Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Xavier's Pov

Flashback: 20 years ago

Stand up for your beliefs and values. Although you have always undervalued yourself, you possess a rare force that enables you to connect with your destiny. The mistake you make is to believe that someone else controls your destiny instead of you. You are superior to others in many ways. I thought about those words from my father over and over until I experienced them.

Courage!

It's difficult to get, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot find it. Sometimes.

I lacked courage and energy, and it appeared as if I would collapse in the next second, feeling like a heavy stone on my chest when I couldn't breathe properly. My shoulders felt as if I were carrying a mountain on them. The panic attack had reached its apex. My wet eyes were blurring my vision, and my anxious gaze was fixed on the door handle.

A drop of cold sweat slipped down the side of my face. My body was numb, my heart was racing, and my anxiety was growing by the second, but I fought it. I was nervous, but I wanted to try for the first time in years.

The voice inside my head told me to take a step back and run away like I always did, but I was frozen in place, my energy to move on depleted. I didn't run; I was right there, with a cold breeze blowing through my medium hair, which touched my face.

I wanted to face the fear that had been building up inside of me for years, but my mind was constantly telling me not to do anything that would increase my pain and end my hope for peace.

Make your fear a weapon to use against those circumstances that try to bring you down, as Father used to say. Use that fear wisely so you can break everything and destroy the thing that has rendered you helpless, and the greatest fear can become your greatest weapon.

That day, I wanted to use my fear as a weapon to get rid of the trauma that had been chasing me for years like an unbreakable curse. I was ready to give anything to get rid of that feeling, that terror, that venom that was coursing through my brain.

I reached out to unlock the door, but I took a step back because I didn't dare to open it with my shivering hands; the thought of going inside the house made my heart race. All the clouds in my head were blocking out other thoughts and making me unhappy once more. I had never been so hesitant in my entire life.

I fought many battles in my life, my dreams, my thoughts, my insecurities, traumas, nightmares, and scares in my body and heart. I watched my people die right in front of my eyes; I lost my favorite people. I was never that terrified, but when I came to open the door of my house, where I grew up among humans in the city, the house my father built for us, I was terrified.

My father did every corner, the interior, and the painting on that house he built for my mother before bringing her into it.

Alpha Maison's daughter was my mother. After my grandfather died, the Red Moon pack abandoned her because they thought she was the weakest member and therefore unfit to be in the pack.

They didn't have the best vision to recognize the bravest werewolf among them. Mother started her journey, met my father, her soul mate, and their love began; they used to fantasize about a better and more amazing life, full of love, melodies, and fairytales, and they lived it.

Not all fairytale stories have happy endings; some of them are bound to be tragic. Since happiness is not easy to buy, it demands many tears, struggles, sorrow, sweat, broken hearts, traumas, fights, and blood.

To get happiness, we are blinded by the idea of happiness, and we race, hoping someday we will find the happiness we seek. We sometimes lose our desire to arrive at our destination during the process.

But my parents were extraordinary; they never gave up on each other, they fought many battles together, and they were soulmates, whom every one aspires to be.

I placed the bouquet on my parents' death anniversary, as I had done on previous occasions.

Despite the passing of time, I was still hesitant to open that door. I couldn't walk inside the house because the trauma was still fresh in my mind. which chased me every night, sometimes during the day when my body became numb. Just the thought of my parents' last sight

to surprise them on their wedding anniversary, which was also their death anniversary on the same day. I wished they'd embrace me like they always did when I returned home, but that day was Doomsday.

Levine was not present when Oberon of the Blue Shadow Pack brutally murdered my parents, and I have not been able to locate him since. Was he alive or dead? I became mired in the muddle.

As I entered the house, the bouquet fell from my grasp. They were speechless, silently laying on the floor in the red sea of blood, and soulless when there was no movement of happiness to get me back.

I had lost everything that day—my hope, happiness, shelter, guidance, and life since my parents left me.

That trauma followed me every time I stood outside the house on a death anniversary. Every time I looked at the door, I imagined my parents inside, waiting for me to surprise them on their wedding anniversary.

My heart ached that day outside the house. An ocean of tears was raging inside of me. I noticed leaves strewn about the entrance.

I moved my gaze to my left-side garden, which my mother had planted. Flowers were everywhere, and I never imagined a small garden could look so lovely. The plants were still alive, showing that someone was tending to the garden.

I heard my mother's sweet voice in my head when she used to call me for dinner inside. I turned to look back at the window of my room, where she used to wave at me with a smile.

I was missing both of them that day. I just couldn't leave; normally, I'd leave after 30 minutes, but the memories held me there for an hour. I couldn't help myself and opened the door to face my fear of overcoming the trauma. I entered an abandoned house.

I was tangled in the sticky cobwebs that were draped over the door's metal frame. The dimly lit house reminded me of the Sahara Desert on a cold night.

My old house, which I mostly watched burn into my dreams, was a place waiting for life to come. The dust. It was messy and dry, but there was nothing that opening the doors and windows couldn't fix.

Old, shredded curtains hung from windows left and right, liquid dripped from ceilings onto the dusty marble floors, and ancient chandeliers hung from the wooden ceiling, almost breaking off.

The ancient paint was peeling off the stained walls. I was looking around at all the other empty rooms in the house. Each room had its own distinct scent. the smell of memories, of my childhood and my family.

My gaze was drawn to an unusual shadow on the house's wall, a reflection in the darkness. I chased the shadow all over the house, thinking Appetite to meet my parents just once was giving me something to think about, so I started chasing the shadow involuntarily.

The desire to see my parents was a mirage, but I ran outside until I saw a man walking away in a black leather jacket.

"Levine?" I said the name unintentionally.