Henrietta's POV:
Two years into becoming a stray wolf, I had managed to get my hands on ink which I used to alter the Highbrow symbol that my brother and I bore on our arms. I did it to protect us, to avoid recognition in case any Northerner comes across us, for if we were discovered, my brother and I would be killed. The Northerners were as cruel just as they were kind.
In fact I believed that if they knew that a pack they had blacklisted and thought to have ended, still existed, and worse, we were the Alpha's children, the tragedy my brother and I would face would be indescribable.
Even when I decided to come to the North with my brother, I looked at our symbols and sure enough, they were still as altered as I had made them.
But now, to my shock and confusion, the ink was washing away and our real mark was being conspicuous again.
"Dear god, do you really want to finish us? Why do you hate us so much?", I cried.
The next few weeks after this discovery were the worst weeks of my life and that of my brother's - even worse than our lives when we were forced to work as slaves in the South.
I scrambled about, thinking of what to do. My brother and I stopped wearing any short sleeves and wore only long sleeves. We ditched our short sleeved school uniforms for long sleeves ones.
And now, I hated the fact that we shared a room with Stella.
Right from the time we got here, Stella has always been so curious about our origin. She didn't buy my story of not remembering anything. But her skepticism didn't bother me much back then, because she couldn't prove that I was lying. My brother and I comfortably wore any cloth we wanted including short sleeves because the ink was still doing its job back then.
But now, things were not thesame. And even though, my brother and I tried to always act normal whenever she was around us, she soon picked up that something was going on with us.
"Benji, the boys are going swimming now. And here you are, reading a book", Stella said to Benji one evening as she collected the book from him to look at it.
"Won't you go with them?", She pressed on, handing back the book to him.
"No Stella. I don't want to. I almost drowned the last time", Benji said to her and then gave me a coded side eye.
"And that reminds me?! Benji how come? I know you as such a great swimmer and you love swimming, but then all of a sudden, you are drowning and that too in a shallow pool and now refusing to go again? It's weird.", she said.
"It's not Stella. Benji is just trying to protect himself.", I said, covering for him.
"Or is there somebody bullying you Benji?", she asked again.
"Bullying?! That's not even possible here. Why would you even think of that?", I asked her.
"Because that's the only legit reason why a boy who loves to swim would now be running away from it. I know bullying is unheard off here. But Benji's behavior is making me think it."
"I'm fine Stella. I'm good. I don't just feel like."
There was some silence in the room for a few minutes as Benji continued reading and I continued sweeping the room, pretending not to shiver under Stella's eyes that were still looking from Benji to me curiously.
"Both of you are hiding something. Something big", Stella suddenly said.
The broom dropped from my hand in panic. Benji started laughing to cover his nerves. Stella just stood there, looking at us.
"Omg Stella! You are crazy", I said, forcing myself to laugh and make light of the situation.
"Hmmm whatever", Stella said and left the room.
The following days weren't easier. As I struggled hard to find ink, the remaining ink patterns on our arm completely cleared, leaving our pack symbol completely conspicuous.
I tried using the ink from my pen to alter the symbol again but it didn't work.
Then on that fateful day, our cover was blown.
We were having a war lesson in class today. We were being taught about all the packs that the North had destroyed in the past seven years.
As the lesson went on, I observed some of my classmates. Some looked hurt when a certain pack popped up on the screen and I deduced that, that pack must have been their original pack before they came to the North to seek refuge.
"Next, Highbrow pack. This is a Southern pack. It was destroyed by the Dazelhead pack of the North. Now take note, this pack wasn't destroyed just in an ordinary power struggle. No, it was a planned destruction. And a very necessary one too. The Alpha of this pack, Alpha Adam was such an insolent, headstrong and arrogant wolf. He felt he was too big. That he wouldn't bow to anyone. His pack wasn't even the strongest in the South but he carried himself like he was." I nearly started choking when the Highbrow pack symbol was displayed on the screen and I subconsciously pushed down my long sleeve shirt even more in alarm.
"You all know this. That the North is far better than the South in everything. Development, technology, resources even military power. Hardly, can any pack in the South rival us. This is why the Southern wolves always respect us."
"But this man here, Alpha Adam dared to be disrespectful and challenge our immediate former Alpha of Alphas, Alpha Andrew. He spat on the North, killed some of our people and swore that he would never bow down to us. His arrogance didn't just stop at his fellow Southern packs or even us, it extended to the Eastern and Western packs too."
As our teacher spoke, I held my breath and sat still, scared that any movement I made would give me away to be the daughter of the man the North hates so much.
" Is he mad? I don't get it ma. What could have given him the audacity to keep defying the North, the East, the West and even his fellow Southern packs? Did he have some kind of special power or something?", my classmate Dan asked.
"Well, he was a faster werewolf. I mean, he had more speed than every other werewolf. Even our Alpha of Alphas then, couldn't match him in speed. Plus, his family had really strong magic just like some of the packs we have here.l. So I think that all of this contributed to his pride and arrogance."
"Did he win any battles. Kill any packs?", Pearl asked.
"Oh yes he did. He destroyed rival packs in the South, East, West and even here in the North. He is one of the few Southern Alphas to ever win a battle against a Northern pack.", our teacher answered.
"Ma, what was his pack's ranking?", another classmate of mine, Jewel asked.
"His pack was the third strongest pack in the South as of the time of his destruction."
"Really! How come? How was he not first despite all of his arrogance and special powers?", Dan asked again.
"It's really not clear to us. But our theory is that the only two packs above him at that time were deliberately ranked above him for the sake of international relations with the North, East and West. If a pack that was hated by all other nations was at the helm of affairs in the South, then it would have greatly isolated the South from the rest of the world as no one would want to have anything to do with them because of him."
"That is a good thing right? I mean he, despite being the strongest Southern pack allowed his rankings to be lowered for the good of the entirety of the South? He made a sacrifice.", another classmate of mine, Daia pointed out.
Even though, I didn't turn back to look at Daia, I thanked her in my mind and smiled inwardly. At least, someone saw something good in my father.
But my other class members, including the teacher weren't pleased with Daia's observation. You were not supposed to see anything good in any pack that the North has condemned!
All these years, even while my parents were still alive, I had always heard and known of the hatred other nations especially the North had for my father. I was told by my mother that these nations hated my father because he was far stronger than them and I believed her. I didn't realize just how deep this hatred ran and the image of my father being fed to the world until now.
As the class progressed, another teacher suddenly barged into the class.
"Henrietta Cotta. Please come. Your brother has just fainted."
It turns out that it was not only our class that was having war lessons today. Even Benji's class was too. He had fainted out of fear and anxiety when their teacher started talking about the Highbrow pack and even after he was resuscitated, he felt weak and sick because of fear.
I worried that someone, maybe any of his classmates or even his teacher may have seen his arm symbol and noticed its similarity with the Highbrow pack symbol. But thankfully, no one said anything to us. Instead, I was asked to take him to the room to rest.
In the evening, when Benji was still sleeping, Stella asked to see me outside privately. I wondered what this could be about and I feared the worst. Still, I followed her.
She took me downstairs, outside the hostel and found a quiet place in the compound where she stopped. Then, she said to me. "Sit down Teta."
I wanted to ask her why but then I decided not to and just sat down beside her.
"Don't make this look weird. We are just two friends and room mates talking. If you make the others suspect that something is wrong, then it is you that will be in trouble not me.", Stella said again.
"What do you mean Stella?"
Stella deliberately stayed silent for a few seconds in which my heart kept pounding harder and harder and I kept wondering. 'has she discovered the truth?'
"I know what you are Henrietta. You and your brother are members of the Highbrow pack, a pack that these Northerners destroyed not only because of a common power struggle, but also because your pack was deeply hated by them."
"What is this one saying now?", I said to Stella, looking flabbergasted at her claims outwardly, but within me, I was crying. 'Could this be the end for my brother and I?'
"Are you or are you not a member? When you said you didn't remember anything, you were lying right?"
"Stella please enough! I don't have time for all these your conspiracy theories. My brother is not feeling well. I need to go to him.", I said standing up, still feigning ignorance to Stella's claims.
Someone once told me that if you told a lie multiple times, then it would become the truth. And I wasn't ready to back down easily.
"Teta, I am being civil with you. If you don't come back and sit here, then I would march you straight to the Ma Bethy to expose you and be screaming while at it to alert everyone else." Stella said.
At this moment, my mask fell completely off and my heart sank. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at Stella pitifully. I sat back down.
"Now tell me, am I right or not?"
"You are right Stella. Everything you said is true."
"Then why did you lie? Why did you claim to not remember? And why exactly did you come here knowing fully well how the North feels about your pack or weren't you aware?
"I was aware but I had no choice. My brother and I were suffering greatly in the South. We were being treated as slaves. And my heart broke seeing my brother suffer everyday. That's why when I heard of how well the North treated asylum seekers and refugees, I made up my mind to come here despite knowing the risks."
"You could have gone to the East or even the West."
"No I couldn't. I didn't know the way and other people were coming here, so I had to come with them. That's why I claimed not to remember anything."
Stella looked at me and started laughing. I felt so humiliated but I couldn't do anything. All I could do was just sit there and wait to see what fate had in store for me.
"You want to know how I found out?", Stella asked me but I didn't know what to respond. So, she told me anyways.
"There was always something about you and your brother that felt off to me. Something wasn't clicking. How you conveniently didn't remember anything felt so suspicious to me. But then, I couldn't prove any of my suspicious."
"Until recently when you and your brother started acting so weird and disturbed. The both of you tried hard to pretend that all was well. Gosh! It was so pathetic to watch. But you two kept cracking day by day"
"I wondered why all of a sudden, you two started wearing only long sleeved shirts to school. Your brother that loves to swim stopped. Even you stopped swimming. Even when we weren't in school, you still wore only long sleeves. Then the number of times I had seen you and your brother having hushed conversations."
"I realized that you two were definitely hiding something and whatever you were hiding was on your bodies. And so I started spying on you two. Yesterday, I managed to catch Benji shirtless and I memorized the symbol on his arm. I sketched the symbol on a piece of paper and was going to do research on it later this week until today happened."
"Your brother fainted in class when the Highbrow pack was being discussed. Poor thing. He must've felt so scared.", Stella said and smirked.
"And for me, when we were having the war lesson today, I saw it as an opportunity to investigate the symbol I had drawn. I recognized the similarity between the symbol I had drawn and that of the Highbrow pack. That's how I put two and two together and it all made sense."
I reached out for Stella's hand and said, "Stella please don't expose us. I beg you. My brother and I are not bad people. We harbour no bad intentions towards the North. Please, we are just trying to survive." I desperately begged for my life and that of my brother.
"Please understand me. I beg you. I would do whatever you want me to. Please. I…"
"Relax Teta!", Stella said.
"Please have mercy", I mumbled.
'"I'm not going to expose you."
"What? Why?"
"Yes. I won't expose you…. YET", Stella said and I dreaded whatever it is she meant by that 'yet'
"You are of more use to me alive than dead."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh don't worry your pretty self. But let me, calm your curiosity a little. I intend to use you to grow myself."
I looked at Stella confused.
"Did you think that you are the only ambitious person? The only person who wants better for their life? Do you think that I want to spend all my days here, in this camp?"
"That's what you told me", I muttered silently.
"Then you are a fool to believe me. Clearly Henrietta, you are smart, brainy, ambitious, even brave and have a strong will to survive. I mean look at you, you came here despite knowing the risk and you are likely to be among the students that would be selected next to study in the city. I can't allow you to die. No, I need you! I would use you. To get myself to where I want to be."
I looked at Stella and thought to myself.
I was now 12 years of age, Stella was 13 and Benji was 9. We were supposed to still be just kids but the circumstances of our world, the constant struggle for supremacy and power, the constant deaths and destruction have forced us all to grow up. I realized now just how brutal this world is. How our world truly worked on the principle: 'Kill or be killed, be smart or be outsmarted, destroy or be destroyed, poison or be poisoned.'
This was the principle of our life and we were all forced to live by it.
One thing was certain to me though, I would not leave the fate of my brother and I in someone else's hands nor would I spend the rest of my days living off someone's wicked a
nd exploitative mercy.
And so I made the decision, that even if now, we were spared by Stella and we were about to start living at her mercy; I promised myself - 'I will kill Stella'.