[AT THE RYDER PACK]
"Things could have been different by now if I had chosen a different path," Judy Patrick thought to herself. She had escaped home when she was young and she thought it was going to be a one plus one.
She had hoped to find her best friend, Gal Ryder. But with no luck.
Being a kid on the streets, all alone. It was tough for Judy but she kept looking for Gal, she did cry every day thinking of how Gal was doing with her baby brother as she knew Gal was hiding and that meant staying in places where kids weren't supposed to be.
She had many reasons for her running away from home, but her main purpose was to find her best friend Gal Ryder so they would stay together.
However, the streets didn't belong to her. It was the worst few days of her life, the cold and hunger. She didn't want that to ever happen again.
Sometimes she blamed herself and thought of whether she would have met Gal if she had stayed on the streets for a bit longer and endured the cold and hunger, or maybe Gal had gone back to look for her at Ryder Pack and she wasn't there.
Why did Gal even leave her at Ryder's Pack in the first place, all alone? It wasn't like Gal didn't see Michael Patrick's true color that night.
Judy was angry not only at the world but also at Gal Ryder. She was the sister she never had, and when things got tough, Gal ran and left her at Ryder Pack to fend for herself.
Judy wanted to meet Gal and explain to her that she never knew what her father was planning.
And truly, she didn't.
She was young and happy to stay in a pack where everything was right and she had felt that was where she belonged.
Most importantly to be associated with the alpha's daughter and to be referred to as Gal Ryder's sister and best friend.
Growing up she used to sleep and think whenever she would wake up it was going to be alright, and that she would wake up next to Gal and they would plan what they were going to do for the day.
And that what had happened was just nightmares.
But they were not nightmares, it was real. Her best friend wasn't there.
And her life became the worst nightmare as she had to wake up every day and go through the same over and over.
The life of living with no father would have been better for Judy because Michael Patrick wasn't anywhere near being a father, she once was proud of. He was a stranger to her, and it became her normality.
She let her father be what and how he wanted to be.
She tried so much to be the daughter her father would be proud of, she did everything she could to make her father happy. But all those didn't matter, her father kept on expecting more and more from her.
She learned how to fight when young, and she was the best. She kept on pushing and pushing more and more, she learned how to cook, wash, to swim. She did everything she was asked to and with no questions.
Her father kept on sending different werewolves for Gal to practice with them how to fight, and every fight she won.
At first, she thought her father wanted her to fight for her own best interest but she realized it was not.
With no recognition and appreciation from her father, Judy acted out and her father would scold her.
Her heart shattered when her father explained to her why he wanted her to be the best fighter. She was to learn how to fight so she could fight against Gal Ryder one day, as her father explained to her he was very proud as if he was teaching his daughter better ways of living.
Some mornings for Judy were okay, and others were not.
The mornings she would wake up and be summoned by her father were the worst. It wasn't like she went there and do anything useful, she was called and sat there like a statue while her father ramble on and on about things that didn't even make sense.
Her brother was another thing, he was daddy's boy.
Judy didn't know how that even happened, they were best friends before she had run away from home, but after being brought back things changed with him.
"Maybe it was my fault, I am here angry at Gal when I left my brother," Judy scolded herself.
Even though she felt like it was her fault she was no longer friends with her brother she had tried over the years to reconnect with him and nothing, after a while she stopped trying maybe there was no way things would go back to the way they used to be.
That year was the hardest, in a month she had lost her best friend, her brother, her pack, and her father.
Judy wanted to slow down the time she was to meet her father, and she went to the fighting room. Which was next to where Ryder Pack's swimming pool used to be.
After everything that happened in Ryder's pack, Michael Patrick wanted to erase everything from there. And demolishing the swimming pool was one of them, and Judy always asked herself if that was even necessary.
It wasn't like Alpha Mia and her mate, or Beta Sheryl or Gal Ryder were going to come out of the pool and say to him, "Get you!"
Michael could have left the swimming pool as it was because he left the house as it used to be, with everything inside it.
Judy stared at the spot the swimming used to be and remembered Gal with her little cute swimming costume. She shook her head and entered the gym, it was early in the morning, and as much as she wished to revisit her childhood memories. She couldn't.
Everyone in the gym went quiet as soon as she entered, and they stared at her.
She didn't care.
She went to the treading machine and started exercising, she thought of how that felt stupid to her. It would be easier for the werewolves to transform and run instead of them working out in their human forms.
Was there any difference?
Well, it didn't matter because at least she gave the wolves a perfect chance to stare at her and gossip.