Fight for Me

The last two days went by like a blink of an eye for Layla.

She was so numb. She still can’t believe what happened. Cody was basically part of her daily life here, and now he was just gone. Completely gone.

The pack had his body cremated yesterday.

The whole pack was there to mourn for their fellow pack member. It was beautiful. They held the ceremony at night, filling the night sky with fire sparks and deep howls.

But Layla just remembers glimpses of it.

She decided to sleep in Cody’s room that night. She just wanted to be surrounded with something that can remind her of him.

It’s already midday and she’s still just lying on his bed. Margret brought lunch to Layla earlier. She wanted to say she wasn’t hungry, but Margret insisted, saying Alpha Nicholas told her to make sure she ate something for the day. She barely had an appetite, but she forced it down to get Margret out and just be alone again.

She is staring at his wall posters again. She’s not sure if he was really a fan of Guns and Roses, but the handcrafted wooden sculptures on his desk surely say he was creative.

Layla gets up wanting to admire the figurines more closely. One figure is shaped like a ship wheel. And another, which is quite detailed, but unfinished, is that of a wolf’s head. Its small size and the chain attached to it, says it was supposed to be a necklace.

It’s very beautiful. It was probably supposed to be a gift.

She sits down at the desk, wanting to admire the necklace some more, -especially the golden chain. With the setting sun, she wants a better view, an she puts on the lamp on the desk. As she sees the yellow light making the chain somewhat shimmer, something similar from the corner of her eye catches her attention.

She opens the desk drawer further and picks up the other golden chain which caught her eye. Lifting her hand up, she sees a similar carved wolf’s head hanging on its end as well. The two necklaces almost look identical, but more like a pair.

Looking back in the drawer, she sees a brown leather book.

A journal?

She knows this is probably a line she shouldn’t cross. But she’s too curious. She never even knew he was a guy to keep a journal.

She picks the book up and fans through the pages looking for his last entry.

I just want to know his last thoughts he wrote down.

She opens the book wide when she finds the last page with smudges of ink on it. Opening it up, she sees the date, and her eyes go wide.

This was the day of the attack in town. He wrote in it before he had to leave, -before he died.

She glimpses at his last paragraph and mouths the words as she reads it, wanting to take every bit of it in.

< There is no point. I lost the one thing I believed in, the one thing I wanted to live for. I don’t know when, or how. But I know I don’t want to go on. I don’t want to live. >

Her eyes scrunch together trying to comprehend the words as she re-reads them. But the words remain the same. This is making her think more deeply, thinking back to the last couple of days. She knows Cody has been distant lately. But she figured he would tell her if it was serious.

She never thought he would want to die. She thinks back to his words, My path is already decided. - Don’t hate me. And that’s when another disturbing thought crosses her mind. The shadow.

If Cody already made up his mind to die,……is that why the shadow was near him? So,…..it wasn’t following me these past few days, but him?

She turns the page backwards, scanning through the few paragraphs before that.

< She is right. I am not good enough for her. >

She?

She turns the page again, to an earlier day’s entry, - the night of the Harvest moon.

< I saw them kissing. It broke my heart when I saw it. My wolf let out a loud howl, -one of sorrow, of pain, and loss. Because now I know, I will never be better than him, -than an Alpha. >

Layla’s heart beat races thinking back to that night. That was the night she kissed Nicholas, …..an Alpha. Her mind is running with questions.

He can’t possibly be talking about me. We’re just friends……… Besides, he said it himself, he’s waiting for his mate. And I can’t be his mate. Not when I’m Nick’s.

She turns a few more pages and stops when she finds a page with quite a few smudges on it. It seems like wet stains.

Was he crying when he wrote this?

She starts reading from the top of the page.

< Today I found my mate. >

Layla whispers the phrase out as she mouths it.

Cody found his mate?

She almost smiles, feeling happy for him. But she can’t, noticing the shaky handwriting.

< She’s beautiful. Her blonde hair makes her look like a sunrise. She has such a divine scent of strawberries mixed with rain. She is perfect in every way. I couldn’t wait to meet her to just hear her voice. But now that I have, I can’t help but wish I never did.

She rejected me. >

Layla rubs her finger over the last few words she read, smudged with what she can only imagine being tear drops.

< Hearing her say that, it felt like my heart stopped beating. I couldn’t understand it. We both had just found each other, our soulmates, and those were the first words she said to me.>

Layla turns the page trying to understand what is going on. She didn’t even know Cody found his mate. And why on earth would she reject him? He’s wonderful.

< How can my other half reject me from just a first glance? I tried to persuade her for us to just get to know each other. I could feel the sparks when I reached out for her hand. I was excited, knowing the bond is on our side. But she pulled her hand from mine as if my touch disgusted her. And then she told me that she can’t be with me, because there is someone else.

In that moment, it felt like my lungs stopped working too. I couldn’t breathe as she continued, telling me I need to give up on her because I’ll never be half the man he is.>

Layla starts breathing heavily as she roughly pages and scans through the pages looking for a name. But nothing.

He didn’t want to write her name down. He didn’t want it to be real. That’s why he didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to suffer and die alone. So that she could be happy and he wouldn’t need to see it.

She clenches her jaw from anger, trying to stop her tears from falling as she tries to figure out who this woman is. But she already knows.

She puts the journal back in the drawer, together with both necklaces.

She gets up, storms out of the room and makes her way downstairs.

“I think it’s time I give her a glimpse of death.” She says clenching her fists harder, seeing the shadow following her from the corner of her eye.