Chapter 36. Never Going To Be 18

Lila’s POV

My life has never been perfect. Mom remarrying, us moving like a train on the move. Fluorescent pack, Nightgem pack, Eastmoore, and now Blackridge. It was me. Because of me when I moved. Because of me, my stepdad had always left. My life was always hanging on a thread. I was a child with an incomplete life. It felt like my life had been borrowed and one day I had to return it. I was always in and out of the pack’s clinic as a child. Pale, frail and weak and then the next month I would be fine, laughing and playing and when I thought I was normal, sick again and almost dying.

I really don’t remember when all of this started though. Maybe when I was seven or so? But I remembered the dizziness on the swing and an unexpected pain that caused me to gasp for air during a picnic. The doctors in Eastmoore appeared perplexed, but Mom always had a worried expression on her face and was always crying.

I knew I wasn’t normal. That I was breaking. Mom had said