Chapter 2

• Aria.
• I woke up with a start, my heart hammering in my chest as if I had just been ripped out from a nightmare. Which I had. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. But I knew I didn’t feel the comfort of home.
• The room was dim, and there were low murmurs of sleep and the faint scent of wolves around the room. The pain in my shoulder brought it all back. The attack, the night everything changed.
• The midnight black wolf.
• The fear…
• I was in Ravencrest.
• The sting from the bite made me hiss in pain as I shifted in my narrow bunk bed. My fingers carefully touched the bandaged area on my right shoulder where he had bitten me. The wound was only partially healed because my healing process wasn’t as quick as it should be, due to my underdeveloped wolf.
• It’s been a month since that night, a month since I had seen my parents. A month since my home, my pack had been destroyed, and we were dragged here to live under Ravencrest rules.
• I looked around the room, the sun rising and casting its glow into the huge room they had packed all the Silverwood wolves in. While a lot of my people had escaped, many of us were also captured. They had separated us into those above eighteen and those below eighteen.
• The wolves below eighteen had been given no choice and forced to be integrated into their schools, where they would watch us and monitor our movements, forcing us into their pack.
• The older ones above eighteen had been asked to swear allegiance, but what people lacked in strength, they made up in stubbornness. And they had refused, devoting themselves to our pack. Being loyal. But Ravencrest had been forced to put them into prisons until they changed their minds. Safe to say all the wolves above eighteen were in their dungeons while the rest of us had been packed into this room, monitored, stripped of everything we valued, and finally forced to attend their high school.
• “Another bad dream?” I heard a soft voice as I turned to face my best friend, who was climbing to the top of the bunk, my bed. Lila had auburn hair that was pulled into a messy bun, and her soft hazel eyes were drowsy from sleep.
• “Yeah,” I answered softly, bringing my knees to my chest as Lila sat beside me, staring at the ceiling.
• “Me too.” She admitted, tucking her hair behind her ears as she sighed. “I can’t stop thinking about that night.” I watched her look around the room; the other members of our pack were all sleeping; they looked tired.
• “Everyone looks so tired, so lost and hopeless. Ravencrest has drained the life out of us.”
• “I miss home.” I whispered, my voice cracking as Lila nodded.
• “Do you think they found Alec?” She asked. My heart clenched at Lila’s older brother’s name. She had grown up with him when her parents had passed away two years ago in a fire.
• “I’m sure he’s ok. If anyone would survive, it’s Alec.”
• Lila smiled softly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I hope so. It’s just… I don’t know how to stop worrying. Every day gets harder. the last couple of weeks, we’ve been working on their farms and doing all sorts of menial jobs, and now they want us to go to school with them.” Lila scoffed.
• I exhaled at the thought. The idea of going to school with the same people who had attacked us just a few weeks ago brought knots to my stomach. It was all we had heard about last week. The Ravencrest wolves had made it clear to us during an announcement that their goal was to integrate us into their pack, forcing us to attend their high school as part of their effort to ‘train’ us and ‘give us a better life.’
• “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to imagine what it’s like to sit in the same class with the people who murdered our friends and destroyed our pack.” I said angrily.
• “Me neither.” Lila glanced at my shoulder, her expression softening. “Does it still hurt?” She asked.
• “Just a little.” I lied; the bite wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me that night. It was the humiliation that came with the pain, the submission, and the way the wolf—no, the man—had forced me to yield and submit to him. That had hurt more than the physical wound he had inflicted on me. And if I found him, I would make him pay.
• “Do you think we’ll ever go back home?” I asked quickly, trying to change the subject so I didn’t worry Lila about the pain anymore.
• I didn’t answer because I didn’t know if we would ever go back home, and just as Lila was about to say something again, the doors burst open.
• “Oh moon goddess!” Lila grumbled under her breath as my stomach sank at the familiar sound of the morning bell, loud and shrill, making all the others jump.
• The bright lights flickered on, blinding me for a moment before they illuminated the cramped room.
• “Wake up, Silverwood!” A sharp voice barked, one that I had heard every morning.
• I turned to the sharp, no-nonsense Ravencrest member at the door of the room. She was the dorm leader, the one in charge of making sure we were awake, dressed, and shoved to the assembly grounds for our daily duties. But today, instead of her usual routine of calling our names and assigning us to our posts, she had with her a big plastic wheel cart that had something that looked like uniforms in it.
• Her steel gray eyes scanned the room with the same precision as a hawk before they stopped on Lila in my bed. Her eyes narrowed as she walked towards our bunk.
• “Lila Monroe.” She spat with anger. “If I remember correctly, your sleeping position is right under Aria Langston. What are you doing on her bed?”
• Lila stiffened beside me as she started to speak. “I was just talking to Aria…”
• Mrs. Holt raised an eyebrow. “About what? Were you both planning an escape?”
• “No!”
• “No!”
• We both said it in unison, but she only rolled her eyes as she started to walk away. “Lila Monroe, you have dinner duty tonight. Next time you’ll be in bed at lights out.”
• I watched Lila's shoulders slump as she muttered. “Yes, ma’am.” Then she slid back to the bottom bunk without another word. I could only glare hatefully at the back of Mrs. Holt’s gray head.
• “Eyes on me, Silverwood!” She barked again as some others widened their eyes, trying to fight back sleep as they looked up at the woman that terrorized us every morning. She stood in front of the room.
• “Today is your first day at Ravencrest High. I want you all washed, dressed, and ready in an hour. Every single one of twenty of you would be outside and ready to go at eight.”
• I heard the sound of grumbling as a few of us rolled out from their bunks, annoyed.
• “Does anyone have anything to say to me?!” She barked again as the room fell silent.
• “I thought so.” She said as she reached for the cart. “You’ve all been assigned uniforms with your name tags on them. You would be wearing them to school every everyday, you have two pairs each and one training pair. There are school bags, school shoes of various sizes, notebooks, and any stationery you would need in the cart. Pick two each and keep them safe; they would not be replaced if they go missing. Other notebooks and textbooks would be provided in school.”
• I saw one of my pack members raise her hand. Mary was one of the smartest in our pack, and she took her studies very seriously.
• Her voice filled the room. “We didn’t wear uniforms in our old pack.” She said sternly.
• Mrs. Holt smirked at her. “Does this look like Silverwood to you?” She asked as Mary visibly swallowed.
• “Answer me!”
• “No, ma’am.” She answered, her jaw ticking in suppressed anger.
• “Good. Because Ravencrest is nothing like your weak, little pathetic excuse of your pack. We are about six thousand times larger than your pack, and over here we have an order of doing things. You would obey them, or you would be thrown in prison. Is that understood?”
• “Yes.” Mary answered again.
• “Perfect. And anyone who dares ask any stupid questions or who is late to assembly will be given dinner duty along with Lila Monroe. Now get ready and meet me outside for your sandwiches.” She finished before looking around again; finding nothing to complain about, she left us, and everyone breathed in relief.
• “I can’t believe this!”
• “School with the Ravens?” Ravens, a name we had given to every member of the Ravencrest pack.
• “Cowards.”
• Murmurs filled the room as everyone moved to the cart to get their uniforms and other things. A few of the much younger wolves seemed excited, while the teens were annoyed.
• “They are making us go to school after they attacked us?” I asked Lila as we reached for the uniforms and carefully looked through for ours.
• “It’s their way of making us fall in line. Force us into their world and make us forget ours.” She answered.
• The uniforms weren’t as flashy as I had expected. Just a plain white button-up shirt with a dark blue sweater vest with the embroidered Ravencrest High School logo of a raven in front of a wolf shield and a moon above it. Then a dark blue pleated short skirt, a dark silver tie, and a pair of dark blue knee-length socks.
• I found mine and the name tag attached to it.
• “Aria Langston. Status: Omega. Strength: 3/10. Origin: Silverwood Pack.” I scoffed. “Seriously?”
• “What’s wrong?” Lila asked, looking away from the cart and at my name tag as her eyes widened in disbelief.
• “They put our status and strength in our tags. As if being here wasn’t humiliating enough.”
• Lila winced as she quickly found her uniform and frowned in disappointment. “Lila Monroe. Status: Omega. Strength: 2/10. Origin: Silverwood Pack.”
• For a moment we stood in silence, letting the shame settle in. It wasn’t just embarrassing; it was cruel. Having our status displayed like that for everyone to see felt like a reminder of how insignificant we were.