A/N: Finally, I was able to write the Astrid chapter I've been promising! This actually started out as me writing down my emotions when I heard my mom and older brother fighting… again. Then I started to turn it into a Harry Potter fanfic - and the formatting is actually a lot like my latest one, so if you like this, check that one out! - when I realized it just wasn't going that way – and why couldn't Astrid have family problems? So, it became this! Hope you enjoy.
Astrid
"You have condemned yourself with your own words," he began, starting towards her. Astrid drew herself up, as high as she could when in her fur, blood pouring from her sightless eye and the wounds Vivian had inflicted on her. Barely registering his words, she felt nothing.
- - -
Can't concentrate, can't focus.
Can't be hurt again.
She's so scared to go back upstairs. Shaking, she tries to block out the sound of angry voices. She saw the anger in their eyes, and didn't know it could be so frightening. Why do they have to fight? They always fight. Will they ever stop? Mother against son, son against father. It's a bloody battlefield of scars and old wounds opened over and over again.
She can almost smell the blood.
That's it. That's what she needs, she thinks as she huddles on the couch in the low-ceiling basement. Blood. The taste of blood in her mouth, the lust for the red, coppery liquid that takes away all pains with it in the joy of the hunt. To escape from the turmoil she will become the hunter tonight.
Rising, she steps outside into the open night. The peace of the clear sky with its crescent moon is broken – through the open window their voices come, for all to hear. The city, they said, is the place to be. Anonymous.
Yet already they've carved a reputation for themselves. The rogue family, cast out from their pack on account of bloodlust. Kahn was a weak leader, unable to stomach a true sentence. Exile.
A shame she can't exile herself from her own family.
Bathed in the moonlight, she begins the change.
- - -
"You killed humans for the joy of it. You deliberately endangered the pack and tormented one of your own." He stood in front of her now, eyes boring into her soul.
He can find nothing there but black dust and ashes.
- - -
"For the last time, Astrid, we're here for the anonymity! Do you have to spell it out in blood and bodies for the world to see?"
Do they have to shout it out for the world to hear?
"Teenagers. This is why we left the pack," her father growls, fist clenching; when he draws his fingers away, she can see the nails have lengthened. She has scars from those nails. Face expressionless, she exposes her teeth in a feral grin; red stains them as she voices her opinion.
"No, this is why the pack left us."
The growl in his throat deepens, and when she wakes up, her head is pounding and she sees the world from a different angle. From the cracked linoleum floor.
- - -
"You will always be a danger to us." She'd always been a danger to everyone and everything. It was a mark of pride she carried with her, well hidden but always present. Gabriel was so close; she could smell him – his sweat, the cologne he used, and her.
- - -
"You've always been trouble. Bodies in the alleyways and the basement, and you skulking off to join your other whore friends… I should have done this a long time ago.
"Out. Get out!"
Familiar pain as she hits the concrete of the sidewalk. Her mother crying in the background. She gets up and glares at him, flips her red hair over her shoulder. Her eyes flicker to the window above. Her brother sneers down at her, watching from the sidelines, a twisted smile on his face.
"I never want to see your face again! Or that brat of yours! Out, bitch!"
Time to begin the retreat. She lifts her bag up, spits at his feet, enjoying the reaction as his face slowly turns purple with rage.
Then she is gone.
- - -
"We have no prisons, we have no jailors." Only that which they call home and family.
- - -
"Welcome to our home, Astrid." Esmé is her age, young, and beautiful, with a little girl clinging to her slim legs. "This is Vivian. Say hi, Vivie," she coos. "This is Astrid and her son Ulf."
Remembering her own child, Astrid grabs his chubby little hand and draws him in front of her, nudging him towards the little girl. At least now that he'll have a playmate she won't have to watch him all the time, won't have to worry about him waking up at night when she has… friends over.
Everyone is relatively friendly – or at least, they're only eyeing her with appreciation rather than cynicism. And best of all, they don't know her. Flashing her most seductive of smiles, she sits down next a young blonde.
"I think I'm going to like it here," she purrs, careful to draw her sleeve over the slowly healing gashes on her wrist. Something to look forward to.
- - -
"This is the only sentence."
And she was dead long before it.
- - -
A/N: So, whadya think? Don't forget to leave a review! And yes, the cuts on her wrist was from where she tried to kill herself – pretty harsh, considering she has no place to stay and a toddler to look after.