Cryptic Cravings 3

Chapter 5: Setting Things Right

"Of course not! No relationship there; you'll probably just bang her! Fuck buddies, I'm sure," she sneered.

Anger flared up, in both of us this time, and I jumped forward but Austin caught me around the waist tightly while I heard the chairs of my Pack mates screech as they all stood next to us, glaring at Caroline.

"Take it back," I growled at her, upper lip curling back.

Her brown eyes popped and everyone in the entire cafeteria fell silent at our exchange.

"Take it back now," I snarled, digging my fingers into Austin's arm.

"I-I-I I'm s-sorry," she stuttered, stumbling backwards before she turned tail and ran off. Austin waited another moment to make sure I was calm enough before he loosened his hold. As much as I hated to, I pushed his arm away and stepped away slightly. No reason to make my Pack suspicious.

"Shows over everyone," Lena said sternly, her voice carrying through the quiet cafeteria. After a long moment everyone cautiously returned back to chattering with their friends, mostly they were talking about what just happened but at least they weren't gawking...as much.

"Thank you...for that," I said to Austin, smiling, "You know...holding me back when I wanted to rip her throat out."

He shrugged, "No problem. I figured she'd say something stupid; it's kind of the way she is," he said, reaching a hand up to me before he let it drop awkwardly, "Um...do you by chance know where your sister is?" he asked.

"Why?" Matt butted in, "What do you have to do with Lily?"

Clearly, he didn't like Austin going anywhere near my sister...probably because he was afraid Austin would hurt her since she was human.

Which was stupid.

"Matt," I said firmly, "What he has to do with Lily is none of your business."

"No it's alright," Austin said quickly before he turned to Matt, "I just wanted to apologize to her for Caleb's behaviour...well my behaviour in her eyes. I'm trying to set right everything Caleb did; and he harassed Lily so I wanted to make sure she was okay after that."

"Oh," Matt said, deflating. He couldn't find anything wrong with that.

"Well I haven't seen her," I shrugged, scanning the cafeteria quickly, "But she could be in the library. I heard her talking about having a huge project to work on."

"Thanks, I'll head over there then," he said with a quick nod.

I winced, "I'll go with you. She's still...not over it."

It was hard to forget how angry she'd been about Austin; clearly she was not in the mood to talk to him and I can at least act as a buffer between the two.

He grimaced but nodded.

"I'll be back soon, okay?" I said to Matt before I gave him a quick hug and left with Austin, resisting the urge to take his hand or jump on his back or just to touch him in general.

I could see he was having the same problem, he had his hands stuffed in his pockets and he kept glancing up at me, pursing his lips as we walked through the empty halls to the library.

"So...when you say 'not over it' do you mean she hates me guts or she's just mildly upset?" he asked.

"The former," I said, forcing a smile, "But it'll be okay...I think."

"Caleb's an ass, I hope he went straight to Hell," he shook his head ruefully.

"You and me both," I sighed as we came to the library. We went inside and immediately went to the second floor where there were book cases up against the walls but mainly it was just tables for working and computers for easier/quicker research.