for his sister.