Page 17 of A Second Chance for the Beta

*ELLA*

Icarefullymanagetobalance the boxes I’m carrying. They are supposed to go to the kitchen and are filled to the brim, making my arms tremble due to their weight. Before I go to school, I have to help in the kitchen. All of us orphans have tasks to do before or after school. We barely have time for anything else. Most of my fellow orphans drop out of school for that reason. It’s just too tiring, but school is all I have, and I’m eager to do anything to make it work.

Normally, the other kids avoid me like the plague. The only reason I’m not getting too violently bullied is that they are scared of me ever since I broke one schoolmate’s hand for groping me.

The alpha had his minions beat me up for it later, but it was worth it to hear the petty sob cry. Ever since I was born, they believed I was the incarnation of the devil. A traitor’s child, my traitor-ness probably being contagious. Whatever they believe, I don’t give a fuck as long as they leave me alone.

This year, things are different. It’s my last year in middle school, and one girl approached me for a group project. I thought it was just an act, but she stuck around, and now that I’m going to high school, she even chose the same classes I did. She doesn’t ask for anything but instead seems to be interested in me as a person. Her name is Annie. A few weeks later, she dragged another kid to our group. I never wanted to make friends, but these two are kind of hard to get rid of.

This year might be the first time in my life with friends, and I will be damned if I let my shitshow of a pack ruin this.

I’m so much in my thoughts, I hear them too late to be able to react.

“Here she comes,” a voice whispers, and then a hand comes forward. I try to dodge it, but they still manage to push me down the staircase. The groceries are all over the floor, my ankle aching. I probably sprained it when I fell.

When I look up, I notice some older kids snickering slightly. One of them is the gamma’s son, Graham.

“That’s where you belong,” he snickers. “Face first in the dirt for being that traitor’s daughter. I don’t even know why the goddess blessed them with a child. You are just dirty!”

I feel anger filling me for… I don’t know what for. I scramble to my feet, glaring at the boys and taking a step forward. Graham looks insecure all of a sudden.

“I’ve heard she is cursed,” one of the boys whispers.

“Of course she is,” Graham huffs. “She is a mistake.”

Aside from the blatant anger I feel, my heart aches too. He isn’t wrong… My parents tried to kill the alpha but died while taking it up with his men. I was a baby back then; the only reason I was spared. Everyone else siding with them got killed, including their children.

Maybe I was a mistake.

Graham looks at me like he wants to challenge me, but when we hear footsteps approaching, they run in different directions. To my horror, the beta appears out of nowhere, his eyebrows furrowed when he looks down at me, his gaze full of venom. “You are so useless,” he spats out. “Our alpha shows you mercy for not killing you, yet you can’t even do the simplest tasks.”

I’m contemplating telling him I was pushed, but history has proven that it doesn’t make anything better. I expect him to grab me and tug me to the dungeons, beat me up, and lock me in there like he used to, but he just glares at me. “Just leave,” he hisses.

“What… but the kitchen…” I stutter.

“Just get lost, mutt. The alpha doesn’t want to see you in the packhouse again! Grab your things from the orphanage.”

What does he mean? I stare at him in shock.

“Unless the alpha summons you to the pack, you are supposed to stay out.”

“And where am I supposed to stay?” I say, not minding that my question might be challenging him.

Something in his eyes flashes, but he doesn’t act on it. What the fuck is going on? They are kicking me out of the pack, and why is he so pissed about it?

“Your backstabbing parents had a small apartment in town. They hid it from us,” the beta growls.

Oh, so they weren’t able to steal that apartment from me in time? They could still take it from me, though. What’s the big deal? Don’t they want any attention on them? I try to ask more, but the beta shuts me up every time. I’m scared to push my luck and don’t want to be hit and dragged to the dungeons like the last time I had one of the ranked members on my case. I almost expect this all to be a sick joke, a trick to get me off the pack grounds, make me rogue, and then kill me. But nothing alike happens.

A few hours later I find myself in a tiny one-room apartment. There is an envelope arriving at night, with a bit of money in it. I grab my phone, not sure what to do now… the phone was a gift from the kid Annie brought into our last group assignment. A human guy named Dave. I hid it well so that no one would be able to take it from me.

When I switch it on, I see a message popping up from Annie. “Hi, wanna hang out next weekend? We could work on the project or just hang out.”

I blink, realizing I’m all on my own. Solitude is bad for wolves, and while I wasn’t made a rogue, I know it’ll still put a strain on me to be all alone, but despite that… It also means I’m away from my abusive pack.

I contemplate her offer for a long while. I’ve had people approach me and pretend to be my friends just to drop me later and make fun of me, but Annie has been putting an effort into getting to know me ever since middle school.

I don’t know yet if I can trust Annie, but well… I’m on my own now. Can at least give this a try.