Sequel of To Save a Life and All the Small Things
Run This Town
Chapter One: After Dark
"Jaaace!" Tate Stilinski whisper-shouts, "Jaaace! Where the hell are you?" The fifteen year-old grumbles, as he stumbles his way through the dark woods. He squints through his black square-frame glasses, trying to distinguish the trail in front of him. The moon is quilted beneath thick grey clouds, and the forest is pitch black all around him. His thick dark hair clings to his forehead and the back of his neck, drenched with sweat. It's a muggy summer night in northern California.
A mosquito buzzes past his ear, and Tate swats after it. He brushes past a tree, and its branches claw at his jacket. He jerks his sleeve free, bringing his arm up to guard his face as he trudges through the gnarled branches. "Jace!" he snaps, "Quit messing around. This isn't funny."
His parents were going to crush him if they caught him in the preserve after dark, again. His foot catches on a root, and he staggers forward. Tate mutters under his breath, and stops walking. He plants his hands on his hips, and breathes through his nose, trying to settle his heart-rate. Everyone always tells him that he looks just like his dad, right down to the moles on his face, except for his eyes. He's got his mom's eyes—and her temper. Tate chews on his lip indecisively and that's not all he'd inherited from her. With a sigh he closes his eyes, and tries to tap into his werecoyote senses like his mom had been teaching him.
He clears his mind and tries to focus on his cousin's scent. After a few minutes his eyes snap open and he scowls. It didn't work. Typical, he thinks. Lately, his werecoyote abilities only seem to "work" when their screwing up his life. As a kid it had been easier to focus his hearing, and sense of smell. He had routinely been able to catch a scent, or eavesdrop on his parents. He'd been a scrawny kid all through junior high. But this year he'd hit a growth spurt and with it, his powers had started to come out in full force.
These days, he could barely catch a scent at all, and when he could sometimes the scent was so overpowering that it would turn his stomach. His ears were off too, sometimes he'd get a piercing ringing in his ears, and migraines. His eyes started reacting to his contact solution, so he had to start wearing his glasses again. He'd been getting into fights at school, over stupid stuff that he used to laugh off. He'd already racked up enough detentions for coach to threaten to bench him for the rest of the season. He was constantly breaking stuff, by accident because he had trouble controlling his strength. And worst off all, it was screwing up baseball.
Tate was a pitcher for the BHHS Cyclones. He'd been playing since he could pick up a glove, and he loved it. It was one of the few things he was really really good at. Scouts had even started showing up at his games and he was still a freshman. But without his contacts, he could barely see home plate much less pitch. So lately he's been riding the bench. And on top of that his parents have been acting even more cagey and overprotective than usual.
But at least he's got his cousin Jace to keep his head straight. Jace is a born werewolf so he understands what he's going through. Jace is more than just his cousin. The two of them are closer than brothers, and they've been getting into trouble together since they could crawl. They're best friends. Because in this town, only a best friend would follow you out into the preserve after dark.
It really was his dad's fault that they were out here lost in the forest, anyway. If he hadn't taken a call and rushed out of the house like that, then Tate wouldn't have needed to follow him. His mom was working late at the garage tonight, so his grandma Melissa had come over to watch his younger sisters. Tate had told his grandma that he and Jace really needed to work on their science project…which technically wasn't a lie. And then he and Jace had picked up his dad's trail and followed him to the preserve.
Their parents and the rest of the pack they never lied to them directly, but they didn't share everything either. They still weren't allowed to go to the pack meetings even though they were both fifteen and that's how old their parents were when they'd gotten involved with all this.
TO BE CONTINUED...
I know I know...Hurricane finish a story before starting new ones! But this story wouldn't leave me alone. So you just don't fight with inspiration.