𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖

𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? 

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𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

╰┈˚ · ° .  THE COMPLETE TURN THAT SAM HAD DONE after accepting his new reality was astounding. He had accepted his new self and his new responsibilities, not only as a shapeshifter, but as an alpha, even if he was still the only one person to have shifted, he was a born leader, ready to lead his pack

The night he would patrol the treaty line for any signs of the cold ones, sometimes, I would even join him. He had always been a serious person, but now, he was always on alert. He had a new light in his eyes, a purpose. The alpha status, being a shifter to help his people... it was his call. I loved seeing him in this new role.

Sam had always been mature for his age, too mature that sometimes I think the only times he acted his age was when he would annoy the shit out of me. He took care of me since our father left us and our mother was a mom one day yes and ten no. He had friends, sure, but the only people he really cared about were just Leah and I. He didn't have something that he loved doing, a hobby... But this, protecting our tribe, gave him one. I could see that he loved the responsibility.

But much as I loved seeing him having this new light in him, he was starting to push everyone around him away. His relationship with Leah was strained, he had lost all his friends. The lies that he had to continue to tell, builded more and more to the point where he preferred his own company, shifted in his wolf form, patrolling the woods.

On the other hand, not much had changed for me, but now, I would spend my time less on drawing and more on training my powers, trying to use my emotions as a tool for heightening the strength and not suppress it.

The most prominent change though, one that completely floored me? It was loneliness. It wasn't something that I ever felt much before. I had never needed more than my brother in my life, but now, I felt like there was something missing, almost like a hole that needed to be filled. My soul and powers both yearn for something— someone, or more than one.

The grimoire had said something like this might happen. It should be because I was without my coven. Without the people that would fill the hallowed places formed inside of me.

Three months and no sign of a new shifter. The previous pack had formed in about weeks, if not less. But now, maybe because of the treaty, I hypothesized, the phasing would be much slower since no vampire was on our territory. The Cullens could not enter our lands as rule, so they stayed farther away from the rez and even its people. And with so, making it harder for someone else to trigger their gene and for a new witch to unlock their element.

The Spring semester has just started, and for days, my head has been hurting. It was like a pulsing feeling that made it very hard to focus. On Tuesday afternoon after school, since I had no shift at The Claw and was definitely not in the mood to cook for hours, I decided to go to The Moonlight. A mix between a diner and cafè together. It was honestly a hidden jem, not very popular, but it was cheap and did mouth watering food at the same time. Saying that Sam ate a lot was an understatement. We honestly never had that much food and such little food in our house. It was starting to get quite expensive even with the incomes from our jobs.

Taking Sam's pick up truck, actually our shared one since I had taken my license, I first started to just drive around La Push aimlessly. The windows were down on both sides, it was lightly snowing and the cold wind blew my hair back as I hummed the songs on the radio.

Since unlocking my element, the cold never bothered me. I had learned how to manipulate my body temperature to go even higher than Sam's since my element was fire. It was very useful in situations like this where I wore only a short sleeve shirt in the cold weather. I liked the feeling of the cold against my hotter skin, but still, it would never beat the heat.

Finally, after half an hour with my headache that never seemed to lessen, I decided to finally go to my destination. I parked the car in the small parking lot ot too far away and quickly entered the diner. The Moonlight was quite hidden, and it was actually in a barely lit alleyway. But even if its position wasn't the best, I still loved the cozy feeling of the interior and atmosphere. It had boots and single tables, the walls were made with a mix of brick and wood planks decorated with fairy lights. There was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that framed an old fireplace, but the best thing about the diner was the ceiling. I might have been of part since I was the one that had made it, but a fresco of a forest and a night star filled sky was painted on it. It resembles the view of someone laying on the ground in the woods while looking upwards. It had been one of my biggest works and probably the one that I was most proud of. The owner, one of the hundreds of times that I had been here, had seen some of my work, resulting in hiring me for the project. It had been one of her dreams, but hiring a professional painter was definitely out of her budget. I wasn't.

When I entered the diner, I gave the waiter, one of the two regular workers, a nod as a greeting.

"The usual for the afternoon?" He asked. From the many times that I had come here, the workers had learned all my orders, even if they were all different depending on the time of the day that I would go.

Another nod later, I walked to my usual table. The one that was the farthest away and shoved into a corner. Only another customer was present at the diner.

The first thing that I did was get out my sketchbook and pencils from my bag. Second thing was taking my Zippo from my pocket. Lightening it up a couple of times, I felt the familiar pull of the fire, but this time, it was like it wanted to do something, or maybe needed something. It could have easily quickly pulled me into a trance-like state that I had already started to feel if it hadn't been for Caleb, the waiter, bringing me my order of boiling black coffee and three chocolate chip cookies.

But as soon as I was alone again, I flickered the lid of the zippo open and sparkled the flame. I didn't move my eyes from the fire, my right hand moved on its own, opening the sketchbook to an empty page and taking a graphite pen to draw. My movements were fast but still fluid as my hand flowed on the page creating its own picture. And when a blast of wind seeming to come from nowhere extinguished the flame of the Zippo, I gasped out a big breath and I first noticed how my headache had completely disappeared.

My coffee was now lukewarm at best, my cookies untouched even when I looked at the time displayed on my phone, I noticed that more than an hour had flown by. And then I looked down at the drawing. It was of a wolf, but not a normal one. It was a shifter and it wasn't Sam's wolf. This wolf had patches of a darker shade in his fur and around the eyes the colors blended to almost resemble a mask. And surrounding the wolf and in the background, there were tornados. Some smaller, others as big as the lengths of the page.

Someone else was about to shift and a new witch will be unlocking her element– Air.

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╰┈˚ · ° .   When I arrived at home, with two bags full of takeaway food varying from burgers and fries, onion rings and fried chicken, that I ordered before leaving The Moonlight, I tragically found my brother munching on cereal. From the box.

"Jesus Christ, couldn't you wait? I bought food." I said with a huff "And stop eating my cereals!"

"Sorry." Sam replied, definitely not sorry as he continued to eat them. I snatched my cereales from his hand suppressing a hiss like a feral cat, and with another exaggerated huff, I placed the bags of food on the kitchen table still marred with scorches from my powers.

"One is for me, asshole." I yelled after him knowing that he was already smashing the bag to shreds to get to his food as I quickly went to the fridge to grab some water. "I have news" I declared as I sat down on my usual chair facing my brother.

"News?" He asked with a mouth full of fries.

Giving him a disgusted stare, I decided to just ignore his animal behavior, pun intended, and fish out from my bag my sketchbook. When I looked up after finding the specific sketch in the almost finished pad, Sam had already inhaled the first burger.

"What is it?" He asked.

"You making me nauseous." I stated with a grimace at his sauce stained skin as I pushed the napkins towards him.

"Be serious for a second." He deadpanned.

"I'm dead serious." I replied before shaking my head and turning around the sketchbook for him to be able to see the drawing. "You get sauce on my sketchbook and I fry your wolf ass that will make you resemble more that chicken piece then anything else." I warned as I pointed at the fried chicken in the container to his right.

"Whoever said you were a cranky bitch was right." He mumbled and started eating another fry.

"Who the hell even said that?" I asked confused, borderline annoyed,

"Me." He replied. "And half of our school. Now show me that drawing."

I rolled my eyes at him, but nevertheless, I slided the sketchbook closer to him until it was in the middle of the table.

"I made this."

"Obviously." He cut me off.

"Do you want me to explain or not?" I snapped. As he moved his hand in a way to say 'continue', I did just that. "I had this headache for a couple of days that nothing worked to make it pass. Until today, when I went into that kind of trance I do with fire and drew this." I said pointing at the drawing with my head.

"It's a wolf surrounded by tornados?" He said confused before his eyebrows furrowed and a sort of understanding shone into his eyes. "Do you think that someone new is going to phase?" He asked.

"Yes, that wolf is not you. And the tornados... the elders said that the second element to be unlocked this time was going to be air."

"Who?" I gave him a deadpanned look that made him purse his lips "You don't know, alright."

"I don't, and I saw spells in the grimoire that would help, but since I'm the only one, my magic had not developed enough to do spells. I only have my fire."

"We should keep our eyes open at school. See if anyone is acting differently. The way we did that couple of weeks before."

"Yeah, definitely." I agreed. "So, anyone too angry and that gets easily enraged."

"And someone who looks like she is living in her own head and maybe staring off into the air."

══════ 🜂🜁🜃🜄 ══════

╰┈˚ · ° .  Even if I paid a lot more attention to people at school, even if from afar, no one seemed to stand out with characteristics that Sam had gone through before he phased, and mine before my element got unlocked. Scowling more than normal, I made my way towards the Claw and started my shift. Jared came in only minutes after. Unusual of him, the boy stayed a lot more silent and choosed to refill the shelves on his own, only calling me bestie once when he had greeted me.

It had been pretty dead today, only a couple of customers, no baked goods were usually made on wednesday, so people preferred much more to come on the other days of the week, except for Sunday since the store was closed, to buy the fresher sweets.

"Fuck!" I heard Jared yell after the sound of crushing boxes echoed in the empty store. Wide-eyed, I ran to the back where the said boy was organizing the small room in the back with new items ready for next days to fill the shelves.

"You good?" I asked as I eyed the packs of oreos scattered on the floor.

"Yes!" He snapped, looking more and more furious as he picked each fallen packet off the floor.

"Do you need help?"

"I said I'm fine Beatrice." The bite in his tone was the contrary to how he would normally speak.

Anger, he was feeling too much anger. And it was only then that I noticed that he had gotten buffer, more muscular, since the spring semester had started in comparison to the end of winter break. Slowly I approached him, my hand brushed against his skin. It was boiling hot.

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off. You know Wednesdays are slow. And hey, maybe you actually caught mono, you know?" I winked at him after the last part. He had non-stop talked about Sam's 'growth sprout' caused by mono for at least weeks after we had come back to school.

A small smile slowly started to replace the angry look on his face that in my opinion, did not belong there. Jared was the most sunny and happy person that I had ever met. His laugh, even if I would never admit out loud, was contagious, and his humor alway made me want to smile even on my grumpiest days.

"Yeah, maybe." Jared said. He shook his head, as if doing so would get the anger out of his system and tried to spread his lips into his characteristic grin. He failed miserably at it. "I'll just go home."

Just as he walked out the shop the bell chimed with the sign of a new customer. My eyes immediately fell on Billy Black and his daughter, Amelia.

"Hello and welcome back to The Claw." I said with a small smile that didn't reach my eyes. Typical customer service smile.

"Hi Beatrice." Billy said before turning towards his daughter who looked more in her head than anything "Why don't you go and take what we need, Mia? I'll wait at the cash register."

Amelia nodded her head, not even sparing a glance to both me and his father, before she went to search for what they needed.

Billy came closer to me, his previously serene smile falling from his lips. "The boy that just took off...

"Jared Cameron, yes, I noticed." I whispered back "I drew something yesterday. A wolf surrounded by tornados."

"Good, so you were already alert for a new shift."

"Yes and apparently it's Jared." I said while looking towards the entrance glass door as if I could still spot him. "In how much time do you think he will phase?" I asked

"A couple of days max for the heat that I felt when he passed us." Billy answered with a small sigh. He seemed to be thinking about something else, his eyes traveling to her daughter.

Taking my phone out of my pocket, I sent Sam a message explaining what had happened and that the second part of our plan was about to start. The stalking. " I just told Sam. We'll make sure to keep an eye on him." I said to Billy.

"Yes." he said but something seemed to trouble him as once again his eyes shifted towards his daughter. Amelia had packets in her hands but she stayed immobile in front of the window, her eyes focused on the outside. The wind was blowing hard, making the snow that rested on the ground rise into the air.

"And maybe I know who is the next witch." Billy admitted with a defeated tight lipped smile.

"Amelia?" I asked even if I already knew the answer. She wasn't acting like her usual self. And her eyes were unfocused, only seeing the wind blowing harshly outside.

"I always knew, I guess. She always loved the wind and high places. Since she was a child she loved to stay out when the strong winds would blow and she never got sick because of it. In the last couple of days she is going to the cliff more and more. It's always been her favorite place."

"High and windy." I almost whispered "The perfect place for an air witch. Unlocked element or not."

"Yeah..." His smile returned even if a bit more forced, he touched his daughter's arm snapping her from the trance that the wind you could see blowing outside had put her in "C'mon Mia, let's pay so we can go home."

Amelia nodded her head, offering a somewhat smile at his father, and then at me.

"Do you like the wind?" I asked her as I scanned the item trying to seem as inconspicuous as possible.

"Yeah, I love it. It never fails to make me feel better." She said with an embarrassed look after she probably understood what she had just said. It was an emotion really untypical to see on Amelia Black's face.

"I know what you are talking about." I said to her, giving her a sincere smile trying to make her feel better. "For me it's fire. Guess I kind of gave people a reason to nickname me 'The Arsonist ' after all, because I will never take the blame for Lahote's mess. So my liking for fire will have to do. " I winked at her.

Amelia laughed. It was a carefree laugh, empty of the weight that everyone carried on their shoulders. "Maybe." she said with a grin.

After Billy paid for they're groceries, I said goodbye to the father-daughter duo giving a last nod towards the man.

Jared Cameron was going to phase soon and Amelia Black will unlock her element. 

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone!

Did you guys guess who was the next witch?

Comments with your guesses for the others!!

Btw, yes, the first wolf to shift automatically has the alpha title. So when Jacob shifts, he will not be an alpha.

We are almost to the point of expanding the pack and coven. I'm so happy!

Sam and Tris siblings relationship>>>

Fan fact, I hate hot beverages. I drink my coffee only if it's iced.

Anyways, thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Tuesday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾