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Chapter 7: Fate's Fickle Hand

By the time Kate had reached the main grounds of her home, she realized that something big was about to happen, as a mass had begun to gather near the base of her father's speech rock. She cared not to question what the gathering was about, but was grateful nonetheless for its presence because it further positioned her for what she was about to do. Attempting to draw as little attention to herself as possible to avoid being apprehended before she could reach the podium, Kate gave the majority of the crowd a wide birth, but it wasn't enough to avoid the ever watchful eye of her father.

"Kate," he called to her.

Kate heard, but ignored his call and set her eyes upon her objective which now lay only feet away from her.

Winston, seeing her intent focus on the speech rock, rose quickly to stop her, but Kate must have predicted such an action, for she took off in a dead sprint for his podium, catching the eyes of many others.

Winston took immediate action and moved to intercept her, but Kate leapt up onto its first ledge and began to climb, making quick work of its face and cresting its top in a matter of seconds.

"Everyone listen," she called over the group, silencing their confused babble.

Winston, being considerably older than Kate, was only a quarter of the way up with yet a long distance to climb.

"Are alphas and omegas really so different?" she asked them firmly, "we are all wolves. We all live, we all bleed, we all hurt, and we all love."

She paused, turning to gauge her father's progress, then returned her attention to the group below.

"I'm done with the lies and I'm done playing these stupid games," she yelled, "I love an omega, not Garth, and I don't give a damn about what the law says."

This statement brought about a gasp and an uproarious outburst from the gathering below.

"Love is not dictated by laws," she declared over the noise of the crowd, "nor is it dictated by social class, and I say that if an alpha loves an omega then dammit let them marry. What say you!"

The crowd fell silent as she finished and Kate watched them in great suspense, for this moment was absolutely crucial. She needed to know if she was captivating them.

However, she captivated them in a way that she had not intended.

There was a snigger from one individual which spread like a virus to the next until the entire crowd was alive with uproarious fits of hysteria.

Kate felt her heart drop then felt a paw land on her shoulder. She needed not to turn to see who it was, or what his intention was when he began to attempt to drag her away.

"No please you have to listen," she pleaded, struggling against Winston, "we don't have to be this way! Let me go!" she cried, failing yet again to pull free from his grasp.

Winston growled at her and began to drag her down the face of the formation.

"Kate, you have-"

"I agree with her!" a voice yelled over the laughter and chaos, causing it to immediately subside and all occupants turned to face the voice's owner.

"I agree with her," Garth said firmly, though he had to swallow at a nervous lump in his throat, "I don't love her," he stated, "I love Lilly."

Winston ignored him and continued to pull Kate away, kicking and screaming, so much to the point that his words went completely unheard by her, and Tony began to do the same to his son.

"You're both mad!" Tony yelled to Garth, dragging him roughly through the crowd.

Garth struggled against his father's might, but found himself merciless to his strength, despite the bad disk in his back.

"You two are married and you two are gonna stay that way," Tony growled, dragging him away, "we've worked too long and too hard to bring peace between us and I'll not have you f***ing it up!"

"Lilly!" Garth called over the entropy which surrounded him, "Lilly!"

But unbeknownst to him, the mass was one wolf short and would forever be, for earlier that day, when nobody was looking, she slipped away from the packs and ventured forth into the unclaimed territories beyond the borders.

A&?

"Kate just what in the hell do you think you were doing!" Winston yelled to his defiant daughter, who stood before him, glaring with a rim of tears glistening in her eyes.

"What I should have done a long time ago," she replied dryly, "what we are doing is wrong, and even if it kills me, I'll make sure that nobody has to suffer unrequited because of laws."

Winston growled.

"You have defied me, your pack, and you've defied the entire foundation upon which we were built!" he barked, stepping closer, "if you were anybody else, ANYBODY else, I would have killed you for this! This is treason!"

"So what!" Kate cried, "I've done nothing wrong; unless you want to take away from me my right to speak freely. Is that it? Control the mouth, control the population? Everybody has a say, but God forbid somebody says something you don't like-"

"Don't push me, Kate," Winston seethed, his body trembling with rage.

"Why?" she asked sternly, "You gonna hit me like you did to mom? Well go ahead if it makes you feel like a man."

Winston snarled and lifted his paw in the air, but Kate remained firm, not even blinking.

"Come on, tough guy!" Kate taunted, "do it! Hit your daughter!"

He paused for a moment, suspending his paw in the air.

"Hit me!"

Winston bellowed out a scream and brought his paw slamming into the wall of his den and turned away from her.

"You turn against your own pack, your own family?" he asked her, now more distraught than angry, "You're not my daughter."

These words impacted Kate like a hammer to her heart and she felt new tears begin to sting her eyes.

"Dad-" Kate pleaded to him desperately.

"Get out of here!" he screamed, whipping around and grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and throwing her out of the den.

Kate landed hard on her side and lifted her front half off of the ground, meeting her tear glazed eyes with his.

"Dad-"

He regarded her for the briefest of moments, then shook his head, turned away and stormed deeper into the den, leaving her alone out on its stoop.

Kate, overwhelmed by grief, found running away to be the only rational action at this moment, so she pulled herself to her paws and began to sprint down the ramp, sobbing loudly as she ran.

Just as she was reaching the bottom, Eve was beginning to make her ascent, but paused when she saw her daughter running toward her.

"Kate, what's-"

But Kate blew right past her and kept going without so much as an acknowledgement of her presence.

"Kate!" she called, but when she was again ignored, she turned her eyes up the ramp toward her home, being struck by an ominous sense of foreboding.

Apprehensive about what the future may hold, she made quick work of the ramp and entered her den, finding Winston to be sitting in the back of their home with his back facing her.

"Winston," Eve called to him, but he remained inert, his only motion being the steady rise and fall of his shoulders from his breaths.

Eve chanced to venture further into the den.

"Winston, I couldn't find Lilly anywhere," she began, "but what was that all about? What happened to Kate?"

"She is not my daughter anymore," he said to her monotonously, remaining motionless, "not after that."

"You disowned your own daughter?" she demanded, "Winston how-"

"I'm done playing these f***ing head games!" he yelled, whipping around to face her, "I'm sick of the defiance, Eve! I'm sick of the trouble she has been causing, and I'm sick of her. I'm done!"

"Winston she is still our daughter," Eve begged, "you can't-"

"It's already been done," he interrupted flatly.

Eve's look of concern faded into a bitter scowl.

"What will happen now, huh?" she demanded, "this whole pack is falling apart around us and we haven't even been united for a full day! Kate is the only one who can keep the peace between our packs. Please, be reasonable."

"Reasonable?" Winston growled, "listen to yourself! Listen to what she said! Everybody knows that their marriage will never work now! We're sunk, Eve, sunk!"

"Then meet with Tony and find another way," she suggested, "but please, you can't just shut Kate away like this. I don't blame her for being angry. I mean did you ever once ask her what she wanted, or did you do all of her decision making for her?"

Winston suppressed a growl.

"I'm not the only one who did," he reminded, "you are just as guilty as I am, and besides, what she wants is nothing short of a revolution."

Eve flattened her ears and sighed then met his eyes once again, having grown weary of the discussion.

"I'll address the pack and try to settle things down," she said to him, "but you have to go find her. I have a bad feeling about her being out all alone."

"All she needs is-"

"Dammit will you ever just listen to me!" Eve yelled, getting up in his face, "she needs you now more than she ever did, and if you don't go to her, you may never see her again. Now, I'm not asking you anymore, I'm telling you. GO TO HER!"

A&?

The sun's rosy face was now barely visible above the mountain range to the west, casting the last of its purple rays upon the park before it would duck behind the horizon, taking what remained of its light with it.

Kate continued to run through the dusk with no true destination in mind, but when she snagged her paw on a protruding root and fell to the ground, she decided that she had traveled far enough and broke down and began to sob.

All of this was her fault. The responsibility for every ounce of pain that everybody felt rested solely upon her shoulders, and the anger, the humiliation and the resentment that she felt was hers to burden.

She had so many conflicting emotions clashing about in her head. One moment she would be angry because nobody supported her. She could still hear their laughter haunting her, but then she would grow sad upon thinking back upon those stinging words that her father had said. These words and all of her self-loathing twisted and turned about inside of her head like an emotional roller coaster. She was disgusted with who she was and who she had allowed herself to become, and it was at this moment that she lost all feelings of self-worth. She had nothing left for her here but guilt.

Humphrey was gone, her parents hated her, and it was all her fault. Everything she touched eventually got destroyed.

She should just kill herself. That way she could not afflict the world with her disease any further.

She felt her heart rate skyrocket and felt her stomach twist itself into tight knots, for her mind informed her body of what she was planning and her body offered firm protest, but she had made her decision and nothing was going to sway that. This was the only way she could think of to fix everything.

Shakily she pressed herself to her paws and began to make her way to the railroad track.

A&?

Winston did not even know where to begin looking for his daughter. He had never actually taken the time to really sit down and talk with her after her return from Alpha School, or even before Alpha School for that matter, so he had no idea where she liked to go. This was one of the many realizations he had on his search for Kate, and the longer he searched, the clearer things began to become for him. He hardly knew a thing about his daughter, and if anybody were to ask him about her and what her interests were, he would have no idea what to say to them, because he didn't know, because he never took the time to ask. The only thing that he had ever seemed to care about was the role that she would serve as an alpha and how she could play such a role to unite the East and the West.

Now he felt awful.

How many times had he actually told her he loved her? He could probably count that number on his paw, and this only made him feel worse, because he knew that it was nowhere near enough.

He sighed.

What kind of father was he?

How could he even call himself that? He knew he did not deserve the title. There were so many things that he wished he could tell her now; there were so many things he would like to change. How he wished he could tell her how sorry he was for not listening to her, how much he truly loved her, and how different things would be now that he could finally see her world clearly, and how he wished he would have never gotten her into this mess in the first place.

With desperate eyes, he scanned the land before him, picking through the trees, peering through the grasses, and peeking around each large bolder he came across, but he just could not find her. He cursed and lowered his head, preparing to accept defeat.

But had he not done this, he might have missed one small detail that was crucial to his success in finding his daughter, for as he lowered his head, he allowed his eyes to close, setting him up to trip over the same root over which Kate had stumbled minutes ago. What led him so blindly down the same path she had taken remains a mystery, but when his paw became tangled in the root and he fell to the ground, he found himself to be lying before a faint blood trail.

He knew not whose blood he had found at first, but as a father, he had nursed a few of her wounds in his time, probably the only thing he had ever done right, and recognized the scent to be Kate's almost immediately.

He knew now that Fate was smiling upon him, for the blood trail not only indicated to him that she was not severely hurt, but was sufficient enough to lead him straight to her. But he knew he'd better hurry.

A&?

Kate was so lost in her oscillating emotions that she did not even recognize that when she had fallen, she had gashed her leg on a sharp rock, and only continued on her way toward the train tracks, oblivious of the pain. She had guessed that another train would be passing by the park shortly, and made haste to meet it before she lost her chance. She knew that she was being followed, for such an action would only make sense, but by who she had no idea, nor did she care just so long as it was not her father, because despite everything, she still loved him enough to want to spare him the pain of witnessing what she was about to do.

She crested a hill and took a moment to breathe and to assay the situation before continuing any further. She ran her eyes slowly over the land beneath her, watching both of her perpendicular vanishing points intently and listening keenly for the lonesome whistle which would signal the arrival of her fate, then began to make her way down the hill.

She had not travelled more than fifty feet when she heard the faint cry of the train and lifted her eyes to the track, now only a hundred yards away. To the left, she could see nothing, but to her right, she could see the dark plume of the coal train's smoke drawing near. Knowing that she had a limited window of time before the train passed, she quickened her pace slightly, approaching at a light jog. As she drew nearer to the tracks, her heart began to pound against the inside of her chest, almost to the point where she thought it would rupture, and she felt as though she would be sick, but she was not going to stop. She had convinced herself already that this was the only thing left for her to do, and could only hope that in her death, she could breathe new life into the park.

She reached the tracks with time to spare, the train being about a half mile away from her current location, and stood in their center, facing the oncoming locomotive with teary, yet bold eyes. She could feel the vibrations in the tracks increase as the train drew slowly nearer to her and heard two blasts of its whistle, signaling to her that the driver had seen her and was trying to frighten her away to avoid hitting her, but she was not going to move, nor was the train going to stop, for stopping so suddenly at the speed at which it traveled would be a lot more costly than the life of one foolish wolf.

Kate breathed hard, sniffling a couple of times, for her body screamed at her that it did not want to die, but her mind was set and willed it to remain despite its greatest protest. Her legs shook and tears rolled through the fur on her her cheeks, and still the train drew closer, now barreling toward her at a closing distance of an eighth of a mile.

A&?

Winston panted breathlessly as he followed her blood trail to the top of the hill then paused to rest and to evaluate the lay of the land beneath him, hoping that from this vantage point, he could spot his daughter before he lost her yet again, for the trail was thinning. However, it did not take him long, for there she was, two hundred yards beneath him, standing directly in the middle of the tracks. Winston's heart dropped and his stomach leapt into his throat and it was then that he saw the train.

"Kate no!"

A&?

Closer the train roared, its pilot trying desperately to frighten Kate from the tracks, but still she remained. As came natural when instinct told her she was in peril, the fur on her mane and back bristled on end, but even the innate will to live shared amongst all creatures could not convince her to leave. Over the wail of the whistle and the rattle of the tracks, she could hear the grind and groan of the steel wheels which churned restlessly toward her, seemingly eager to meet her flesh. Ready to accept her end, she closed her eyes.

A&?

Never before had Winston been so frightened, and never before had he run as fast as he did now. He took not the time to navigate down the hill, rather slid down its face, and now carried himself so swiftly across the earth that his paws barely contacted the ground.

"Kate!" he called desperately, closing in at one hundred yards.

A&?

Over the clatter and roar of the approaching train, Kate could almost swear that she heard a voice find purchase on her ears.

Curious, she allowed her eyes to peel themselves slowly open.

"Kate!" she heard clearly this time.

"Dad?" she asked, turning to see him moving swiftly toward her.

"Kate move!" Winston begged.

Kate regarded him briefly, then turned to the front once more, seeing the train closing in at fifty yards.

"No Kate!" Winston pleaded, "please I'm sorry!"

The whistle cried again, pleading with her to move, but Kate simply turned to her father, sniffled, then looked him dead in his eyes.

"Me, too," she said to him.

Time at this moment seemed to slow down. Winston recalled crying out for her again as she sent out her final word, but had his voice choked inside of his throat upon seeing what happened next.

Kate's legs were clipped first by the train's plow and she became airborne for a brief moment before her back slammed into the face of the steamer. Kate was killed instantly at this moment, for as she struck, she had done so with such great force that nearly every bone in her body was either broken or smashed into meal. Her head whipped backward and struck the train, splitting open upon impact and spraying a sickly mixture of pink and crimson as its contents were splashed all over the tracks, then her body reflected off of the face of the train and helicoptered backward, being overcome and then blocked from view by the many cars which lumbered quickly past.

"No!" Winston cried and rushed toward the train, but slammed his paws into the ground and slid to a stop when the train roared in front of him.

"Kate!" he screamed over the noise of the train which thundered past, trying to locate her in the gaps between the cars.

He stood, waiting impatiently for it to pass, tears rolling down his face, then grew tired a of waiting and began to run parallel to the train in the direction opposite of it, and once he finally reached the caboose, he rounded the train and sprinted toward where he saw Kate go down.

"Kate!" he cried desperately.

In the back of his mind he knew she was dead, but he would not believe that until he saw it for himself. Hope told him that she was still alive somewhere out there, but his subconscious voice of reason spoke to him the undeniable truth.

So, blinded by his tears and his sorrow, he ran until finally he saw a tan and crimson mound lying inert in the otherwise green grass beside the tracks.

"Kate!" he cried and slid to a stop at her side.

"Kate," he said softly, looking over her mutilated body in shock.

She lay over on her right side, her legs twisted beneath her body in obscure positions. The back of her skull was now a gaping hole, out of which dripped many globs of blood and brain matter, one of her sides was split open, revealing the disintegrated remnants of what were once her ribs, and the bloody cavity inside of which her now liquified organs once functioned so cleverly to keep her healthy and alive. Her eyes were half closed and blood rolled from her open mouth, down her protruding tongue and pooled in the grass beneath her.

Winston shook violently as he stared down upon her, his breath quivering and tears streaming down his face.

"Kate," he choked softly and laid a paw on her shoulder, but when he removed his paw and saw it coated in her blood, he lost it.

He collapsed onto his haunches and lowered his head, sobbing loudly.

"Kate!" he cried, lying down and wrapping her body in his arms, "Kate!"

He choked and lifted his head, looking desperately around.

"Help!" he screamed, his voice echoing off of the land before him, "somebody please help!"

His voice echoed all around and then slowly faded, lacing him in silence save the groan of the train as it continued onward into the yond and then disappeared over the horizon.

A&?

Humphrey's eyes popped open and his head shot quickly up from the ground as a faint, but oddly familiar scream assaulted his ears.