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Chapter 1 continuation

When the water reached hip level I kneeled down and was completely submerged my body in the water and began swimming. If anyone had been watching me they would have thought I had gone insane, but there was no one I could see it was an isolated beach.

Call it miracle, but I didn’t feel like I was dying and I didn’t feel the need to breathe in any oxygen. I was just moving like a fish in the water; my hands were at my side and I copied some of the movements of the swimmers that I had watched on TV.

As I reached deeper into the water with each stroke I felt more at peace. There wasn’t any noise around me, just quiet here. It felt like home. I got the feeling of being safe. I felt happy and strong. I don’t know what was happening to me, any other time I would have been scared of drowning, but now, I was joyful and it felt right.

Suddenly I felt someone grab my arm with more force than necessary. I started kicking my legs and felt myself swallowing the cold salty water as I struggled to breathe and grew panicked. I felt weak and like I was going to die. I tried to see who was holding me but I couldn’t. The last thing I remembered was being pulled to the surface of water, and then darkness welcomed me.

“Hey, open your eyes. Can you hear me?” I heard the faint voice of a girl asking me.

I was trying to open my eyes but found it difficult. Finally, when I did open them everything was a blur to me. I blinked several times, unable to bear the early morning rays of the sun boring into them. I sat up straight and immediately regretted it. My head hit someone else’s nose hard.

“Oww.”

“I’m sorry,” I said and looked to the girl in front of me on the sand. She was around my age and had brown hair green eyes with shades of grey in them. She was insanely thin and looked like she had nutrition deficiency. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top which were both wet.

It was then I realized I was wet too and started shivering. If the water of the ocean had been that cold why didn’t I feel it when I was in it? What had happened in there just now? I brought my thighs close to my chest and rested my chin on my knees.

“Are you okay?” I heard her asking me and I nodded in answer.

“Um… sorry about that,” I apologized, pointing to her nose which had turned into a light shade of pink. I noticed she actually looked really cute with that pink nose.

“It’s okay,” she said and gave me a warm smile. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“By the way, why were you trying to kill yourself?” she asked after a moment and I noticed that the smile was long gone from her face.

I looked at her in shock. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. Okay, maybe it had been stupid to step into the freezing cold water like that, but I knew I had no plans of suicide. I didn’t like the thought as it brought back memories of my mom. I shook my head to quickly rid my mind of the memories.

“You seriously okay?” I heard her asking me and I looked to her.

“Yeah,” I told her sounding unsure.

She frowned at me like she didn’t believe me, but continued anyway, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” I asked her sounding confused.

“You know, about you trying to kill yourself”.

“I was not trying to kill myself.” This time it was me frowning at her.

“You weren’t?” She asked me suspiciously and I shook my head as a reply. She didn’t seem convinced by my answer and said, “You looked like you were trying to. I mean, one moment you were sitting in the beach and the next moment, you’re walking towards the water like you had been possessed.”

And I believed the beach had been isolated, I thought in annoyance.

I was about to say thanks when she continued, “And the way you dived in; it just confirmed my thoughts.”

“Thanks for saving me, but seriously I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I told her.

“Practicing?” She questioned me and I had to laugh at that. “No, truly? She asked. “I waited a long time for you to come back up.”

“So, you okay?” she asked again after several moments of silence and I smiled wide at her.

For being a complete stranger she didn’t need to be so concerned. In my old pack they wouldn’t have even cared to ask about… You won’t think about that pack Templar, I warned myself for the umpteenth time.

“January!” I heard another girl’s voice call out before I could reply.

“Shit,” the girl beside me muttered and stood up. I tried to standup with her, but my legs felt numb and I couldn’t get them to work. I was about to ask her to help me up, but she was looking to her left.

When I followed her gaze I noticed another girl running towards us with more speed that I knew was possible for a human. She came to an abrupt halt in front of us and gave me a murderous look. I noticed her eyes were completely black and understood that it meant she was a shifter. I had to lower my eyes from that furious look.

“Chill June, she’s not going to harm me,” The girl who saved me, January I assumed, said.

I grew scared. Maybe this was their private property and they’d kill me for trespassing on their territory. She could kill me in a second and nobody would even question her actions. So much for running away and having a new life, I thought in misery and couldn’t stop the tears that came with it.

“See, you scared the poor girl” January said.

I dared myself and slowly look up at them. June was still staring at me with fury, but her eyes were beginning to return back to their normal color. I began to relax because I knew it meant she was no longer likely to shift.

“Who is she?” I heard June asking January. January was about to reply when she realized she didn’t have any answer for that.

“My name is Templar,” I told them.

“Hi Templar, my name is January and this is my sister June,” January said, pointing to herself, then her sister. I smiled at her and looked to June.

June’s eyes were completely normal now and didn’t look as scary as she had. She looked only a little older than me. Her eyes were the same green and her hair a similar brown to January’s. She was wearing a simple blue cotton dress and it showed that she was just as thin as January.

“Hi,” June greeted. I slowly got to my feet, the feeling returning to my legs, and saw a smile of relief and true happiness on her face. Maybe the smile was from knowing that I wasn’t going to harm January. “I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just; when January left all of a sudden, I thought he might have… I mean, someone might have taken her.” She tattled.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt January. I mean I can’t even if I wanted to… you are way stronger than me, I’m not even a wolf…” I didn’t get to complete my sentence, nor realize my stupidity, before I was pinned to the ground by January. Her hold on my throat was firm and she was growling at me, her eyes now completely black.

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