Wolf Woes

Chapter 4: Josie's Home (Pt 1)

"I'm fine," she answered. Freya gave her a stern look, which made her uncomfortable. She hated how her aunt could read right through her sometimes. "I'm just restless. I need to change, but I can't. Which is making the feeling more intense. I was just coming to see if you wanted to spar Dr. Saltzman. I can see you're busy though, so I'll just go see if MG or Raf will spar with me instead."

"Are you sure?" Alaric asked.

"Yeah," she insisted, then turned and left before they had a chance to change her mind. She quickly went back to her room to change, then headed to the gym. She looked for MG and Rafael on her way, but neither could be found.

She found Rafael in the gym, punching away at the punching bag. She convinced him to fight with her, even though he seemed hesitant. She could tell he was going easy at first. Clearly, he was afraid of hurting her, even voicing the concern a few times. It took her a few minutes to get him to realize it takes a lot to hurt her.

In the end he started to fight with meaning, and despite doing well, she had him pinned to the floor in no time. She felt a little better afterwards, allowing her to sit and chat with him for a while. She hadn't really talked with him since before his dead girlfriend walked through the school's front doors. She asked how he was doing, and he asked what was going on with her. They discussed Landon for a while. She wanted to know how he was doing. Making sure he was settling in okay, and if everyone was being nice to him?

Rafael assured her he was doing fine but warned her that if she didn't want to be with him to just tell him. Apparently, Landon had spent the entire day thinking she was avoiding him. Which wasn't far off from the truth. Every time she'd see him during the day when he was alone, she turned the other way. She knew she had to have a conversation with him, just wasn't ready yet. She still had a few things to figure out. Like what she was feeling.

Hope left Rafael to go shower, then went to find MG and Penelope. She found in the library, reading through the collection of wolf books Dorian had gathered for them. They each found a few passages here and there that could be linked, but most of it had noting to do with the breed of werewolf she was. They came from legends about human looking beasts, or wolves that could change a will, or werewolves that were created by a bite, not born. They dismissed everything they found as myth, instead of factual.

When it came time to pack it in for the night, Hope returned to her cell alone. She laid on her cot, unable to sleep. Her racing mind wouldn't shut up long enough for her to drift off to dream land. Around two, she finally gave up, and grabbed her tablet. She knew it was early in London but hoped that maybe her friend was already awake. She sent her a message and waited impatiently for a response. After a minute, her tablet bagan ringing.

A few second after hitting the answer button, Josie's sleepy face came onto her screen. "Did I wake you?" she asked worried.

"No," Josie replied quietly. "I was already awake."

"You look sleepy," remarked Hope.

"I didn't get much sleep," Josie explained. "It's late there. Why are you still awake?"

"Can't sleep."

"Are you still in wolf jail?"

"Yeah," Hope groaned. "Only for nights though. They're letting me out to go to classes now."

"That's good," Josie chirped.

Hope smiled at her enthusiasm. At least one of them was happy about it. "How are you doing?"

Josie sighed, "I'm okay. We convinced that girl to come. Lizzie's happy about it. She likes her. They talked all through dinner and have even been messaging each other since. I think Lizzie may have found a true friend. She doesn't really have anyone besides me to hang out with. It's hard for her sometimes because she says things without thinking first."