Prologue: Octavia - Pack of Mine

The smell of bitter herbs fills the air. My mother chants in front of a bookshelf covered in a velvety cloth; various rocks and statues sit on top of it. A part of her daily routine is to stand here and mumble a bunch of words, but she never explains what she’s doing.

I watch her draw her hands through the air and smoke follows her in an enchanting way. Sometimes she calls out to God, reciting specific prayers I’ve heard a few times in church with my friend’s families, but to be honest, I don’t pay much attention to it.

It’s just something that she does – like putting on your socks in the morning.

No one questions it, not even my father. We both watch her together sometimes in awe of the dedication to her craft, but he doesn’t mention a distaste for it ever.

I walk around my room and get ready for school, dreading the too-girly uniform that they require us to wear. My socks slide down my calves as I squish my loafers on and I pull them back up, trying to avoid getting dress-coded.

I’m 16 years old now. A short skirt and high socks for a uniform on teenage girls was definitely made by some pedophilic principal from years ago and the tradition never changed. Gross.

“Let’s go, Octavia!” My mother calls for me from the other room and I hear my father’s heavy footsteps right behind her.

My black canvas schoolbag rests on the wall next to my bedroom door and I quickly snatch it up, rushing towards her voice that’s headed into the garage.

I’m already running behind, so I dash into the kitchen and grab a muffin off of the countertop.

“Octavia! You’re going to be late!” Her voice is slightly muffled from inside the car.

Shit.

My loafers squeak as I dash around the house, carrying the muffin in one hand and my schoolbag in the other. I pick up yesterday’s homework that I didn’t finish from the dining room table, then roughly shove the muffin in my mouth and take a large bite. It’s definitely a day or two old, the stale taste lingering on my tongue.

Huffing and puffing, I take a look in the small mirror next to the garage door and touch up my black eyeliner that’s now smudging down my cheek, wiping crumbs off my lip.

My other hand loses its grip on the stack of homework I was holding and the papers spread all over the floor, creating a mess that I really don’t have time to pick up.

I jam the rest of my pathetic breakfast into my mouth and quickly crumple up the papers into my hands in no particular order. It’s chaotic, but I don’t have another choice.

“We’re going to leave without you!” My father now yells for me too. The purr of the car engine turning over makes me work even faster.

I rush out the door and wave down my mother through the windshield, still chewing a mouthful of dry muffin.

When I reach the already moving car, I slip into the backseat and watch my parents conversate in the front. They ignore me and start talking about mundane things like groceries, what’s for dinner tonight, and how things are going at work.

As we drive to school, I fidget with my uniform and try to finish my homework I forgot to do last night. Well, I didn’t forget; I was doing other things and chose not to do it.

Silver Lake High School is for richer families, so I’m not sure how my parents got me in. My family is very middle class – we can pay our bills, sometimes we go on nice vacations, but I don’t wear any of the fancy perfumes or have expensive tutors like my classmates do. They boast about their maids and butlers working in their houses, their dad’s new six-figure raise, or what country club their parents are dragging them to this weekend.

But Silver Lake in general, I don’t ever want to leave. The town isn’t too large or too small – I’d guess around fifty thousand people or so. We have a downtown area with high-rise apartments and clubs, but we also have suburbs and recreational areas. The woods are my favorite part, though – most of this town is absolutely covered in dense, tall oak and pine trees. The air always smells fresh and crisp, and in the morning there’s a hint of dew that adds to the perfection.

I’ve had a deep desire to live in the middle of the woods ever since I was a kid. The branches would be my friends and the wind would be their gossip. The isolation from society that a house so far from the city would provide… I long for it.

I loved going camping with my family and waking up to the smell of burning logs. It’s nostalgic, comforting, homey. Silver Lake is the perfect place to live if you like to get lost in the wilderness on a regular basis.

I watch the trees zip by through the window and wish I were walking through them instead of the halls of my noisy high school. “One day,” I promise myself.

“Octavia.”

The sound of my father’s voice snaps me out of my fantasy.

“Did you do your homework last night like I asked?” He starts to turn around in the passenger seat. His dark brows furrow together as he fixes his tie. My mother will drop him off at his office after she swings by my school, just like she always does.

I quickly tuck my pencil under my thigh and pretend to be reviewing it instead of actively working on it.

“Duh, of course, what do you think?” I’m trying to play it cool, but I know I’ve been caught red-handed. He just shakes his head and decides to not push any further.

When he turns his back to me, I finish filling out the paper. My teeth chew on the eraser as I solve the geometry problems in my head – can someone remind me again when I’ll need to know exactly how much sand it takes to fill a trapezoid-shaped sandbox?

We pull up to the drop-off area and my mother turns around. She grabs my knee and blows me a kiss goodbye.

“Have a great day today, stay out of trouble. I love you more than anything in the whole world.” She smiles and rubs my skin softly. Her eyes glimmer with joy, her long brown hair bounces around her shoulders. She looks happy. It’s nice seeing her like this.

But I roll my eyes and hop out of the car. “Yeah, whatever, Mom. Bye.” That lovey-dovey shit from my parents makes me cringe. Why don’t they get that? They were my age once, too.

She sighs as I shut the door and my father waves at me as I walk into the main doors before they pull away.

The bell rings and I rush to class, the sounds of my peers chatting and laughing quickly overwhelms me. I feel so out of place at this school, and I definitely look like it too.

My classmates are all blonde and blue-eyed, well, most of them anyway. Although we only have to wear a uniform at school, they all have their own uniform outside of classes. The girls wear some kind of basic light-wash denim shorts or jeans, paired with light colored tops and the boys wear khakis with pastel colored polos or local shop T-shirts.

They’re so far from my type.

Meanwhile, my black hair sticks out like a sore thumb and my personal style is quite the opposite. I like to wear cargo pants or ripped-up black jeans with fishnets underneath. I have a collection of dark crop tops that go well with them.

I put my headphones in and play an old rap song off of my iPod, cutting off the overstimulating sounds of the world around me. I have just about two minutes to make it to class, which is the perfect amount of time to finish one full song.

My feet drag through the hallways as I watch them empty and kids pour into the classrooms. Popular girls kiss their boyfriends goodbye like they haven’t seen each other in years. The drama kids finish their fake improv scene and wave to each other as they hop into classes. The jocks chest bump and salute to each other.

And I just… walk alone. Like I always do.

My song ends and I pull my wired earbuds out of my ears, walking into the geometry class that I just finished the homework for.

Requiring a teenager to do math before 9 a.m. should be against the law. Nevertheless, I place my crumpled-up paper into the pile on my teacher’s desk and find my seat.

People sometimes stare at me, probably because I look a lot different than them and don’t have any friends, but I don’t really care. My life is full of other joys – my family, my books, my music.

I like to read all types of things. Fantasy books always whisk me away into a new world, mystery books make me feel like a detective, but dark romance really gets me going. My parents have no idea that their precious little girl idolizes werewolves and villains and morally grey men.

I daydream in my classes about a dark-haired, tall, tattooed man who will live in the woods with me one day. He’ll be handsome, but not pretty. Good-looking in a rough-around-the-edges kind of way. Our house will be surrounded by trees, filled with low-lit rooms and dark furniture everywhere.

Just as I settle into my seat, the teacher’s phone ringing snaps me out of my pipe dream and she apologizes to the class for the interruption.

I pull out my pencil and textbook from my bookbag, placing them on the old wooden desk. The top is covered in doodles from past students over the years, mostly penises and hearts with initials inside them of couples that definitely didn’t last past senior year.

My goddamn socks slide down my legs and I pull them back up again. This uniform will be the death of me.

“Octavia Cross, Mr. Garcia needs to see you in the front office.” The teacher holds her hand over the microphone of the clunky telephone and waits for me. I sigh, putting my things back in my bag before she replies to let them know that I’m on my way.

The whole class bickers and whispers to each other as I walk out of the room. Classic.

I head down the hallway, pissed. What did I do wrong today? Is something wrong with my uniform? Was it that I was twenty seconds late to class for the fourth time?

Ugh, I can’t wait till I’m grown up.

I reach the front office and push the door open. I sit down in one of the crappy plastic chairs that always pinch the back of my thighs and wait to be called into the principal’s office.

My legs bounce up and down, not with anxiety, but with frustration. I’m always breaking the rules somehow, even when I’m not trying to. It feels like everyone has to pick on me for something, even my parents.

The principal, Mr. Garcia, opens his door and gestures to me to join him.

He solemnly walks over to his desk and sits down with a deep sigh, his head hanging low between his shoulders.

“Hi Octavia, thank you for getting here so quickly.” His voice is quiet, not the same perky tone he usually uses with me right before I get scolded. He seems down. Maybe I’m not in trouble today.

“I have some bad news for you, and I really don’t feel like I’m the appropriate person to say this, but it needs to be said.”

Oh no.

I pick at the skin on my fingers until one of them starts to bleed. I quickly stick it in my mouth and suck to taste the iron.

He seems anxious – his feet tap on the floor and his fingers fiddle with each other. I watch him for a moment, the tension building in the air.

What could he possibly say?

“Just spit it out, Mr. Garcia. You’re making me nervous,” I plead with him.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before leaning his chest into the desk and looking at me intensely.

“Octavia, your parents…” He sniffles and wipes his nose, turning his head away from me for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“My parents what?”

I feel a pit building in my stomach. Bubbles start to rise and I taste vomit at the back of my throat.

“Shit, this is hard.”

I’ve never heard him cuss before; it’s off-putting to hear your principal use dirty words. Blood rushes to my ears and I rip off another hangnail, the pain grounding me enough to keep listening.

“Your parents drove together after they dropped you off, and were in a serious car accident. The firefighters showed up and had to cut them out of the car…” His words trail off and he attempts to collect himself.

Oh fuck.

He chokes on his words and his hand rests above his heart.

“Octavia, I’m so sorry. The police just called me. Your parents were found dead on the scene.”

At first, it feels like time stands still. Then, I throw up all of my stale muffin onto the floor between my feet. I feel dizzy as I stare at the chunks of it floating around in my bile on the old carpet.

Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

The last thing that I said to my mom was dismissive, I didn’t even say that I loved her back. I never say it back because I think it’s stupid. We had all the time in the world, or at least I thought we did.

Fuck.

“Hey sweetheart, get me a refill, will you darling?”

I blink twice and look down to see my combat boots standing on the pressure relief mats behind the bar. There’s no more vomit on the floor, no principal in front of me. Now there’s a fat guy with sweat dripping from his brow.

I’m not 16 anymore, I’m 24.

The memory of my parents fades into the back of my brain where it belongs and I slowly forget what their faces looked like that day, what their voices sounded like in the car that morning. Each time I recall the memory, it distorts more, or I forget a piece of it.

But I’ll never forget the gut-wrenching conversation with my principal that day, and the years of foster care and struggle that followed. It didn’t take long for me to flunk out of school, not that anyone cared if I showed up anyway.

I look up from my feet and put on a smile, wiping a tear from my cheek.

“Phew, I caught something in my eye there. Another Dos Equis, right?”

I fill up the glass with beer and place it in front of the customer, coming back to reality faster than I’d like.

They’re not coming back for me. They’re gone now, and my childhood died alongside them that day.