Estelle's POV
"This tastes disgusting!" Hailey made a vomiting face before she snapped a plate of steaming soup over my head.
I felt my scalp burn, and the soup ran down my scalp and into my eyes and collar. Hailey's friends coaxed.
"She looks a lot smoother now than before."
Hailey wiped my hair with a rag, "You're so dirty, let's wash you."
I was grabbed by several girls in a death grip, and they never gave me a chance to escape. I was dragged by them to the river, I didn't know who kicked my knee, I fell to my knees.
Hailey rolled up her sleeves, she grabbed me by the hair then said to her companions, "Hold her down!"
My head was pressed into the cold river water by Hailey, and the raging water rushed into my nose and into my lungs. The choking sensation blackened my eyes as I struggled against their shackles, but Hailey's hands gripped my head like an iron grip.
Just as I was about to lose consciousness, Hailey lifted my head out of the river. As soon as I left the water, I coughed frantically, coughing water out of my mouth and nose.
But before I could react, Hailey once again sunk my head into the water. After repeating this for a few rounds, Hailey finally lost interest and threw me down at the river. I lay on the gravel at the river's edge coughing incessantly, my throat tasting of fishy sweet blood.
I knew she wouldn't leave me alone as I climbed up from the river. The river soaked all the clothes I had on. I never should have come to this damn camping trip.
A few days ago
Camping is a tradition at our school, and every spring we have a camping trip for a few days. This year we were led by Mr. Ryan, who is our head teacher, and Mr. Ryan always has disciplinary and merit points on his mind, so we were very quiet along the way.
"Get your stuff, it's time to get off!" Ryan shouted into the carriage.
I didn't know how long it has been. Finally, the bus stopped in a wasteland. I pulled out my cell phone and sure enough there was little to no signal. I shook David awake, and he looked at me sleepily.
"It's time to get off."
"Fine." He glanced out the window, "What the hell is this place?
"Stop complaining, we're going to be living in this hellhole for days." I gently pinched his right cheek, and his face, which was leaning on my shoulder, was pressed with a few marks.
After getting off the bus Ryan let us form our own teams, boys and girls separately, three to a tent. Rightfully so, I was the one who was left out. Because our school is a pure werewolf school, and I hadn't been able to have my wolf until then. The others always looked at me with weird eyes and avoided me, or came right up to me and humiliated me. So I was grateful to my boyfriend David, who didn't break up with me because of my delayed awakening.
In the end it was a girl with glasses and a fat girl who was in my group because they were also left behind. The person who was supposed to cook was to be decided by random draw, but Hailey outright deprived our group of the right to do so. She refused to let her or her friend's manicure soak in water, so she threw the dish in front of us.
"It's just you guys! Get to work!"
"But we haven't drawn lots yet." The girl with glasses said to Hailey in a small voice.
"Who said that? I clearly saw you guys draw. Right?" Hailey asked the girls around her, who nodded their heads.
"Forget it." I pulled the clothes of the girl with the glasses. I was not afraid to argue with Hailey, but I was afraid Hailey will do it to her, she looked too skinny. Hailey could knock her down with a slap.
Just washing the vegetables, I put them in the basket and Hailey said loudly to the fat girl, "Go on, don't starve her."
The fat girl's face turned red for a moment and she walked away from us quickly.
We ended up finding the fat girl at the creek, where I had just left my vegetable basket. "Don't take Hailey's words to heart, she's always been mean, to everyone."
I was telling the truth, when Hailey and I used to be friends, she badmouthed all the girls to me. Then everyone found out that I didn't have a wolf and I seemed to become her worst enemy all of a sudden. No matter what I did, she would make exaggerated laughter with her group of friends. I thought it was childish, but Hailey was happy about it.
We put the dishes on the table and watched how leisurely and comfortable they looked. If I hadn't cooked, we might have starved to death together. But just as I was looking down to start the fire, Hailey knocked the whole basket of vegetables onto the floor.
"Oops, you guys are too careless. How can you drop your food on the floor?" I really wanted to rip her fake smile off her face.
The chubby girl cried and Hailey and her friend laughed even more. I handed the girl a tissue and said to her.
"It's okay, I'll just go." I picked up the vegetables that were scattered on the floor.
"If I see one grain of sand in the dish, you won't come to any good!" Hailey waved her hand at me like she was sending a dog away.
I gripped the vegetable basket in my hand and held back my anger as I walked back to the stream. The cold river water made the white skin of my hands frozen to red, and I scrubbed the vegetables in my hands, hoping to hurry up and end this nightmarish journey.
In the following days I was responsible for cooking for all of them and the menial work that they didn't want to do. Just now she poured the soup I made on my head and then tried to drown me at the river, which was all little tricks that I had long been used to.
When I got back to the tent it was almost dark and I changed out of all my wet clothes. In my backpack, I saw a kitten locket that David had given me. I really missed him now, every time I was bullied he would hug me and comfort me. I packed up my things and went to the campfire, where David must be waiting for me.
I didn't see David when everyone was gathered around the fire at night, and I asked his friends. None of them knew where David had run off to either. The roll call was coming up and Mr. Ryan would be very angry if he wasn't here by then. So I went back to camp and saw a scene that broke my heart.
When I returned to our camp, David's tent was faintly lit. Why wasn't he at the party, was he sick? When I approached David's tent only to hear the sound of girl's moaning, the hairs on the back of my neck just stood up. I prayed in my mind. "Please, it mustn't be what I think it is." But I had a strong foreboding of being betrayed.
David's tent was not closed, so I pulled the curtain open and David's pants were halfway down and there was a naked girl underneath him. Annie screamed as David draped his jacket over her. I looked at everything in front of me and my mind went blank.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" My voice was shaking.
David stood up with his pants on, "That's what you see."
"Bastard!" I wanted to slap him, but he grabbed my hand.
"And you want to hit me? Isn't this all because you keep rejecting me?" He shoved me aside, then went into the tent to comfort Annie.
I knew the reason for David's anger, he took me to his house last week. We watched a movie for a while and he threw me down on his bed. He had hinted to me long ago that he wanted to sleep with me. But I hesitated to respond to him, and I didn't think I was ready. So I was intimidated by him and I pushed him away.
That was the first time David and I had a fight and we didn't speak for a few days. Then he came to me and apologized and I promised him I would be ready as soon as possible. I loved him and I could have sex with him, but not at a time like this, in a place like this.
Today was the last day of camp and I wanted to explain to him and I was ready to do so as soon as we got back to the wolves.
But he already had his own agenda. Everything in front of me made me sick! My stomach began to turn over. This huge shock made my mind confused. I didn't want to see them, so I ran away, to a place where no one could see me.
I didn't know how long I ran, but I could clearly feel that my lungs started to hurt and I tasted blood in my throat. All my mind was full of the scene from earlier. When did they get together? Was it this camping trip? Or was it earlier? I didn't dare to think about it anymore, just let myself go and ran aimlessly through the woods.
Then I tripped over something on the bottom of my foot, was it a rock or a tree branch? I finally stopped, I sat on the ground, the wound on my leg was bleeding but I didn't feel the pain. It was until that moment that I dared to cry out loud as my anger burst out. I hated that bastard and his bitch, and I hated myself. Wouldn't things have been different if I had a wolf?
By the time I got over from crying, I realized I was in a forest with an eerie atmosphere. I tried to get out of the woods, but I was completely lost. My cell phone had no signal, so I had to use it as a flashlight. The woods were lifeless, with huge trees interspersed with branches of varying lengths and black shadows woven into a complex web on the ground. I walked carefully on the net, the cold night air took away most of the temperature of my skin.
The fog filled the woods and I could sense that this was the range of the other wolf pack. A great sense of crisis gripped me, and I had never been out of my wolf pack before. My father told me that the world outside the wolf pack was very dangerous, and if I ran into a rogue, or someone from a rival pack, I could die here tonight.
It was so quiet that I could only hear myself stepping over the ground with the sound of breaking branches and the sound of my heart beating. The weirdest thing about these woods was that there was no sound at all. I didn't expect that there was another creature here beside me.
Suddenly, "Who are you?" A deep male voice startled me and I shuddered violently.
I looked back with my heart wildly beating, and met with a pair of blue eyes as deep as the deep sea.
