Page 23 of A Second Chance for the Beta

I let my thoughts move back to that moment in front of the building.

They were playing basketball.

My heart skips a beat while Nefeli goes still momentarily. I’ve blended out everyone around me and find myself getting up and hurrying to the door. Ripping it open, I find a young man standing there and a girl with purple hair next to him.

“I’m sorry,” the girl mutters. “It wasn’t me who took the wallet, though. It was—”

“Charlie!?” I breathe out.

“Yes,” she blinks in confusion. “How do you know my name?”

I clasp my hand over my mouth, tears stinging in my eyes. I can feel it so clearly, the bond to her. Her wolf is still dormant because she is so young, but her wolf is there. I don’t have a nephew. I have a niece!

Charlie peeks into the room, eyeing everyone curiously. “Lorenzo?”

“Charlotte,” Lorenzo smiles as he gets up. “It’s good that you are here. I want you to meet someone.”

*CHARLIE*

I knew it was stupid the moment Sally decided to do it. The man looked like good money, and Sally and her gang are pros at stealing from them. I normally stay away from them; they suck and are bullies.

But something drew me to the woman and the man. The woman in particular feels so familiar, and I don’t even know why. I’ve always felt so different; it’s like a voice whispers to me sometimes. The voice is here now, silently pushing me to… her.

I’m sure I’ll be in trouble when I’m dragged towards the meeting room. As usual, Sally blamed it all on me, and as usual, no one believed me. Now I’ll have to face that serious-looking tall man and the mysterious woman.

It’s when I’m right in front of the door that she runs outside. She is in a talk with Lorenzo, the one person around here who doesn’t suck, but I’m not seeing him a lot as he works somewhere else.

“Charlie,” she blurts out, repeating my name over and over again.

Who the fuck is she?

And how does she know me?

“You’re a girl,” the woman says, smiling at me through her tears.

I grunt in annoyance. “Yeah, isn’t it obvious?”

The supervisor glares at me, but the woman just smiles. “I was searching for a boy named Charlie,” she admits. “I’m Ella, by the way.”

Ella reaches out her hand. Out of a reflex, I take it to return the gesture. It’s warm, and something keeps tugging me towards her. I’ve felt so empty recently, more and more each day, but her presence seems to fill me up. Although this makes me sound like a nutcase.

Damn, I alreadyama nutcase, so who the fuck cares? I tend to dream shit that feels way too real, and when I told the counselor here about it, they wanted to get me mentally checked.

“Who are you?” I ask once again, curiosity winning over.

“It’s a bit difficult to explain,” Ella says. “Would you come in and talk to us?”

I nod tentatively while stepping inside the meeting room. My gaze meets the tall, muscular guy who puts his hand on Ella’s shoulder. Fuck, right, the dude Sally took the wallet from.

“It was Sally,” I blurt out. “I swear it wasn’t me.”

Ella blinks. “What do you mean, Charlie?”

It’s weird; no one calls me Charlie, but it sounds oddly familiar and comforting when she says it.

“The wallet. I’m sorry, I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” the man reassures me, making me blink. The supervisor hands it back to him, looking annoyed. I bet he will chew my ear off later for not admitting to what I did. Doesn’t matter that it wasn’t me. To them, Charlotte sucks so much, she is always at fault. “I’m Dante,” the man introduces himself. “Ella’s m…an.”