I walked into the bowling alley and peered around, spotting my pack immediately. Mainly because Mirah and Dakota were waving their arms like crazy and calling my name. Several people around them were giving them funny looks but I just laughed before joining them.
“Hey guys!” I said.
“It’s about time!” Mirah said, throwing her arms up in the air in exaggerated exasperation.
“Yeah, we were beginning to wonder if you were even going to show,” Jared said, standing up.
I made a face, “Sorry, I’ve been a little…screwy lately.”
“Screwy? Our little Lila isn’t a virgin anymore?” Mirah asked, raising her eyebrows.
“That’s not what I meant! And I am still a virgin," I protested, but I must have said it a bit too loud since several people turned to look at me in shock.
“I know what you meant, I just like making you blush,” Mirah winked.
“Can we just start bowling? I really want to see the looks on your faces when I beat your asses,” Matt said, smirking.
I snorted, “Yeah, right.”
“Seriously, Matt. Last time we went bowling, you failed epically,” Dakota said as we made our way to the shoe rental counter.
“I was having an off-day!”
“So you have an off-day every time we come bowling?” Jared teased.
Matt scowled at Jared, while the rest of us giggled and got our shoes. We went to our assigned alley and put in our names.
Well…we put in our fake names. The boys decided that it would be more fun if we put stupid names instead of our real names. Mirah put FashionBabe, Dakota put BuckleBunny, Jared put (surprise surprise) SexyJared, and Matt put Van Helsing.
Me? I put WolfPup because of Grandma and her nickname for me.
Since I was last to put my name in, everyone looked at it, and then looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“My grandma calls me her pup, and the day she arrived she said I grew into a wolf, but that sometimes I would still be her little pup,” I shrugged.
“Hey, when are we going to meet this grandma of yours?” Jared asked as I hit the OK button on the screen.
“Whenever you guys want, she’s going to be here all week so whenever you guys aren’t busy I guess,” I said, shrugging again.
Our game started and Matt was first up. He walked down the two stairs to the alley and picked up a bowling ball.
We were playing with the tiny bowling balls, mainly since Dakota, Mirah and I didn’t know how to play with the big bowling balls that you stick your fingers in.
Just as the first ball left Matt’s hand I caught a familiar scent that made me stiffen in shock.
Oh come on, I groaned internally.
I turned to my right, to the alley just next to ours, only a couple of feet away, and saw Wyatt. And his coven.
Lovely.
My pack and I watched the vampires in shock while they too regarded us with the same expressions.
I avoided looking at Wyatt and instead focused on his coven. I had always seen them from across the cafeteria or in quick passing in the halls, but now I finally had the chance to study them up close.
The black haired girl I recognized as Roxanne, since she was pretty distinctive. Her long curly hair fell about to just below her shoulder blades and even in the dim light of the bowling alley I could see her scarlet lips.
I studied the two other vampires, two guys. The brown, almost blonde, haired guy had icy blue eyes that weren’t quite focused on anything in particular, and he was tall and broad shouldered. He wasn’t quite as tall as Wyatt, and as a matter of fact Wyatt was the tallest of his entire coven.
Unlike with my pack, I was the shortest one and I was the leader.
I cursed the unfairness of it all as I studied the dark brown haired vampire; he had nice hazel eyes, long shaggy shoulder length hair and ear piercings. I had thought Roxanne was striking, but that guy definitely stuck out in the group.
I struggled to remember their names. I believed Blake was the brown haired guy and…Leo…was the dark haired one with piercings.
I looked away quickly, suddenly realizing that I must have been staring for too long, and focused on Matt bowling.
He too had turned around and stopped looking at the vampires when I looked at him, and he continued to bowl. I noted that the ball practically flew down the alley and I wondered just how annoyed Matt was to have made the ball go that fast.
At least he got a strike.
When Matt finished his turn he came back up to sit next to me at the table attached. Jared gaped at Matt.
“How the hell did you get a strike? You usually suck!” Jared said in surprise.
Matt shrugged, “Sometimes you need the proper motivation.”
I saw Jared’s eyes flick towards the vampires, nodding his head slowly before going down the stairs to take his turn.
We all got through about one turn each when Wyatt called to us.
We all turned around, and I could see how tense my pack was. I was as well; I was afraid of what Wyatt might say. This was a public place after all and not the best grounds for vampires and werewolves to be fighting each other, physically or verbally.
“How about we make things interesting?” Wyatt asked, a smirk on his face. I did a quick sweep around the other vampires and saw they all had similar expressions except for Blake, who again didn’t seem to be focused on anything. He seemed quite neutral with the situation actually, sitting calmly at the table with his fingers laced together.
“What did you have in mind?” I said, struggling to keep my face composed. I could see Wyatt was enjoying himself immensely, even if his face didn’t show it. His eyes always gave him away.
“How about a competition?” he said, raising his eyebrows as he scanned my pack quickly with his eyes.
“A competition?” I questioned, frowning at him.
Wyatt nodded, “All in fun, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. Knowing Matt and Jared they would get totally competitive about this. As for Wyatt’s coven…I think they’d get pretty competitive too. This wasn’t just for fun; this was almost like a test to see which was better. Werewolves or vampires?
Wyatt smirked at me, and I asked, “What are the rules?”
“Well, it’s the same as normal bowling. Only you tally up the end scores for everyone on your team and which ever team has the most points total wins,” he explained quickly. "So, are you guys up for it?”
I cocked my head at my pack slightly, asking them silently if they wanted to or not. Matt and Jared were glaring at the vampires, and I knew they wanted to play, and Mirah and Dakota just shrugged.
“We’re up for it,” I said, staring him straight in the eyes.
“Good luck then,” he said, turning around.
The bowling resumed, except the fun and relaxed atmosphere from before had completely disappeared. Matt and Jared were determined to beat them, and their scores were good enough to accomplish that. They were always getting strikes or at least knocking all the pins down within the two tries that they had.
The lights of the bowling alley dimmed considerably, mainly because it was a Sunday night so it was mostly teenagers or adults at the bowling alley.
Since it was mostly dark, they turned on the disco ball and turned on flashing lights and those lights that made everything white glow purple. When Matt told me we were going bowling I immediately grabbed a white shirt just so I could glow. I hadn’t been the only one thinking about it, Dakota and Mirah were both wearing white and we were all glowing. Matt and Jared were the two losers who wore dark colored clothing.
They had been playing music the whole time we had been there, but only now the music started getting good. Even though I didn't like Avril Lavigne too much, I liked her music. So when 'Best Damn Thing' started playing I jumped up and dragged Mirah and Dakota to their feet. Even though nobody else was dancing in the bowling alley, they were just moving from side to side or bobbing their heads to the beat, all three of us were dancing and laughing.
It lightened the mood considerably, and my pack didn’t seem as tense as before. They actually started enjoying the game. Even Matt and Jared were dancing a little bit.
I went down to the alley at the same time as Wyatt, and I grinned at him. I didn’t even care if anyone saw, I was in a good mood and no one was going to kill it.
“All the homies, they know what I mean, baby let me show you how I lean, like a cholo. Lay back, bounce in the club. When we do a dance we do it like ‘WHAT?’” I sang, shaking my butt as I spread my legs and passed the ball between them, swinging both hands out and throwing the ball down the alley.
I bowled like a little kid and it may have looked ridiculous, but it was the only way I knew how to bowl. And Dakota and Mirah bowled the same way so I didn’t care. We all looked like dorks together.
Wyatt chuckled at me, probably because of my lame boeling technique and even lamer dance moves.
I watched the ball roll down the alley and hit the center pin, knocking the rest of the pins down.
“Strike!” I called, jumping up.
I smirked at Wyatt, “Beat that!” I said before sashaying up the stairs to high-five Mirah.
The song changed from "Lean Like a Cholo" to "Two is Better Than One", and I sat down at the table watching Matt and Wyatt bowling side by side.
I studied them both, comparing them while I had the chance. Since they never went near each other, and this was the first time they were ever side by side, I could compare them easily to each other.
I sighed, rubbing my temple as I thought about my issues with both of them. Wyatt finished his turn, and turned around and walked up the stairs. I saw him giving me a questioning look, but I turned my head to watch Matt bowl.
We could talk in private, so there was no reason to arouse suspicion within our packs and covens by looking at each other anymore than necessary.
I was glad when "Two is Better than One" finished and they played more dancing songs; it lifted my spirits and I danced and laughed again with my friends while we bowled.
By the end of the hour, we had played two games. We won the first game, but the vamps won the second one.
But it was getting late so we didn’t have a chance to play a tie-breaker game, and Matt and Jared were annoyed about that.
“I can’t believe it was a tie!” Matt said, exasperated as he yanked on his running shoes. We were all sitting at the table attached to the computer with our scores and names, and we were putting back our shoes and coats.
Since I already had my shoes on, I grabbed my coat off the back of one of the chairs. As I did, my cell phone tumbled out of my coat pocket and hit the floor, bouncing away towards the vampires.
“You stupid phone!” I called after it, dropping my coat on the ground before striding after it, grumbling to myself about dropping my phone.
It fell into three neat pieces, the phone part, the battery and the back of the phone. I stooped down to pick up the battery and walked forward a few more steps to get the back of the phone.
The actual phone had skidded right underneath the table of vampires, and already they were all watching me with amusement. With a sigh I crouched under their table and reached for my phone. Instead of touching my phone, I touched a hand.
Wyatt grinned at me from under the table, his hand on my phone and under my own hand.
“Pass me the pieces,” he said, pulling his hand away and holding my phone hostage.
“Give me my phone,” I said, holding tightly to the battery and back of the phone in my hand.
He extended one hand towards me, raising his eyebrows.
We stared at each other for a moment before I sighed, reaching one of my hands over and dropping the two pieces into his hand.
“Thank you,” he said, putting my phone together quickly again. He turned it on and I heard the familiar jingle it played when you turned it on.
I frowned as he started pressing a bunch of buttons, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure it works,” he said in a ‘duh’ tone.
I glared, “Give it back.”
He pressed a few more buttons before sliding my phone shut and handing it to me, his fingers grazing my palm.
“You're welcome,” he said, smirking.
“I didn’t say thank you.” I said, feeling a corner of my lip pull up into a half smile.
“Hey, what’s going on under there?” Roxanne asked in her musical voice as she peered under the table. She glared at me with her blue eyes that were hard as ice.
I glared right back while Wyatt explained, “Chill, Roxy. She dropped her phone, it fell into pieces and I was just putting it back together.”
I saw Roxanne make a face at ‘Roxy’ and I sniggered before crawling out from under the table, “Thanks, Wyatt,” I said, hearing the mocking tone oozing out of every word.
“You're very welcome, Lila,” he said, just as mocking.
As I turned around I saw him wink at me, and I struggled to keep the smile off my face. I rejoined my pack, carefully putting my phone back in the pocket of my coat and zipping up the pocket to make sure it didn’t fall out again.
I could see my pack giving me strange looks all the way to the shoe rental counter and all the way outside of the bowling alley. Once we all piled up into Matt’s car, Matt finally spoke and broke the silence.
“What was with you and Wyatt under the table?” he asked, and I could see his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.
Jared sat in the passenger seat and I heard him snort, while Dakota and Mirah, who were sitting on either side of me in the backseat, exhaled in exasperation in union.
“Oh my God. Nothing. My phone broke and he fixed it. End of story," I said curtly.
“Seriously, Matt. Lila wouldn’t do anything with Wyatt. That’s just stupid, so stop worrying,” Mirah said, exasperated.
“I’m not worrying about her doing anything with him. I just don’t like him hanging around. I don’t trust him.”
I struggled to maintain my composure. They didn’t even realize how wrong they really were.
“Why don’t you trust him?” I asked carefully.
“I don’t know, I just have this nagging feeling that there’s something not quite right about him,” Matt said, peering at me in the reflection of the mirror in the car.
“Maybe it’s just the werewolf side of you telling you that,” I said.
“Either way, I don’t like him,” Matt said, dimissing my comment entirely as he glanced back at the road. “And I especially don’t like the way he looks at you.”
“Looks at me?” I questioned.
I saw Dakota nodding enthusiastically next to me, and I turned and gave her a questioning look.
Dakota flushed, “Well, I think he looks at you like he likes you.”
Matt snorted, and Dakota stuck her tongue out at him.
“But Matt thinks he looks at you like he’s plotting to kill you,” she continued.
You’re next and you will always be next.
The killer’s words echoed in my brain and I shrank back, remembering that I hadn’t quite told them about the recent visits and nightmares.
“Matt, pull over," I instructed, everyone seemed surprised at my command and I saw Matt staring at me in confusion. “Pull over now, I have to tell you all something.”
Matt, still frowning, pulled the car over. As soon as we were stopped, Jared and Matt turned around and Dakota and Mirah stared at me.
I took a deep breath, and explained quickly some of the more recent events concerning my possibly-soon-to-be-killer.
By the time I was finished, everyone seemed to be feeling completely different things. Matt looked like he was ready to kill someone, Dakota looked terrified, Mirah looked both terrified and worried while Jared shook his head in disbelief.
“This is just so wrong. Why is he picking on you out of the thousands of girls here?” Jared said, starting to sound annoyed.
“Maybe because I’m the one who keeps getting away,” I said quietly. “He likes a chase and he likes to play with his victims before he kills them. That much I know. And if I’m guessing right, this will be his best hunt ever. This has been going on for how long? Two or three weeks already?”
Matt passed a hand over his face, “What do you suppose we do? There’s no way we can keep you protected 24/7.”
I exhaled slowly, “I know. When I’m at home is when I’m more worried. At school, there are hundreds of other people around me constantly, plus you guys are there and even Wyatt’s coven. This killer may not be human, but I doubt he’d want to walk into a place that has a bunch of werewolves and vampires, so I’m safe there at least.”
“Yeah, but Wyatt’s coven probably wouldn’t try and save you,” Jared said grimly.
I ground my teeth together. “You never know. Either way, I know this guy won’t come near me as long as you and the vamps are around. There’s too many of us for him to take on, even if the vampires won’t want to help.”
Even if Wyatt’s coven didn’t want to try and save me, I knew Wyatt would.
“But home…” I continued, “He’s getting bolder. He was in Ivy’s room and almost touched me. He was standing right in front of me. I don’t want Ivy or my grandma to get hurt because he can’t catch me.”
“What about your Dad?” Dakota asked, confused.
I shook my head, “This guy only goes after girls. There have been no male victims that have died by his hand or his knife.”
Mirah’s hands had found my arm, gripping my wrist tightly through my coat poofy winter coat. I felt her hands wrap around them tightly, the same place that Wyatt had grabbed and bruised me, accidentally, but still. The bruises were healing much faster they would if I was human, but they were still there, just very very hard to see. And it still hurt.
“Mirah, my wrist,” I said, clenching my jaw.
“Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly, letting go of my wrist.
“It’s okay."
“So what are we going to do?” Matt asked.
I shrugged, “The only thing we can do is avoid being alone. It’s the only thing we can do.”
Jared exhaled, “Kind of like the buddy system?”
I grinned, “Yeah, kind of.”
And just like that, the tense atmosphere lifted and everyone seemed more relaxed. Jared and Matt turned around, and Matt started the car and we drove off. He dropped off Jared first, then Mirah and then Dakota. As we dropped off Dakota, we passed by Wyatt’s house.
I gazed at it wistfully as we passed it and dropped off Dakota, and when we passed by it again to go to my house.
When we pulled into my driveway it was already nine o’clock at night, and the darkness on my street was almost frightening now that I knew what, or rather, who was out there lurking in the shadows.
Matt walked me to my door and he wrapped his arms around me in a hug, and I leaned my head on his chest, listening to his steady, strong heartbeat that was so different from Wyatt’s. Wyatt’s heartbeat was slow, steady but faint, almost as if he were dying. Which when he Changed, he would die. Technically speaking anyways. He would still be able to walk around, talk, and do everything he normally did I supposed, except he wouldn’t have a heartbeat.
“If you need anything call me, okay? I don’t care what time it is,” Matt said suddenly, pulling away slightly so he could look me in the face.
I craned my neck a bit to look at him since he was quite tall, and nodded.
He dipped his head and kissed me gently on the lips before pulling away, “Goodnight, Lila.”
“’Night, Matt,” I said quietly as he pulled away. I watched him jog down the stairs and I stepped inside. I locked the door behind me and saw Matt pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street. I ran a finger over my lips.
His kiss may have been sweet, but it didn’t give me the same feelings that being with Wyatt did. It only left me feeling even guiltier than before.
“Who was that?” a voice asked.
I spun around and saw Grandma there, amused.
“Matt.”
“Is this Matt your boyfriend or is he just a friend too?” she asked, taking a sip of her tea in her robe and slippers.
It kind of reminded me of this morning when I snuck back into the house after going to see Wyatt, except this time Dad actually knew I was going out.
“He’s my…boyfriend?” the way I said it sounded more like a question as I pulled off my coat and shoes.
Grandma cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“That’s because I’m not,” I muttered.
“Ah, teenage angst,” Grandma said, grinning. She patted my shoulder, “Don’t you worry, thing should start clearing up soon. They always do.”
“Well, can they hurry and clear up already?” I said, annoyed.
Grandma chuckled.
I sighed, exasperated, “Goodnight, Grandma,” I said, stomping up the stairs.
“Goodnight!” she called after me.
I went into my room, opened my drawer and grabbed Wyatt’s hoodie. I didn’t care if anyone saw it. If I couldn’t sleep with Wyatt tonight then I wanted something that reminded me of him.
I slipped into my pajama shorts and tank top before pulling his hoodie on over my tank top. I padded barefoot into Ivy’s room, but she wasn’t there. I knew that because she was downstairs watching TV with Grandma and Dad. I just hoped that since everyone was awake maybe my psycho killer would leave me alone.
I slid under the covers of Ivy’s bed, and left the lights on just as an added precaution. I put the hood of his hoodie up and over my head so I was completely surrounded by his scent, and closed my eyes, inhaling deeply.
“Goodnight, Wyatt,” I whispered, even though he wasn’t here, and fell asleep with the distinct feeling of someone watching me.