King of the Mountain (Witchfire 2)

Chapter 2 - All Those Chickens

"Mostly," Damian admitted, hefting his bolt-cutters up to one of the combination locks left behind by last year's graduates. I felt a pang of guilt. Lawrence, Sail and I had come here to help him clear out the lockers for the new seniors, but as always, the boys had gotten distracted, I'd gotten caught up in their antics, and Damian had somehow wound up with the brunt of the work.

"What about the rest of them?" I asked. Year 7s were easy to manage and eager to please, but the transfers typically felt like they had something to prove. Thus they posed a more significant threat to the hierarchy that ensured order within our school.

"There's thirteen international students, ranging from Years 7 to 10," Damian elaborated, voice dropping a notch for the next part. "But there were also two senior transfers from Swan Hill Academy. I tried to run the customary background check, but the files were blocked and the staff refused to say why they left, only that it was good riddance."

I frowned, less than pleased at the news. It was highly unusual for anyone to risk transferring schools in their senior year, and even more unusual for the office staff at Swan Hill to forgo the opportunity to gossip about their previous students. The transfers either had friends in high places or had been booted off campus in a less-than-legal process that the school was trying to cover up.

"I'll look into it," I promised. Damian took the honest path in life, but I was better suited to the brambles of the path less taken.

He grunted, cutting through the next lock. It gave way with a satisfying crunch, and I made myself useful by wrenching open the door. Like so many of the lockers before it, this one was empty. Damian tossed the broken pieces of the lock into our designated bucket and moved on.

Not for the first time, I questioned the decision to put lockers in a boarding school for werewolves. Most of the kids kept their stuff in their dormitories, or lugged books around in their backpacks. What was the weight of a few books, after all, to a cohort of kids with superhuman strength and regenerative abilities? Even if we busted our backs carrying our books, they'd be set straight in no-time.

Not to mention that any of us could punch clean through the flimsy aluminium doors. The combination locks with silver-steel cores were pointless baubles, little better than fake security cameras designed to scare people into acting like civilised human beings.

Unless that's the point, I realised abruptly, eyes narrowing on the rows of blue doors. We weren't human beings; we were wolves wearing sheep skins, flying under the radar so that we could strike from the heart of the herd. These lockers weren't an illusion of privacy, so much as an illusion of civility. That they hadn't been destroyed only testified to the High Pack's uncompromising vision, achieved by our High Alpha of five consecutive years.

I hadn't been present for it, but I'd heard rumours of the time before Colden Forrester had claimed the mantle. Cut-throat brutes had been in constant competition for power, with nothing to structure their violence, nothing to separate it from their daily agendas. It had bled into classrooms, dormitories, even the cafeteria. Countless innocents had been hurt or killed in the cross-fire. Sail went quiet whenever the topic came up, and everyone looked the other way when they realised what they'd done, suddenly interested in anything else.

Crunch. Another lock gave way, and like clockwork, I wrenched open the door. Lollies and chocolates poured out, revealing an old vegemite jar full of loose change. One of last year's students must have been running a black-market milk-bar from this locker.

Ah, I realised, shaking my head ruefully. That was why we had lockers. For the discrete distribution of contraband goods.

Lawrence rushed in like a seagull, scooping up all the lollies. "I call dibs on the Zappos!"