Against The Alpha- ON HOLD :(

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I woke up, stretching and yawning. I look at the time and jump out of my sleeping bag, realizing that I’m gonna be late if I don’t hurry up. I shoot out of my most recent hideout a few minutes later and bolt down the sidewalk towards my school. The warning bell rings just as I skid to a stop a couple feet before my classroom door. I brace myself for the inevitable onslaught of insults I’ll get when I set foot inside my classroom.

Maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Zara Maddox, a 5’9” brown-haired, green-eyed, unnaturally skinny, 17 year old werewolf, and homeless as well as parentless. I Know what you’re all thinking, “shouldn’t she be in a foster home?” well, I’m a werewolf so who knows what kind of family I’d end up with. I don’t want a bunch of nosy human parents bothering me about my “weird” habits or anything. And technically, I'm not actually parentless. My dad’s an abusive drunk and my mom is a weak woman who goes along with him because he's her mate. If mates make people that weak that they refuse to defend their own child, then I'm glad I don’t have one. I ran away after dealing with all of their bs for years.

If I told you even half of what I’d been through, you’d understand why I ran away. But anyways, since I’ve never been a part of a pack, I don’t know much of anything about werewolves because my parents couldn’t be bothered to teach me anything. All I really know is we shift into wolves at sixteen, although I only know that little tidbit because it happened, we have soul mates, we are supposed to have generally heightened senses, and you can always talk to your wolf.

I say we are supposed to have generally heightened senses because, from a combination of lack of proper nourishment and all the energy my wolf has always had to put into healing me, she is even more weak than I am and I haven’t shifted since the time I ran from my last temporary home a couple months ago. Usually your wolf would be forcing you to shift at this point, but my wolf hasn’t even noticed how much time has passed since her last shift. I'm really concerned about her, she has come close to death multiple times throughout our life, and without her, I’d have no one.

Right now, I’m residing in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay. I really hope that the water will mask my scent better than all my other hiding spots. My original home was all the way in California, but my parents moved us to Florida for a while because they said “they” were onto us. I always assumed they meant the cops that had heard about my bruises and scars from my teachers, but I never really knew.

Oh and how do I have scars, you ask? My wolf was always too busy trying to keep me alive to be concerned with some scarring on my skin. Anyways, no matter what part of either state we lived in, my parents insisted we live in the most populated places possible. My parents did a lot of weird things, but I always chalked it up to them being nervous about all of their dirty secrets. I first ran from a house we had right next to Disneyland. Happiest place on Earth? Yeah right. They loved it there because my screams went unnoticed, blending with the many screams of joy coming from inside the park.

I ran and didn’t stop until I got to a small random town hours later. I formed a life there, but only weeks after I arrived, my parents found me, so I ran again. I’ve been repeating the process for almost three years now.

Anyways, back to school. This is a mixed werewolf and human school. The werewolves form up the “popular” crowd, and the humans all follow them around like lovesick puppies. It’s repulsive in my opinion, not that anyone cares what I think. I hate physical contact, it almost makes me cry whenever someone raises their hand, and every cruel word they say digs a knife deeper into my heart. Of course, none of them would ever have the joy of seeing me cry, but it can be hard not to sometimes.

This is a fairly rich school, so showing up at school with holes in your shoes is considered a fashion statement by any other person, but on me, I'm just a poor loser. It’s hard to earn money because most people refuse to hire a seventeen year old without a parent’s signature, so I’ve gotten into some slightly shady jobs before, but my resume has been built up with lots of jobs, making it easier to get hired. In this town, I got a job at a swim shop selling suits and stuff.

One of the only things I take joy in anymore is swimming, which is weird since many wolves would rather run. It’s hard to find a place to swim without people though, since I have tons of scars. Being in Maryland makes it a bit easier because I can just swim in the bay because I don’t care how gross the water is. Anyways, enough about my problems and past.

Now, it’s time for class.