Rebecca
. . .
Kai and I have been at this for hours, and it's nearing one a.m.
My back itches just above my wing, and I can't fucking reach it. Because of my wing.
Jesus Christ.
By the time midnight arrived, all of the underclassmen went to their rooms, so we're all alone with my wings out for reference. And we still have yet to come across anything that could teach me how to put them away.
I feel like a preteen boy with an erection that just won't quit.
Seriously.
I keep flipping through the books, looking for a sign of anything that looks or sounds like me, but keep coming up empty.
Fairies have the same proportion of wings but they're all Tinkerbell sized. Pixies even tinier. And dragons are well... dragons. Though I do suppose I'm closer to them than all of the other ones with the way the skin of my wings is webbed rather than made of cuticle like the others.
Kai let's out a frustrated sigh, tossing away another book, this one titled 'Harpies.'
Ha!
"There's nothing," Kai grumbles, rubbing at his tired eyes as he affirms the thought I just had.
I nod anyway. "Yeah."
Silently, and with much less enthusiasm then when we began, Kai and I begin putting the hoarde of books back on the shelves.
We're mostly done when my wings suddenly recede into my back, causing me to jump.
I freeze as the door opens, anticipating danger, or a stranger, or a dangerous stranger.
Kai doesn't look up, simply says, "It's okay, Becks. They're like me."
I whip around, finding Heaven and Chev, and ever in sync, my body and mind respond together. As I realize that this means that one of my close friends and her boyfriend are werewolves, my wings unfurl, giving an involuntary flap as though they're dusting themselves off, making themselves present and awaiting their reaction.
I can feel myself blushing as I stare at the pair with wide eyes, fearing their responses.
Chev gawps at me, his rumpled bed hair mussed on one side, and drool coating the left side of his collar. Heaven on the other hand looks at me like she looks at most things.
Like something to study.
She steps away from Chev, who although they had been gripping one another's hands tightly, lets her go with no resistance, and steps closer to me. She grabs my hand, yanks me away from the bookcase, and circles around me like one would a museum exhibit.
"Curiouser and curiouser," she breathes, mimicking the accents from Alice in Wonderland. "Not like anything my mom made me study. Should we call Max?" Her question is directed at Kai, but it's me who responds.
"Max is a werewolf too?!"
Kai winces, taking in a sharp breath through his teeth. "Yeah, a lot of the people you've met here are werewolves."
I nod, taking in his statement. "Wonderful. Perfectly peachy."
"Have you tried testing if you could do anything else? Or is this the whole shebang?" Heaven asks, coming to stand in front of me once more.
She pokes a finger in the direction of my wing, and instinctively I smack it away, blushing and taking a step backwards when she does nothing more than raise an inquiring eyebrow at me.
"Sorry."
Heaven laughs, "S'okay. So," she rubs her hands together, excitement clear in the way she's acting. "Do they work? Can you freeze shit? Make fireballs? Telekinesis?"
I find myself flushing an even darker shade of red. I guess compared to those, anything seems like an inferior superpower, but damn—what a way to drag someone's spirits down. As I reply, I can feel Kai's movement behind me but I don't look to see what he's doing. "Uh... I can make plants grow when I touch them?"
Heaven deflates just a little bit. "Okay, I can work with this! Plant-based powers are consistent with Dryads, Hulders, Vetters, Pucks, Elves, Fairies, Nymphs..." She trails off with a suddenly tight smile. "Care to guess which one of those has wings?"
I furrow my eyebrow at her. "Fairies, but my—"
She nods before the words even leave my lips. "You're too big, and you don't have fairy wings. And based on how defensive you are of them, they're either a power base or... Wait! Are you full-fledge fairy? Or are you like half... whatever?"
Inwardly I can feel myself bristling at the term 'whatever,' but with the way Heaven talks about this stuff, it's clear she's an expert and probably the only person who can help me.
"Fairies can't lie," I say weakly. "And the kid who summoned me said it must have been because I'm only half-fairy."
Her eyes widen, and her complete and utter shock brings me just a little bit of joy after her labeling me as part 'whatever.' "You were summoned?" Once again she gets that curious glint in her eye, before it turns speculative. "What if you were kidnapped because—"
"Hev? Less conspiracy, more what is she?" Chev finally speaks up, not saying anything about his sudden bout of stupification. He simply drapes his arm across Heaven's shoulders, looking at me as though I've always had wings.
Heaven shakes her head like she's clearing her thoughts. "Right! So, your other half... Do you sink in water?"
"I don't... think so?"
Heaven's left eye twitches. "You don't think so?" She looks at Kai, left eye twitching almost imperceptibly. "Didn't you spend the last week hidden in a waterfall?" She asks through clenched teeth.
Kai shrugs. "I carried her."
She closes her eyes and inhales a deep breath, clenching her fists tightly. "Of course you did, so probably not gargoyle... Okay... can you spit fire?"
"No."
We do this for a time, eventually sitting down, with Heaven going through a mental list of magical creatures until it's two a.m. and I'm nearly about to herkie her in the throat just to escape her ceaseless torture.
"Well shit," she finally says, causing me to open my eyes that had begun to droop. "I don't know."
Chev perks up at the sound of her voice. Heaven sounds completely... crestfallen. "Okay, c'mon. Time for bed." He leaves no room for argument as he picks up Heaven who remains frozen in her same sitting position even as Chev carries her bridal style out of the door.
Kai sits up as the door closes. "Mmm," he hums. "You may have just ended up on Chev's bad side. You broke Heaven."
"I didn't mean to," I say sincerely.
Sensing my unease at having done so, Kai wraps a protective arm around me, the warm weight welcome against my lower back. "It's okay. She's usually the smartest person in the room," he explains as we step outside, into the pitch blackness of the library. "It irks her when she doesn't know things."
I nod, though I'm not sure he can see me. Although he probably can, being a wolf and all.
"So... what can you do?"
Kai's steps falter, but just a half-step, which he quickly corrects. "I can shift into a wolf," he says with a laugh, leaning down to nip the skin just beneath my ear. "Uh, good smell. Great hearing. Mind-linking—"
"Linking?" I ask, feeling my wings fold inwards as we step outside. Someone somewhere is looking out of their window at us, I realize vaguely.
Noticing they've gone inward, Kai's arm comes up higher, wrapping around my upper back as we head back toward the dorms.
"Yeah, all werewolves within a pack can communicate that way, even though most people block it out because it gets annoying. But alphas, like my dad and me, can acces all of them at anytime."
I freeze, instantly trying to remember all of the thoughts I've had since meeting Kai, both naughty and nice, but Kai doesn't stop, simply lifts me onto his hip like a child and continues the trek to our room. "Silently?" I ask, whispering now that we're inside the building.
"Yeah," he whispers back, lips twitching as he fights a smile.
"Can I do that?"
"When I become Alpha, and you my Luna? Then yes."
"Lu—Wait, but not now?"
Kai chuckles lightly. "No, not now."
"Good."
. . .
The next day is... odd, to say the least.
Most of the students are apparently werewolves and give Kai and I knowing looks as we walk by.
However, that's not the peculiar part.
No, that would be the way that all of the 'normies' just respond to our return as though it's just a random day. They ask if I'm okay because I got sick at the pep rally and say it was really sweet how Kai left mid-game to check on me.
It's like living in the most benign episode of Black Mirror.
Our teachers give us little stapled packets of work at the end of each class, and Kai lets me know that all of them are werewolves as well.
Even Mr. Macabee and Nurse Hampton.
Most of the normie cheerleaders are happy to see me at practice, but the others and the werewolves? Not so much.
If looks could dig a six-foot hole, toss someone inside, set them on fire and then bury them slowly as they burned, I would be my own gory nightmare.
It's clear that Frankie and Karen have gotten to them, though I'm not sure what they've said.
No matter what they've said, I'm thankful then that Kai holds such a high ranking within his pack, because if he didn't... I'm not sure I'd be safe from direct hits of their scrutiny.
Max however, remains adamant that we are friends, and that she'll help me figure out what the other half of me is. But, she's distracted.
"So... who was she?" I find myself unable to stop the question from escaping as we head toward the football field so that I can wait for Kai.
Max freezes. "She? She who?"
I give what I know from experience is a patronizing smile. "The girl? From the mall? The one who's had you tied up in knots since that day?"
She laughs but it's strained. "Oh... You, uh, you shouldn't have been able to see her," she whispers.
I furrow my eyebrows. "Why? What is she?"
Max shakes her head, blue eyes darkening. "You wouldn— Actually, no maybe you would..." she trails off, pushing at her straight bangs as she looks off into the distance. "That was, uh, my mate," Max laughs. "Death."
I cough, feeling my throat becoming rapidly dry. The wheezing sound mixes with the grumble of my stomach and reasonlessly, I hope she hasn't heard it. "Death?"
"Yes."
"Like, death-death?" I squeak.
"Like death-death," she affirms with a resigned nod.
"As in grim reaper, death?"
"Yep."
"As in wears a black cloak and carries a scythe, death?"
"Mmm... no."
"As in— wait, no?"
Max laughs, speaking a little faster as Heaven heads over from lacrosse practice. "No, uh, she prefers white. Makes people more comfortable. Less, 'Oh no, I'm dead' and more 'I'm going to a better place,' you know?"
No, I don't know. I most definitely do not know. But, I just stare at her wide eyed and nod because I can understand the motive.
"Is that why that guy died in the mall?" I ask.
Max shakes her head. "No. It was his time. Bum ticker. She was just supposed to grab his soul and go to the next one... business as usual you know. But, she found me... and now it's difficult."
"Why?"
"'Cause, 105 people die every minute... I've never spent more than five minutes with her. And that's cause I ate a cup full of strawberries, which I'm allergic to," she laughs. "I knew she'd stop it though, after seeing my name jump to the top of her list."
"She's the only one?"
Max shakes her head. "No, she has reapers and retrievers for those who run because they aren't ready... but there's always a new disaster on the way to heaven and hell... and she's the one to fix it."
Our conversation stops there as Heaven arrives and sits with us, beginning an animated conversation with Max about the possibilities of what I am.
"Well," Max says, interrupting Heaven's spiel. "We can get Nurse Hampton to test your blood and find out what human science decides you are."
"That could take weeks," Heaven interrupts, waving a hand in the air as though she can physically push away the suggestion. "We need to know sooner, rather than later."
"We have to rethink this. Did you see the way all of the guys acted at that pep rally? That wasn't the usual reaction to when girls go in heat."
They continue murmuring amongst themselves as though I'm not even here, meanwhile I'm practically starving and contemplating making a quick run to get pizza. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't notice anyway.
"Have you seen them yet?" Heaven asks, just as the boys' practice is over.
"The wings? No?"
All of a sudden, two pairs of what I can only describe as computer-binary-green peepers find me, and two surprisingly strong grasps lift me off of the bleachers.
Crap.
. . .
It's Sunday where I am so...🤷🏾♀️
Next chapter on Wednesday, but it might be late bc I have therapy. Also apparently I'm "emotionally void." Does that show in my writing? Somebody lmk. xoxo
😊✌🏽