Wolf's Heart

Seventeen

A week after Calix had driven me to school, walked me in holding my hand, and kissed me goodbye before practice, in front of all our fellow students, Kelly Dames decided it was finally time to get over her initial shock, and continue on torturing me. 

“Well well well,” she said, sliding into the seat that would normally be Calix’s. “Finally scared him off?” She asked. 

“Kelly, the same insult over and over kind of loses it’s stinging effect eventually,” I sighed. 

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Where is he, anyway? You two are always together, and it’s no surprise. After all, you are the two weirdest kids at this dump.”

I sighed, and caught myself rolling my eyes. “He’s on a camping trip with his brother, actually,” I said, although I didn’t know why I was even defending myself. Kelly wouldn’t affect me anymore. 

“Right,” Kelly said, leaning back in her seat. Her tone was disbelieving. “Anyway, I only came over here to ask you a question.”

“You’ve already asked me two,” I argued, shaking my head at her. 

Kelly scoffed. “Don’t be an ass, Akina. Nobody likes a bitchy girl.”

I looked at her and raised my eyebrows. “Oh, really?” 

She ignored me, instead pulling out her phone. “I was just wondering,” she said, crossing her ankles in her skate-high Vans. “Why exactly he’s dating you? I mean, yeah, he’s kind of weird and quiet, and he always stares out the window like he sees something out there we don’t, but he is insanely hot. And he’s got, like, the most interesting eyes I’ve ever seen on a human being in my entire life.”

“Why, thank you, Kelly,” Calix said, walking up behind her. Kelly’s eyes widened, and she set down her phone, looking up at him quickly. She instantaneously recovered her composure; sitting up straight, batting her eyelashes, and smiling “seductively”.

“Oh, hi Calix! How are you? I thought you were camping?”

“Well, we had to come back early,” he said shortly, and shot me a look. I straightened up, my heart pounding in my chest. 

He and Damien had gone out into the woods yesterday as soon as school got out, and they hadn’t Shifted back to human, slept, or stopped searching the trees since. The pack had told them the day before that there was evidence of the scent of the man that had been outside my room nearing their territory, where the people of the pack would spend their time in the woods in their various forms; the little cabins where Calix had first taken me to show me that this all was real. 

The scent had also returned to my house multiple times, circling it, drawing nearer, and even once, leading right up the street and to the front door of my next door neighbor. 

We now knew that the man surely knew who I was, and knew that he wanted to take me back into his possession. However, we weren’t sure if he know what I was; he could simply think that I was still human.