Rising from the Ashes
Chapter 14

A divided pack is a weak pack Elenora.

These are words that Vermont had repeated to her as a girl. Elenora would tell him, when feeling brave, that this pack is as weak as it gets. This pack is broken.

He would smile her way and he would tell her that the pack is united when it comes to their hatred of him. He would tell her this when he had one too many shots of vodka.

Still weak. Elenora would tell him. They were too injured, too scared to be anything but.

Now the pack is divided once again. The reason. Not Vermont. Elenora. It is Elenora's fault. The scene in front of her is all her fault. Her lack of control. Her need for answers. Her being unable to accept the ones she was given. Grandmother May had betrayed her. Lied to her. Her love was all a lie. Was anything real?

The worse part is she's angry at a dead woman. The worse part is how she lost control. It seems to be happening more and more lately. The fire in her is growing stronger. The rage in her is growing. She feels power thrum in her. It beats as if it has it's own heartbeat. Pulses. She watches ashes and embers fall from the sky. Nothing is left of the office but the ashes covering the ground around them and smoke. So much smoke. Men surround her. Protect her. Men not loyal to their Luna but to her instead. Those that are loyal to Jackson try to get to Elenora but they fail. "You're betraying your Luna! You'll go to the cells for this you will!" A young man shouts, fury written all over his shaking body. He wears his anger like it's a coat. He can take it off but the world is too cold and he doesn't want too.

Elenora wears her anger as if it's a second skin. It can't come off unless she cuts it off and she doesn't want to. It protects her from the world and the harm it can cause her. "She betrayed us first." Hudson growls. His anger is whipped out in painful lashes. It's in him, settling until it's given an excuse to strike. Tonight is the excuse or rather this morning. The sun is peeking out through the smoke, painting the sky pink, orange, and purple.

"She has been nothing but kind and generous." Another girl, young and looks just out of training. Naïve to the world and the fights she'll live through. She wants to protect but she hasn't lived long enough to replace out the suffering that comes with being a warrior. She has yet to take a life for the greater cause and maybe the person is wicked but they are still a person and when you take a life it weighs on you. If she's lucky she'll never have to replace out what the cost of being a warrior is.

Vermont is alive so she most likely won't be so lucky as that. Carlos Finnis scoffs "She has done nothing but step up to the role of a Luna when it is easy. You kids don't know a thing!" He growls and when Luna Jackson shows up it doesn't change a thing. It is clear who their loyalty belongs to and Elenora wishes it wasn't so. She doesn't want the loyalty of those who once beat her as a twisted sort of revenge. She doesn't want the loyalty of those who killed Anthony or even May. It may have been a lie but May was her family and it'll be hard to forget that. Just as hard as her betrayal will be to forget.

How do you forgive a dead woman? There's no getting closure. There's no getting answers to questions like, was it all a lie?

"Stand down." Luna Jackson utters, crystal eyes tired beyond years. She stares at the ashes of the office and swallows before looking to Elenora, questions in her eyes.

Elenora clenches her fist and answers one of the questions "I know everything." Almost everything. All the contracts she deemed most important are stuffed in her clothes to go through later. Jackson stares at the bulge in Elenora's sweatshirt and Elenora glares at the woman who calls herself a mother, daring her to try and take them. "The loyalty shown for Ms. Elenora is well deserved. She had saved the life of every man guarding her, mine included. Such a thing cannot be easily forgotten."

"She also burned down the building you've guarded since I don't even know how long!" A warrior growls. This only seems to anger the warriors protecting Elenora more. Elenora focuses on making sure there's not so much as an ember floating around. In the right circumstance a small ember can start a wild fire. Especially one of her embers.

"Most everything in that office was about Elenora, Collin. I should have burned it all myself but I couldn't bring myself to do so." How very stupid of her. Half of the stuff in there could have given the royal guards all they need to drag Jackson to a rope and hang her. "She did me a favor. Believe me." Of that Elenora is certain is true. There's a look in Jackson's eyes and when the curse comes back for the split second it takes until she can control herself and shove it down once again, all she feels is the Luna's relief.

She knows just as well as Elenora does that she could be hanged for the stuff held in those boxes. Now all that is left is the word of a rogue and that is as valuable is the dirt on the ground to the King. Prat that he is.

"Everybody go home. It is far too early and Elenora, please come have tea with me before you leave. I think it's time we talk." Elenora wants to deny and she almost does.

Except she has questions, so many of them, and maybe Luna Jackson has answers.

Charlotte replaces Elenora by the cabin. There's blood on the floor inside. Elenora can smell it. She can smell the scent of death strong here. Nobody had cleaned it up. Who would? Charlotte sits beside her and she scrunches up her nose, leaning her head on Elenora's shoulder "I tried to clean it up but I just couldn't. I'm sorry."

Elenora tries to imagine a girl, a little girl of six years old scrubbing blood off the floors of the place her grandmother had been killed. The place that had become a home. The thought is quite terrible. Elenora wraps her arms around the fierce red haired girl she has grown to love more than herself, more than anybody else in the world. She holds Charlotte close and prays this means Charlotte is coming home with her. "It was never your place flower." Elenora figures it'll be her place to clean the blood off the floors.

"Why did you burn the office down? You couldn't sneak in and grab what you needed without making it so obvious? Without dividing the warriors" Charlotte looks to her and May's betrayal is at the tip of her tongue.

"Vermont kidnapped me. He had a contract and I guess it was too much." The half lie comes easy. It is not completely wrong of course. Vermont did kidnap her but that is not enough to lose control as she had. Charlotte need not know the grandmother she knew had been a liar. Charlotte need only remember an older lady who had tended to her wounds and hugged her close. Charlotte need only remember the kind lady who taught her to cook and painted the walls of the cabin a yellow so bright it gave them a migraine to look at before it was covered with artwork and photos that told the story of a family.

Charlotte goes quiet "Do you know who your parents are?" She asks after a moment, emerald eyes looking to her.

"I know my name or part of it anyways." She says "Muriel Corvina."

"Muriel Covina is a pretty name." Charlotte offers.

"That it is." Silence settles over them and that is perfectly alright. Together they grieve and they mourn for their loss. They are a family and things are far from perfect and even further from planned out but two things remain solid. They are a family and whatever is broken between the two of them will heal in time. Elenora swallows "It's time to go home" She says and Charlotte nods. Elenora watches her as she disappears down the path to say her goodbyes and pack her belongings away.

Then, she stands and she walks inside of the small cabin. The door creaks open and when she walks in the sight crushes her. For a little while she forgets the betrayal or at least it is shoved down deep inside of her, grief replacing it. The living room is destroyed and it is clear there was a fight. The lamp Grandmother May had made herself is broken on the floor and there is dried blood on the wall from where Gillian had grabbed May by the hair and smashed her head into the wall hard. There are photos knocked on the ground, the path clear before she ended up in front of the soft brown couch. In front of it is a pool of dried blood, a silver bucket, a sponge, and some bleach.

Charlotte must have tried to clean it up. How young was she when she gave it a shot. Too young most definitely. Of course, you can never be old enough to clean up the blood of family. It is tragic to even think about. Elenora gets to work and she tries to ignore the screaming echoing through her ears.

It cannot be ignored.

She remembers it all as if it were yesterday.

She remembers May and her on the couch. Elenora smiling and laughing and failing at shaping clay while May did it expertly. Elenora catches sight of the knocked over clay figure May was creating. Unfinished but the animal is clear. A wolf. The head is done and all that is left to do is the body. It is dry and hardened with the several years it has been on the ground covered in May's blood. Elenora is several feet away from it. A ball of unfinished nothing. It was supposed to be a clay girl reaching out.

Elenora stairs at the broken in door, hanging awkwardly on the hinges and remembers the banging before they broke the door in. She scrubs bleach into the floor squeezing her eyes shut but it plays like a scene in her head. She remembers Vermont's wicked grin as he ordered his men to grab Elenora and May. May had died, standing in front of Elenora, fighting to keep them away. She had fought hard, long and dirty. Stumbled though the warriors had already given her a concussion as they dragged her across the walls, breaking photos. The TV is in pieces from when Marcus threw her fragile body across the room.

Elenora remembers the way she crawled towards Elenora who was fighting Vermont and losing because she was so utterly distracted by trying to get to May, to protect May.

Elenora shakes her head and tries to forget the feeling of Vermont winning the fight before forcing her to watch as the warriors beat into an already broken May. The sound of every bone in her body breaking heard through the room. The cracks so sickening it had Elenora puking as she begged, pleaded. Vermont didn't give her a moment with May's broken body before dragging her off to the cells where she was to watch them torture Anthony.

When she got out and came back to the broken home, she saw Charlotte. Her orphan daughter curled around May's body. Frozen. Eyes wide as she gripped onto it. She had opened her mouth then and she had whispered to her before going silent, completely silent.

I tried to replace you to tell you what had happened but I found out you were in the cells and so I tried to replace Uncle Andy but and her daughter couldn't finish that. She did not sob or cry and Elenora figured she had already done that in the week Elenora couldn't comfort her. The week she had spent alone.

Elenora shakes her head and she tries to forget. She'd do anything to forget that but it fails and then she gets a phone call and it's Mia and she'll definitely be able to comfort her even if she doesn't know it. Elenora picks up, blood on her fingers and memories too fresh and still too painful. Elenora doesn't get one word in. "Nora you need to come back now. There was an attack on the border. I think it might be him because a witch showed up and tried to take me while it was going on. Alpha Scott thinks the attack at the border was a distraction so they could get to me and it was a witch. She would've gotten me but the guards Alpha Scott keeps outside of the cabin heard me scream and they got to me fast enough and-"

"Mia calm down." Elenora interrupts. Trying to keep the shaking from her voice. Elenora was certain Vermont's first move would be this pack. She was so sure of it. Except wouldn't it have been the perfect opportunity. A rogue loyal to only Vermont running inside of the pack to be abducted. A rogue that seems to enjoy the pain of torture. A rogue that casually slips in a comment that Vermont is alive and Vermont knows about Charlotte and it would be so perfect because of course Elenora would leave immediately for her daughter and of course she would stay long enough for an attack to happen because of course her daughter would have built a life and she would've needed time to say goodbye and she would've needed time to forgive Elenora for leaving so long with almost no contact at all.

Of course that would leave Mia not unprotected but not as protected either. Few would go to the lengths Alpha Scott does to protect rogues and most think the guards are there to protect the pack not the rogue. "I'll be there soon." She tells her closest friend and she puts aside her grief for a moment she has time to deal with it.

It's looking like it will be quite awhile.

Another chapter, another day, and another hard chapter to write. I swear it'll get less tragic but I can't promise it won't be awhile. The path to healing is long and hard and even harder for Elenora because I suck.