The Falcon Ridge Series Book 4: Art of a Girl

(Chapter song ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart’ by Amy Grant)

SAMMY

Dylan may have been a little right. Bastian is adding a little more stress on me than I let on. I need to de-stress and put some good out there. That will right my mind and push these thoughts out of my head. And there’s only one place I can do that.

The Hallow Glen mission.

Downtown, there’s a tiny neighborhood. The people there call it Hallow Glen. I don’t know why, but it sounds sweet. Just like the people.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in Black Rock. The poverty here is growing by the day. I do what I can to help, but it’s never enough. Most of these people are one check away from losing everything and it’s heartbreaking.

But. I put my chin up and roll up my sleeves. They need to see someone caring for them.

I park the truck on the neat, tiny street. The neighborhood itself is about four-square blocks. The people here have very little, but they have pride. They take care of their own. My family used to live just outside of here before my dad got a job with the Unit and we moved. He doesn't make much as a Gamma soldier, but it's more than these people get.

I walk down the street to a small mission. It helps with food and medical care to those who need it. I've been volunteering here, at least twice a week, since I was 15. It may be a sad situation, but there’s no reason why we all can’t smile through it.

The door bell rings and I’m greeted by lots of noise.

"Sammy!" A tall thin woman wearing an apron runs at me and gives me a hug.

I hug her back. "Hi, Eva." I push away. "How's things? Gosh, it’s busy."

She wipes her hands on her apron. "Oh, you know. We're still trying." She grins.

I look around the large open room with tables. “There's so many." I notice.

Eva nods. "They just keep coming. Soon, people won't have homes. It's just getting too expensive to live."

I give her a half smile. “It'll get better. Hang in there.”

“Oh, I’m praying to the heavens, sweetie. Don’t worry about that.” She chuckles.

I give Eva another hug, then see a familiar face. One I’m so glad to see because she makes me worry. "Hi, Pearl." I wave as I approach.

The old woman smiles. "Samantha. You get more beautiful every time I see you." She reaches out her arms to me and I give her a big hug.

Her hair is grey and her face is aging. The prognosis is wolf failure. It shouldn’t happen to anyone, but Pearl’s a sweetheart. She doesn’t deserve to die like that. Her main problem is that because her wolf got sick, she had to quit working. Now, she can’t afford the proper nutrients to feed her wolf and fight back. We feed her what we can, but the mission only gets so much in donations and we have to ration. It’s just not enough for someone like Pearl.

As much as it saddens me, I can’t let it show. I need to help her keep her spirits up and I do just that.

"Pearl, I told you, call me Sammy." I sit beside her.

"I know." She chuckles. "I just don't like it." She turns on the bench she’s sitting on and coughs. I rub her back and help her through it.

"Have you seen the doctor today?" I ask as I fix a pin in her pulled back hair. No matter what, she always makes time to make sure her hair and clothes are neat.

She shakes her head. "No. I don't need it."

"Pearl, you need to see the doctor regularly. He needs to monitor your condition. " I caution. “The mission medic can do that for you. You don’t need to pay.”

She waves me off. "Nonsense. I’m fine, Samantha. There’s nothing wrong with me. Now. What about you? How are you?"

I sigh. She’s also very stubborn. I can't push. If she had family, I’m sure she would be much better taken care of.

"I'm good. I just got a great job up at the pack house." I grin.

Pearl’s face grows in excitement. “The pack house. Samantha. That’s wonderful!”

"The pack house!”

I close my eyes and blow out a breath. I didn’t see him there. I better brace myself.

“How can you work for that asshole!" I smile big as a man with greying hair, pasty white skin, a limp and miserable walks over to our table and stops on the other side of it.

Harold Rattan. He’s a Unit veteran. He has a silver bullet lodged in the bone of his leg. They tried to remove it, but they couldn’t get all of it out. Now, it's sealed in. They say it’s pointless going in for it. And because Harold couldn’t hold a job, he couldn’t afford the surgery anyway. So, he's been a regular here for years.

He's a funny man when he’s not ranting about Bastian.

"Harold, don't start." I hang my head.

"No, you listen here." He wags a finger at me. "You can't work for that evil man. You're too nice a girl. He's pure evil that Alpha. He sucks us dry while he sits on his hill eating buffet dinners!" The old man yells. Some people turn their heads. Some shout ‘yeah!’ and I look around the room as my cheeks heat.

"Harold. Stop it. You shouldn't talk like that." I turn on the picnic table bench and face him. I scold him as I lean on the table.

"That bastard doesn't care about us down here.” He leans on his cane and thumps a finger on the table. “He'd rather sit with all the rich folk while we suffer!!" He rants.

"Ok, Harold. Let's go." Eva comes over and throws an arm around the old man’s shoulders. She led him off to sit in a quieter section of the mission.

"He's trying to kill us all!!" Harold yells as he's lead away, waving his cane in the air.

I sigh and shake my head. The sad part is, he’s right. From what I seen so far, Bastian doesn’t care about any of this.

I’m not sure if he knows or if he’s just ignorant. Either way the mental strain this situation is putting on people isn’t good. I’m wondering if I should mention it or not.

Pearl taps my hand and I turn back to her. "Don't listen to Harold. I'm sure the Alpha is very nice."

Pearl always tries to find the good in people.

"I'm sure he is, too. Now, you get to the doctor, you hear me?" I give her a polite smile and wag a finger at her.

She just smiles back and turns away to talk to another woman. It’s her way of ignoring me. I chuckle, stand up and head for the kitchen.

The next few hours consist of some prayer, food and open counseling. We also provide a number of services anyone can access. It’s my job after dinner to make sure everyone is aware of what the mission can provide. It makes me feel good when I can help. Even if they don’t take it. I’m here and they will always feel love from me. No matter how loud they protest about the local government. I still provide the most important thing they need. A kind ear to listen. I hear so many problems, but I try to advise, so it’s not a deaf ear.

I'm sure Bastian isn't totally clueless. I assume he's under a lot of pressure being the leader of 4000 people. I think once we get into a better working relationship, I’ll see what he’s really about. I think a small part of me refuses to believe he’d let his pack suffer like this.

With my visit done for the night, I headed home. I felt better than I have this past week. I needed to get down to earth and this was the perfect way. Now, I need sleep to prepare to face Bastian tomorrow.

Once I got home, I tried to paint some more, but I wasn’t really feeling it, so I just went to bed.

It was a little difficult falling asleep, but eventually, it found me. It was such a deep sleep, I don’t remember dreaming.

In the morning, I feel like I’m on auto-pilot. I stumbled out of bed and left my room to go to the bathroom.

I push the door open and stop at the sink. I groggily turn the water on to splash water on my face. I feel almost hung over.

With my eyes half closed, I grab my toothbrush and proceed to brush my teeth. As I’m bent over and brushing, I hear the door open more and hit the wall.

“Um… Sammy?”

I look up at Dylan who just got out of bed. He’s staring at the door. I look to wear he's looking and my mouth falls open. My tooth brush falls out of my mouth and hits the floor. I turn to the mirror, a squeak leaves my lips and I look at the floor.

I start to shake as I raise my arms out in front of me. My eyes widen and I raise my eyes to my brother.

“Sammy! Calm down! It’s OK!” Dylan holds on to me as I start to hyperventilate from fear. “MOM! DAD!!”

I start to whimper. My mind is all over the place. My emptions are skyrocketing. I can’t…no…

“Sammy, don’t lose it! It’s fine!” Dylan gets close and tries to reassure me, but it too late.

I frantically look at both arms and him as my heart races and I begin to sweat.

“SAMMY?!” I hear my mother call up from downstairs.

“No…No...” I shake my head and begin to cry as I stare at my arms.

“Sammy, keep it together! Moms here! It’s gonna be alright.”

“No… It’s not safe…No…” I cry harder and shake my head faster.

“SAMMY! LISTEN TO ME!!! SAMANTHA!!”

“NO!...IT'S NOT SAFE!!” I try to pull away, but Dylan hangs on.

“SAMANTHA!!!”

I look up at my brother and shove him hard enough to hit the door. “GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY!!” I scream at him in terror and sob hysterically as I run and jump into the tub. I wail as I hold my arms out.

“MOM!!!”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” I lean, close my eyes and scream to the walls.

My mom rushes into the bathroom. “Oh my God.”

As I cry in the tub, Dylan holds himself. “It's back.”

“Get the med kit.” She instructs.

I sit in the tub and look at several deep gashes of claw marks down both my arms. I’m covered head to toe in blood and a trail of blood leads from the bathroom to my room.

“Sammy?” My mother drops down at the edge of the tub and reaches out to move my blood soaked hair from my face.

I stare at her through tear soaked eyes. “Leave me alone.” I choke through broken breath.

****

“Thankfully, you don’t need stitches, but it'll take a couple weeks to heal. Sammy, what’s going on?”

I watch in a daze as my mother wraps white bandages around both my forearms. “I don’t know.” I whisper. “I just want to be normal. Why can’t I just be normal?” I begin to cry as my mother pulls me into her chest.

“I don’t know, baby. If we knew more, I could tell you. All I know is, we can block it like we did before. I’ll call the doctor, ok?” She strokes my freshly cleaned hair as I hitch a breath and nod.

“Hey, I got some pain tablets.” Dylan comes in with pills and some water. “I’ll be going to the job tomorrow. You heal.”

I sit up and shake my head. “No. I need to keep working.”

“Sammy. It’s obvious this job triggered it.” Dylan leans on my knees. “We can’t have it getting worse.”

“I know. But I can’t let it stop me either. No. I’m going to work.” I say with conviction.

“Mom…” Dylan looks to my mother to jump in.

“Sammy…” She starts.

“No.” I say adamantly. “I'll rest up today, but I’m still going.”

My mother sighs. “Fine. We can’t make you stay, but realize this won’t get better until you get it taken care of.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I run my hands over the bandages then crawl into my bed. The plastic sheet under my fresh, clean sheet crinkles as I do. The sound signals that it’s ready for something like this to happen again.

I feel sick. I feel scared. I feel helpless and I can only think one thing as I pull the covers up under my chin and close my eyes.

I know.