The Rare She-Wolf: Twice the Power, Zero Forgiveness Chapter 05

The Rare She-Wolf: Twice the Power, Zero Forgiveness Chapter 05

Mom’s hand was still on the doorknob, and she froze solid right there.

Her eyes were blown wide, but there was nothing behind them.

It was like she couldn’t even process what Ms. Maren had just said.

“Wren fell off the balcony!”

Ms. Maren sobbed, tears pouring down her face.

“I was just downstairs calling Pack security, I turned around and I saw-”

Mom didn’t wait for her to finish. She shoved Ms. Maren out of her way and sprinted for the

window.

Our apartment was on the sixth floor.

Mom threw herself against the window frame, leaning more than half her body out to look down.

Down by the flower bed, a huge crowd had already gathered.

In the open space right in the middle of the people, ay a small body.

It was wearing the blue T-shirt and khaki shorts Mom had put me in that morning.

A buzzcut, limbs twisted at impossible angles.

Dark red blood pooled slowly underneath it, seeping out across the concrete to stain a wide patch.

That was “me”.

“No!” Mom’s voice caught in her throat, coming out as a broken, off-key sob.

She stared down at the small body, not blinking once.

Then, all at once, her whole body went limp like all the bones had been pulled out of her, and she

started to crumple.

If Ms. Maren hadn’t caught her so fast, she would’ve fallen straight to the floor.

“Ms. Ashborne! Ms. Ashborne!” The officers patted her cheeks.

Mom’s eyeballs moved a little, but her gaze was still unfocused.

She opened her mouth, trying to say something, but no sound came out.

“Take her down first,” the older of the two officers said.

The two officers hauled Mom up between them, one on each side, while Ms. Maren followed behind, wiping at her tears.

Mom never said a word, never struggled.

Her whole weight leaned against the officers, her legs too wobbly to carry her.

Her eyes stared straight ahead, blank and empty, seeing nothing at all.

When they got downstairs, the crowd automatically parted to make a path.

The closer they got to my body, the slower Mom’s steps became.

When she was several feet away from me, she stopped dead.

“No, no…” She shook her head, starting to back away.

“Ma’am, you need to come identify the body.”

“I won’t!” Mom’s voice was small, thick with tears. “That’s not Wren!”

But the officers still led her right up to my body.

The corpse on the ground was face-up, eyes half-open, no trace of pain on its features.

Its forehead was split open, blood caked over half its face, so you could barely make out its features.

Arms and legs were positioned wrong, all of them definitely broken.

But Mom’s gaze was locked on the patch of scarred, shaved scalp.

“Aaaaah-“A scream tore raw from the back of her throat.

Mom wrenched free of the officers’ grip violently, but she didn’t throw herself at the body. She turned and tried to run.

But her legs gave out after only two steps, and she crashed to the concrete.

She scrambled back up again, tried to run again.

“Ms. Ashborne!” The officers grabbed hold of her.

“Let go of me! That’s not Wren! It’s not!” Mom screamed, fighting them with everything she had.

“My daughter’s at home! Locked up in her room at home! That’s not her!”

Ms. Maren cried harder, pointing at Mom, her fingers shaking so bad.

“It was you! You said it yourself just now! You told her to go die! I heard it!”

A low murmur rippled through the crowd of onlookers.

“Told a little kid that young to go die?”

“My god, is this woman even her real mom?”

“No wonder the kid jumped.”

Mom stopped struggling.

She went still, slowly turned her head, looked at Ms. Maren, then looked back at my body.

And then, suddenly, she laughed.

The laugh was soft, wrong, unhinged, cutting sharp through the quiet of the scene.

By the time she stopped laughing, her knees buckled and she crashed hard to the ground.

I heard a dull thud as her knee bone slammed into the concrete-it sounded painful just listening to

But she didn’t even seem to feel it.

Mom knelt there, staring at my body, for what felt like forever.

Then she bent forward, pressing her forehead to the concrete.

Thud.

Loud this time.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Another one.

Thud.

“I’m sorry.”

Thud.

“I’m sorry.”

Again and again, she hammered her forehead into the ground.

The officers realized what was happening and rushed to pull her up. “Ms. Ashborne! Stop!”

But she’d gotten suddenly insanely strong, not even two officers could hold her back.

She just kept kneeling, kept hitting her head, kept apologizing.

Blood ran down from her forehead, into her eyes, down her face, mixing with her tears.

“Wren, baby, Mommy was wrong,”

Her voice got quieter and quieter, but the force of her headbanging never lessened.

Ms. Maren covered her mouth and sobbed, gasping for air between cries.

She suddenly lunged forward, grabbed Mom by the shoulders and shook her hard.

“Now you know you were wrong?! What were you thinking when you told her to go die?!

“She’s dead! She’s never coming back!”