Bonding With The Enemy (BxB)✔

Chapter 1 - Bad Memories

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."

- Charles R. Swindoll

---

The clinking of china filled the small Cafe' as patrons carried on with their breakfast, unaware of the ghosts that joined them. There were only two that Darren could see, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a woman in a bright yellow jumper. The man was sitting at a booth staring out the window, not paying attention to the living teens who now sat beside him. The woman on the other hand had come in along with a couple and their small child. She seemed particularly attached to the little girl that tugged at her mothers hand with a slight pout.

    Darren did his best not to look in their direction. Every time a ghost noticed he could see them, they'd start to haunt him until he agreed to do some ridiculous favor. When he was younger and had more free time he was fine with it. Nowadays it was extremely tiresome, especially since he never got anything for helping the dead in the end. Well, nothing except threats and the wonderful title of 'fraud'.

    Sitting by the window, he was grateful to be alone now. The smell of toast and bacon wafted through the air as waitresses wandered around, offering refills to anyone who made eye contact. Soon a bus would arrive out front to take him home.

    Home...

    He scoffed into his cup of orange juice. That place had never been his home. The only memories he had of it were nightmares of being bullied. He remembered how the adults ignored his pleas for help when his old rival and his gang of goons harassed him. He'd been called every name imaginable and even had things thrown at him, yet when he tried to speak up about it they would always tell him to ignore the bullies. Even his own parents chose to look the other way.

    He knew the bullying stemmed from the fact that he could see ghosts. To a normal student, it appeared as though Darren was having conversations with himself. Once or twice he had even snapped at a more annoying spirit, which resulted in him being sent to the counselor and getting diagnosed with a minor bipolar disorder. Seeing the dead only seemed to complicate his life. It might have helped to clear things up and explain that he was talking to ghosts, but he knew better than to reveal his supernatural abilities to anyone, even his parents.

    The secrecy wasn't because he was worried no one would believe him. He was a werewolf after all, and so were his parents, neighbors, and teachers. Everyone in his pack was. No, the problem was that supernatural abilities were coveted by Alphas, and pack members with such abilities were forced to become Betas.

    Darren grit his teeth, realizing he might bump into his old Alpha when he returned. The Alpha was the bane of his childhood, right next to Jasper.

He snapped out of his thoughts when a bus pulled up to the stop out front, it's dark red figure looming in the rainy afternoon. Hurriedly he placed a twenty on the table and dashed out with his bags, making it just in time to hop on and pick a seat near the back.

    Closing his eyes, Darren decided he'd try and nap through the ride as it dragged him back to the town he had run away from so many years ago.

    -Eight Years Ago...

    Darren was still a junior in Highschool when he arrived home that day. His nose was bloody and his backpack was torn. He'd just had an encounter with Jasper.

    Trudging up the stairs to his room, Darren's father poked his head out from the kitchen. "Stop right there young man! I know you saw the cars in the driveway. Where are your manners?"