The next morning, Crys and Brandon woke up to the sound of Brandon's phone alarm going off.
"Ugh." Brandon groaned as he woke up. Crys was still holding him. "Crys. We need to get up for school." He managed to say through his exhaustion.
Crys took a deep breath, then took her arm back to herself. "I wish we didn't have to." She said, just as tired as Brandon.
"Me too." Brandon agreed.
Neither of them moved.
"Hey Crys," Brandon spoke up, "if you didn't have a nightmare last night, why'd you come in here?"
Crys took a second to think of how she wanted to explain what she wanted to say. "I just wanted to be with you." She settled on saying.
Brandon didn't say anything in response, but he did hear Crys.
"I'm sorry if I'm too feisty at school." Crys added on.
"What do you mean?" Brandon asked, a little confused on the sudden topic change.
"I know I'm a lot nicer here than I am at school. It's like I get all fierce and stuff at school, but here, here I'm a lot more nice and close and uh..." Crys didn't know where she was going with that sentence.
"It's fine, Crys. I kinda understand." Brandon replied. "I mean, with Connor and Josh and Cheryl and all the fights and stuff, I don't blame you for being more feisty and stuff at school. Not being as uh, sweet as usual. Besides. It's school."
"I just wanted to be sure I wasn't getting on your nerves."
"Crys, I know how sweet you can be. So what if you're a bit fierce when we're dealing with a bunch of jerks at school... Well, maybe you could stop jumping into things before thinking it through, that would be nice."
"Like the stabbing thing?"
"That exactly."
Crys paused for a moment. "Well, thank you for letting me be with you." She said.
Brandon turned to look at Crys. She was smiling, sweet as could be. He gave a little laugh and blushed. "I like being with you."
Crys smiled to herself. "Thanks." She said again.
Later on on their way to school, Brandon and Crys kept chatting.
"So last night while I was out," Crys said, starting up a new topic in their ongoing conversation, "I wound up stopping another robbery."
"Another one?" Brandon said, a little bit in awe.
"Yeah. Two guys robbed this store over in the shopping plaza and started running. I just happened to be there, so I wound up jumping down and taking care of them. One of them said that they were paid to rob the place by some guy that they didn't know."
"Kind of weird. I mean, I don't get why someone would pay them to rob a store. It's not like there's anything super important down there. Maybe some jewelry, but why would someone pay someone else just to get something like that? At that point why not just buy it?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking!" Crys said. "And now we have some new thing to worry about. I mean, some shady guy paying people to rob stores? Just another thing to add to the list of things to worry about."
"Well, I guess we just have to wait and see what's going on with this as well." Brandon commented.
Crys sighed. "Yeah, wait and see. I hate waiting."
Brandon nodded in slight agreement.
"You know, maybe the news has a report on what happened last night." Crys spoke up.
"I mean, probably." Brandon replied.
"There were some people taking videos and stuff. I guess everyone in the city is finally going to see The Werewolf on the news." Crys said.
"That's not good." Brandon said.
"I know." Crys commented back a bit snarkily. She was now on her phone looking to find if there was a news story covering the robbery. It took her a few minutes, but she managed to find exactly what she was looking for. "Here." She said as she held up her phone and played the news report.
"Last night in the shopping plaza a local jeweler was robbed by two men. Police soon arrived on the scene, however, the two robbers had already been stopped by The Werewolf. Eyewitnesses reported recording the event and taking pictures, however when asked to share their footage, none could be recovered. Not many photos of The Werewolf exist, and it is still a mystery as to how she keeps her elusivity. Regardless, the police apprehended the two robbers who are now in jail. Moving on..."
Crys turned off the newscast and put her phone back. "No pictures of me. No videos... Weird."
"Hey, that's a good thing, though!" Brandon said, looking to the bright side.
"Yeah, but isn't it weird that this keeps happening?" Crys asked.
"A bit, yeah, but I mean, do you remember everything we've been through?" Brandon said. "We've experienced weirder."
"Well... Seinhou did say something about another person, sort of protecting me."
"You think he somehow deleted all the pictures and videos off everyone's phones?"
"Well... maybe?" Crys sounded uncertain.
"Who knows at this point." Brandon said flatly. "I'd just be glad that we don't have to worry about it."
"That, and I'm just glad I'm safe." Crys said.
"Me too."
"What do you think about maybe heading to the overlook in the forest tonight?" Crys changed the subject.
"Why?" Brandon asked.
"I dunno, I just thought that maybe it would be nice to go hang out just you and me. Maybe dance a little or something..." Crys went quiet as she blushed a little.
"Um, sure." Brandon said, sheepishly.
Crys smiled a little. "Thanks." She said.
"You're really trying to make up for being super wound up recently, aren't you?" Brandon asked, making an observation.
"A little bit, yeah." Crys admitted. "It's been on my mind. It's not really fair to you or the others."
"It's okay that you're worried, Crys." Brandon said.
"I know, I know." Crys replied. "I just... I just want to be nice." She paused for a brief second. "Maybe a little romantic, that's all." She added on quickly with a slight blush.
Brandon blushed a little. He couldn't really think of a response.
"Anyway..." Crys said after a second passed, trying to change subject. She didn't have anything to follow it up with, though, so she just dropped the conversation at that point.
Brandon didn't have much to say, either, so he also dropped the conversation.
Both friends kept making their way to school in a peaceful quiet, occasionally making a little bit of chit-chat, but not much of anything important.
During lunch, Crys, Brandon, Tomas, and Emma were all at their usual table. Thankfully, Crys had remembered to navigate around the popular kids this time, so so far there hadn't been any trouble.
"You stopped a robbery again last night, didn't you?" Tomas said right as Crys took her seat.
"What?" She asked. "Oh," she tacked on after actually processing the question, "yeah. What's weird though is the two guys said they were paid to do it."
"You really need to be more careful." Tomas said. "You're real lucky that nobody had managed to get any pictures of you."
"They did. Videos, too. Haven't seen any on the news, though." Crys said.
"That is odd..." Emma chimed in. "Digital media does not simply disappear."
"I call it luck." Tomas said.
"I don't care what it is. I'm just glad my face isn't plastered all over the internet." Crys said with a careless shrug.
"You're in a much better mood today than you have been lately." Tomas noted.
"Well, those numbskulls haven't tried messing with me or Brandon yet, so I've got that goin for me." Crys said.
"It's been a few days since you've had a nightmare, too." Brandon spoke up.
Crys couldn't tell if Brandon was being literal or referring to her encounters with Seinhou. It didn't quite matter which it was though since he happened to be right either way. "Maybe I've just had a chance to relax a little." She suggested.
"You've been wound up ever since... well..." Tomas trailed off, not really wanting to be completely frank about it.
Crys sighed. "Yeah." She said. "Go from a nice vacation to a kidnapping to being stabbed and tortured by nightmares every couple of nights... that's my life."
"Have you considered any sort of medication for your sleep?" Emma suggested.
"Sure, but honestly I don't even know how well it would work considering I have my weird immune system." Crys responded.
"I could always look into that for you." Emma offered.
"Thanks, but I think I'm good." Crys said kindly, if not a bit nervously. She didn't really want Emma prodding her with needles or anything.
"I understand." Emma said.
"You know, I think I overheard some people talking about what happened last night." Brandon spoke up again.
"What were they saying?" Crys asked curiously.
"Eh, mostly the usual stuff. Talking about how cool The Werewolf is or if it even happened, that kinda thing." Brandon explained. "Well, and also some other stuff, but uh, probably not stuff you'd want to hear."
"I can take insults." Crys said flatly.
"Well, not really insults, per se, uh, more of uh..."
"What?"
"More like uh, fantasizing, I guess you could say? Wishing they could be with you kind of a thing?"
Crys rolled her eyes and placed her head down on the table with a groan.
"Guess that's the price of anonymity." Tomas chimed in.
Crys picked her head up and gave Tomas a look.
"All I'm saying is all they see is some werewolf going around as a hero. Doesn't help that she's both a she and also appears to be single." Tomas continued.
"Does the fact I'm a monster not drive people away?" Crys said.
"You don't really look too much like a monster." Brandon said.
Crys glanced to Brandon. "That's because you know me." She said.
"He's right." Tomas agreed. "It isn't like you're very lanky and more wolf-like. You still look fairly human. Now, if you looked more like an animal, then that would be a different conversation."
"To people who see her out in the open, I agree." Emma chimed in. "Consider the people she confronts in the dark alleyways. When someone is already afraid, I would say that she looks much more monstrous."
"That makes sense." Brandon said.
Crys shook her head a little. "Anyway." She murmured.
"Hey, you're the one who brought this up." Brandon replied.
"Another thing to consider," Tomas said, "I doubt any of these people have even seen you as a werewolf. I'm sure they're making some generous assumptions about your appearance."
Crys nodded her head a little. She could accept that.
"Oh, yeah, do we have a test today in history?" Brandon asked, changing subject.
"We do." Emma replied.
The conversation continued from there for the rest of lunch.
The rest of the school day passed by relatively peacefully, all things considered. Crys was especially glad for that. Later that afternoon, she did some homework, played a few video games, and then went to sleep for the night.