We Are the Wolves

[20] Ding, Dead, Ditch

Saturday night, it took all of fifteen minutes for a Jack Willis and Rod-led senior meeting to fall into dissent and disarray. The class was clearly split between those who had no limits to Senior Prank day, those who didn't want it to ultimately be a chore for the custodial staff (or us for consequence), and those who didn't care. As the minutes passed by, I fell more and more into the latter category.

"So..what'd they do last year?" Andrew had muttered over to Evan, Bailee or Aaron who stood to my side. We were at the back of the crowd just listening.

"I don't know. I wasn't exactly around," Aaron mumbled, alluding to his standed-status as a wolf at the end of last academic year. Now, Andrew and I looked at a frowning Evan who looked down at Bailee.

"Officially, they bubble wrapped the gym floors and hallways and glued everything upside down on the teachers' desks and break room," Bailee answered.

"And unofficially?" I asked within a laugh.

"Unofficially," I heard a new voice say as Stella and Trevor walked up. Stella was the one doing the talking. "Travis Anchor set up some of his farm animals in the teacher's parking lot for a lunch-time petting zoo."

I questioned why that feat was considered so unofficial. "How'd they move all those cars?" Andrew asked.

"Ryder and Colin stole keys or hot-wired every car and moved 'em to the football field," Trevor answered with an obvious disapproval in his demeanor. As much as I initially thought it was impressively foolish, I found myself actually amused.

"And of course they got away with it," Evan scoffed.

"'No cameras,'" Stella quoted a likely defense Marc Ramon probably made for Ryder.

"Or Tank didn't want to publicly give a non-senior any credit."

"Where is Ryder by the way?" Bailee suddenly asked. She may have been keeping her relationship's details from us all, but mine were still fair game. But right now all I could do was shrug my shoulders because I actually didn't know. I knew he wasn't actually mad at me after last night's revelation of his resentment towards my forfeit used with Meena. In fact, we had gotten a quick breakfast this morning and he said he'd see me here at the lake and I trusted that. Him being fifteen minutes late to some arbitrary start time wasn't exactly alarming to me. If anything, it was me not being curious of his whereabouts right now because an apology had never been harder to forge towards him until I realized it this morning. I really wasn't sorry for waiving Imprint's Law for that instance. And like he said, he wasn't going to dictate my behavior any more than he was going to make me suffer through an apology I didn't mean.

"Yeah he's been so docile for so long I thought it was part of some grand scheme for the Senior Prank," Aaron laughed. "Maybe his Good Guy persona is to make up for the fact that his dad can't bail him out and he's not bangin' Stella to encourage her mom to make the charges disappear."

Even though he was jovial when he said it, the company he was around didn't exactly join him in laughing. I felt my eyes burning. One look at me and his chin wanted to duck down instantly even though his eyes burned with contempt. "Oh so now I'm in the wrong for–"

"Shh," Evan commanded before me or Trevor would aggress towards him. Afterall, Marc was the man who saved my life and there was a full moon coming up so my impulses were just waiting to pounce. Plus, Trevor didn't like anyone to reference Stella with Ryder, especially not in that very false and quid pro quo-esque dynamic. I don't think Aaron could handle the both of us attacking him at once.

"Come on," Bailee said and grabbed my wrist. "Let's go get something to drink." She pulled me away and Stella joined us, but as I passed Aaron, my Ryder-influenced-wolf had influenced my arm to knock off his hat in my commute.