ARIA
I ran as fast as I could and met the second part of the world dealing with me. My adoptive mom was throwing everything I owned outside the house while dad stood there and watched. Selene also had a satisfied grin playing on her lips.
"What are you doing?" I cried and rushed to stop my mom but she pushed me away, making me hit my butt hard on the ground. I winced in pain but jolted up.
They can't do this to me. "Mom, what are you doing. Stop it!"
She laughed and glared at me. "'Never call me that name ever again!" My heart skipped a beat, then she went back inside to pack more clothes out of the house. "I would never have a girl like you as a child. Rejection is never close to our family." She clapped her hands together and looked at me. "You are nothing but dust of bad luck. Leave. I can't believe we adopted you in the first place."
I turned my teary eyes to my father who stood and watched but he walked away as I approached. "Sorry sis," Selena said with a smirk. "You would just never be good enough."
"Ria…come stay with me. You can't just–"
I yanked her hand off my arm and looked at the dark cloud. After a sudden thunderclap, heavy rain began to pour down, drowning everything I owned. I let it all out, the pain and sorrow of being rejected by my mate and family.
"Let's go," Ivy said for the hundredth time, standing under the shed while I sat comfortably on the wet floor and shook my head.
"It's better to cry in the rain, no one would know."
After a painful hour had passed, the rain subsided and Ivy helped me pack my shit together and even went overhead to call us an Uber that charged extra to take all my stuff.
We arrived at Ivy's small apartment and dumped all the wet stuff out on her balcony. Then I sat back to think about everything that was going wrong in my life but I didn't have that much time to spare.
"Girl, where were you last night?" Ivy questioned, noticing I had cooled down from my bitterness.
For a minute, I wrestled between telling her the truth or telling her I got lost but Ivy was the persistent type of friend who would easily find out that I was lying.
"Ivy, do you think I did anything to Damien? Or my sister? Do you think there could be any reason for them to do what they did?"
Ivy shook her head helplessly. I also thought about every possibility but Selena was the best sister I could ever ask for up until now.
"I looked everywhere for you," Ivy added. I thought I had escaped the question but there is no dodging this one.
I sucked in my pride and told her exactly what happened.
"I was at Ravenheight Hollow." I gulped.
Ivy fumed and stood from her seat. "You are kidding me! What were you thinking? Trying to kill yourself because a guy dumped you? Come on Ria!"
"You don't know what it feels like!" I snapped. "You turned away when I looked at you for help too and I had no one. No one, except for the stranger who managed to stop me from going in."
Ivy became invested in the story and took her seat. "What stranger?" She asked softly.
I bit my lower lip, remembering his scent…the way he carried me and reassured me with his thick sexy voice. The way he commanded me and made love to me like I was a treasure he had just found.
I explained everything to Ivy.
"So, who was he!" She asked with a wide grin which disappeared when I answered.
"I don't know. That's the crazy part. I couldn't see his face, it was too dark. All I have is a dark spot on his wrist that looks like a tattoo or a birthmark. He left before I woke up this morning."
"We have to find him, Aria. This could be your second chance."
I waved her words away. "That was nothing but a one-night stand and besides, I only did that because I was hurt from Damien rejecting me."
Finally, Ivy didn't ask any more questions.
Days went by, then weeks while I tried my best to find a good job and start earning enough to help Ivy with the bill. Although she never questioned me, I felt uncomfortable. Everywhere I went, I wore face caps so that I wouldn't get recognised easily.
One month and two weeks later, I finally found a job as a bartender in a local club. I resumed but still had to use the face cap and nose mask.
The club filled with blue, red, green and yellow light buzzed with life every night and on this particular shift, I felt a change in my wolf calmness. My wolf began to pace around restlessly but I figured out why.
Damien had walked into the club with my sister in his arms. They approached me and laughed hard after seeing me behind the counter.
"Even if you covered your whole body, Aria, I would figure you out," Damien murmured, his voice cold as ice. "This is sad, seeing you here like this. I'll need four bottles of wine for my table," he pointed to the VIP spot: "bring it yourself."
He smirked and left for the table with Selene. As I was gathering the bottles of wine, I saw his friends walking into the club to meet him at his spot. I hesitated for a while, weighing my options of being humiliated or losing my job. This is my only source of income.
What could go wrong? I took the tray to their table. Selene yanked the nose mask off my face. "I love to see your face, sister," she joked. Damien's friends were also surprised to see me. James, the most annoying one of them, grabbed my waist and pulled me to the chair beside him.
"How about we have you for the night? Aria."
I yanked him off and tried to stand but he pressed me back to the seat. "How much do you get paid here? I'll give you fifty thousand dollars if you finish one of the bottles of wine here."
The other friends cheered. I fixed my gaze on Damien who wasn't doing anything about the situation but didn't really find it funny.
It's just a bottle of wine and these boys are rich as hell. If I could get the fifty thousand, I wouldn't need to bother Ivy again.
"And," another friend added. "If you drink another bottle, making it two, we would all give you ten thousand each, aside from James's. So, what do you say?"
I calculated, they were seven, apart from Damien which means I would get a hundred and ten thousand dollars just to drink two bottles of wine.
I nodded. "I'll do it."
"Yeah!" James and the others laughed. "Now this is entertaining."
"Come on, don't be ridiculous Aria. You can't get wasted while working," Damien muttered trying to sound like he cared.
"Then I'll get the money from your friends and quit the job!" I quickly pulled out my phone to text Ivy my location. I may not be able to move after drinking all that wine. After securing my ticket home, I picked the first bottle, closed my eyes and gulped it down my throat without stopping.
The wine, sweet at first, later turned my throat numb. Before the effect kicked in, I opened the second bottle and gulped it down as the guys cheered. When I was done, I dropped the bottle on the table and wiped my lips, my stomach had become bloated.
"Aria, are you okay?"
"Damien, stop it. Leave here alone!"
Endless rings of laughter. The world seemed to depart from me slowly but I was present.
As my sight blurred and doubled, I caught a movement in my peripheral vision. Unlike the way the world was depleting, a figure stood at least ten feet away from me.
"No," I said softly. It felt familiar, too familiar. For half an instant, I wondered if this is what alcohol does to people, or maybe I was really seeing what I believe I am seeing.
Because surely, surely that was the only explanation for me seeing a depressed ghost of an old man, gawking at me and lifting his finger.
It is a ghost.