Chapter 8
A faint tapping sound echoed throughout the classroom. I hit my pencil against the desk and the tapping continued again. I looked up at the clock reading 2:36. I groaned and hit my head against the desk. Twenty four more minutes until class is over. I risked a glance at the teacher who was glaring at me, because I was the only person in the class who was making any other noise then the faint scraping noise of pencils writing our Romeo and Juliet papers.
I immediately looked back down at the green eyes staring back up at me. I got really bored and somehow green eyes with flecks of gold and black, surrounded by black lashes, ended up on my paper. The eyes reminded me of what diamonds would look like if help up to the light. I filled in some thick eyebrows above the eyes. Slowly the entire face came alive, and it looked as though I stuck a picture of a half colored Jace on my paper. His sharp chin and high cheekbone just right. His wavy dark hair filled in with highlights of bronze, chestnut, and auburn.
I looked up at the clock. One more minute until class is out. I put away my colored pencils into my pencil pouch, and stuck it into my bag. The bell rang so I crumple up my picture, and slipped it into my pocket to uncrumple later.
I entered the hall filled with children pouring out of their classrooms heading home or to a practice. I found a headfull of red curls leaving a classroom across from mine.
"Hey." I said pulling Kathleen into the stairwell that would lead down to our lockers. She smiled at me, and started to tell me about how one kid decided to taste one of the chemicals they were experimenting with. Turns out it was definitely not edible. He spent the rest of the period throwing up at the nurses.
I was laughing too hard to even notice Dylan passing until he was yanking me over to the side of the railing pressing my back against the railing. He gave an apologetic smile to Kathleen as he pulled me away.
"You said you'd explain," He hissed.
"And I will. Do you have practice today?" I asked.
He nodded. "I have about 5 minutes until I need to start getting ready. So hurry up!"
I shook my head. "I'll meet you down at the field in 15 minutes. Kathleen is coming with too, because she already knows. Plus I promised I would take her to the park while Adam has practice."
"Why don't we just talk now?"
"Because you need to start getting ready to meet me down at the field in 15 minutes," I grinned up at him.
He opened his mouth ready to say something else, but thought against it. He walked away shaking his head muttering "sisters are just too confusing". I pulled the even more confused Kathleen over to our lockers explaining to her what was going on. I found the eager Adam waiting for his cousin by her locker.
"Hey, could I borrow your car?" I asked in a sweet little innocent voice, that belonged to anyone but me, and looked up at him through my dark lashes.
"Why?" He asked cautiously.
"Kathleen and I want to go to the park."
"And...?"
"And I can't drive the two of us on my motorcycle."
"How am I supposed to get home?" He hollard getting half the hallways attention.
"My motorcycle."
Those two words must have been magical, because he quickly smiled a dare devil smile, and pulled out his keys. We swapped keys, and he left with a "Don't get into trouble", to practice. I opened up my locker, and put some homework stuff in my bag, even though I wouldn't do it. I grabbed my leather jacket, and slammed my locker shut. Kathleen appeared by my side so we both wondered down to the field.
Our school was weird. I mean sure there would still be other sports you could play, but whenever you aren't playing a sport and you're in football you must practice. Philly was the only one who was good at track, which is the sport that is going on right now, so the twins were practicing football right now down at the field.
Kathleen and I walked down the small hill that lead to the field. On the field were many guys in gear, carrying around some equipment. Off to the side the track team was getting ready to start on hurdles. I found Dylan easily because he was just sort of standing off to the side by the bleachers. As soon as he saw us coming he jumped up off of the bleachers.
"Will you tell me now?" He begged.
"And hi to you to," he glared at me and then I continued on. "Ok, but you have to promise not to freak out on me at all, and just let me finish before you speak. Let's sit down." I glanced around to make sure nobody was nearby.
"On friday night, well actually it was Saturday morning by then, but anyways I decided to get some revenge over what they did to my ankle. I snuck out, and walked over to their place in the woods." He started to open his mouth, but I held up my hand silencing him.
"I kind of ruined their cars, but when I saw their motorcycle I just had to have it. I walked it out so they wouldn't hear me, and then rode it to a garage to have it painted so it wouldn't be recognizable. And thats about it." I finished, and looked into his eyes to see what he was feeling. Well anger was one of the huge ones that I was seeing right now. The anger slowly transformed into panic.
"Do you know what they will do to you now? They may not know it was you, but they do know that it was a pack member. Anything that 'we' do ends up hurting you."
There was a long pause as he thought about what he just said. "Has it been you who has been on their land before, because you really seemed to know where you were going if you found their house out in the middle of the woods in the dark?" He was angry. No, angry doesn't quite compare to how he was right now. His voice rose to the point where he scared away any birds that were sitting on the bleachers, and got half the field's attention.
"Yeah, its been me, well at least the past couple of times. I don't understand how they could pick up on the packs smell, and blame it on us, but not smell the human part?" I pleaded. That has been bugging me for the past week from when Philly had first told me about the Steffan's threats.
"The anger and eagerness of the pack must have overridden their senses, forcing them to ignore what was right in front of them," Dylan explained. That sort of made sense. "So the reason you were being targeted was because of yourself? Why did you get revenge then?"
"Because I don't go around killing people's ankles." Kathleen snorted at that causing a round of laughter.
"Jenner! Stop gossiping and come down here and be a man," Coach's voice rang out loud and clear throughout the entire field.
"I take offence in that," I screamed back pissed off. EVERYBODY knew I didn't gossip. Even the guys gossiped more then I do.
"What are you doing here?!? I thought I told you last time to stop bothering my practices!" Coach yelled.
"Bye losers," I screamed out to the players on the field.
I quickly grabbed Kathleen's wrist and ran off the field before I got the Coach's wrath.
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"So what's new and exciting in Eliana's world, you know other then the fact you just did grand theft auto, have a pack of wolves trying to kill you, and your going to end up on house arrest by your parents if they find any of this out?" Kathleen teased.
"You know same old same old."
We were strolling around the parks eating blizzards from DQ. I was truly in love with mint chocolate chip ice cream. We were just passing the pond, and were staring out at a duck that was attacking an 11 year old boy who was trying to touch the baby ducklings. I was laughing my head off at the sight. Poor duck!
"So, your birthdays tomorrow. Are you excited to be turning 16?" She asked.
"Well sort of," I confessed.
"Sort of?" She asked.
"Since I found out about werewolves I've had this faint chance that I could be one. I don't know my parents so who says I couldn't be one? Tomorrow my small sliver of hope that I'm a werewolf may be crushed."
"Or made true. Ok, yes it is sort of hard to be a werewolf in an orphanage, because wolves are very protective over their own kind. There is usually a friend or another pack member who will take in the child before the adoption center gets ahold of them, but who knows your mom could have been a rogue."
"Gee, thanks. That totally just made me feel better," My voice was layered in sarcasm.
"I know aren't I great at it! But seriously you shouldn't be worrying about this too much, because if you do you might get your hopes up just to have it crushed again. I know again terrible at making you feel better, but seriously just think about anything but this. You could be worrying about if you will pass your test, and get your full licence tomorrow."
"Thank you!" I said giving her a hug. She really did help.
We continued on around the sidewalk still eating our ice cream. I was laughing so hard as I was trying to telling her about what had happened when Mitch tried out for track, that I didn't even realize that someone was blocking my path. Kathleen let out a warning, but it was a second too late. I crashed into the person, and tumbled to the ground. Who ever it was reached out and wrapped his arms around my waist to keep me from falling down. He straightened me up, and let go. I looked up to thank him, but my words were stopped on my tongue. I looked up into familiar dark green eyes that I knew all too well. My thoughts jumped to the picture in my pocket.
"Jace?" I let the words slip out before I even realized it.
"How come you're always falling all over me," Jace jocked.
I stuck out my tongue at him. I know really childish.
"So I'm guessing you still haven't had your birthday yet?" I looked at him suspiciously as he asked me that.
"Yeah it's tomorrow," I said slowly, being cautious.
"I'm going to go over there," Kathleen said and vanished.
"Well happy birthday, since I probably won't see you tomorrow," He said.
We started to stroll down the path that looped over towards the playground.
"Thanks. So what are you my personal stalker now?" I was truly curious as to why he was here.
"No, I just needed to clear my head and the park seemed to be a good choice."
"I usually clear my head in the woods," I stated.
"I do too, just today was... different."
We walked over to the swings, and sat down on them swinging just several feet above the ground.
"I'm still convinced you're following me," I grinned.
"Yeah totally. I followed you around the mall the other day too," He stated sarcastically.
"Hey, I was actually at the mall on Saturday. That proves it your a stalker," I accused.
"I just chose the mall because it was such a girlie place to hang out."
"What! I'm not girlie!"
"You were hanging out at the mall," He stated pinning me.
"Well she's the one that made me actually buy things there," I said pointing in thedirection of where Kathleen had vanished to.
"Ah, and who is this mystery girl?" He asked.
"Why should I tell you? She probably doesn't want stalkers knowing her name."
"Yeah, Ok." He was trying to give me the satisfaction of him being a stalker.
We sat in a comfortable silence watching the kids on the slides. After maybe 10 minutes I started to talk again.
"I should probably get going. My brothers should be done with practice soon so I need to be home before they are there," I said.
"Did you get in trouble for that night?" Jace asked.
"No, I didn't."
"Well that's good. See you around then?" He asked.
"Sure. You know you're not that bad," I teased.
"Gee thanks I feel like I just won an award or something for being 'not that bad'." He grinned.
"See ya."
I walked away, and just at the end I glance back at him to see him standing there staring at me walk away. His face turned red at being caught, and I felt my cheeks heat up too. There was just something about Jace that made me act this way around him. I was never like this around a guy before.