Chapter Ten – Meeting Samantha

"Shit, shit, shit. OW, that hurt Bella!"

I rolled my eyes as I stood up. I glanced down at Damian with a smirk on my face. The damn bastard wanted to mess with me, so he deserved what he got.

"Ohhhh, did you just tackle and punch Damian?"

I grinned at Clara as she appeared next to me in a flash. "Yep, pretty much."

The blonde cocked her head to the side as she assessed the groaning shape shifter. "Gosh, what did you do to him?"

"Take a wild guess," I replied. The both of us glanced down at the brunette grabbing at his private bits.

"Ouch," Clara winced, "That must've hurt."

"You have no idea how much," Damian growled from the floor.

Clara laughed and tossed her blonde curls over her shoulder. "Whatever you did," Clara giggled, "I'm about 99% sure you deserved it!"

"I didn't!" he yelled as he finally sat up. "I tried to apologize and the bitch attacked me! For nothing!"

I burst out laughing. "Thanks for calling me a female dog, Damie, I really appreciate the compliment." Then turning to Clara, I said to her, "He told me he was sorry for reacting badly to me bringing a leech into your lives. He smiled, and then promptly told me he had the hots for me."

There was a moment of shocked silence, followed by Clara's crazy laughter. She was laughing so loud she tripped and fell down onto the floor, accidently dragging me down with her. I landed with an 'oof!' and bonked my head against Damian's knee. Clara was still laughing crazily with tears now running down her face.

"What's so funny about it?" Damian grumbled as he rubbed his knee.

I smiled secretly at Clara, who flashed Damian an impish smile. We both had thought Damian was gay, but apparently not. "Nothing," she sung as she shakily stood up.

I laughed and accepted her offered hand to pull me up. "Thanks!"

Clara hooked her arm through mine and started to pull me out of the room.

"Hey, wait!" Damian shouted to our retreating backs. "Why did you attack me? BELLA!"

Our laughing drowned his voice out as we ran out of the house. When we reached the end of the street we slowed down to a walk. The day was beautiful and for once the sun was shining brightly. It was absolutely amazing to feel the heat of the sun on our backs, and I breathed in deeply.

"Don't you love the sun?" Clara and I asked at the exact same time, causing us to go into another fit of laughter.

After a while we had calmed down and had finally reached the salon. "Why are we here again?" I asked her with a groan.

"You need a make-over!" she replied happily. "And so do I!"

I shook my head in mock-sadness. "Oh yeah, I remember now. My poor hair has got to go."

Clara laughed and together we walked into the salon. It was surprisingly large and decorated in loads of different cheerful colours. The salon smelled of some fresh scent that I couldn't place. The atmosphere was lively and welcoming. I found myself liking it a lot. Some of the hairdressers were dressed in really strange clothing. It looked like straps of cloth that had been randomly sown together to form some outfit. It was strange, but all in all I found the whole place wonderful.

I was directed to one of the seats by my hairdresser. She was a beautiful woman who looked to be around forty-five years old. She had dark russet skin and curly black hair, along with high cheekbones and chocolate-coloured eyes. "What do you want me to do, dearie?" she asked me as she played with my hair.

I shrugged. "Surprise me! As long as I look completely different," I told her.

Mrs Lu smiled at me with a glint in her eye and I found myself smiling back. "You just relax and I'll be done with you in no time."

Xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxX

"No time my ass," I muttered to myself when we finally left the salon two and a half hours later. "You just relax, dearie, and I'll be done with you in no time," I imitated Mrs Lu's voice sarcastically and huffed.

Clara barked out a laugh next to me. "Hey, those two and a half hours were worth it!"

I glanced at Clara and I had no choice but to agree with her. She looked amazing. Her dark blonde hair had been dyed a little lighter, making it look better with her pale complexion. It had been layered and her choppy fringe now hung just a bit over her right eyebrow. With the layers, her hair had more body and its curls were more manageable now.

"Okay, yeah, it was," I reluctantly agreed. As we walked on in silence I thought about my appearance now. Darker and lighter highlights had been added to my hair, which had been cut to about my shoulders and was layered gently. In my fringe a single white streak had been added to represent me in my wolf form. At first I thought it'd look stupid, but in reality it actually looked nice. The shorter hair actually suited me better than the longer hair, and I found myself liking the lightness of it.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the beach," Clara replied. "Some of my friends are there and they want to meet you."

I mock-groaned. "Great, I'm going to hang out with a bunch of fifteen year olds! Damn!"

Clara lightly punched my shoulder. "Shut up. You're going to like them."

"Sure, sure," I replied, unconvinced.

The walk to the beach was short and soon we were approaching a group of about five teens, three of them guys and two girls. Two of the guys looked identical – shortish, darkly tanned skin, nice muscled bodies, black shaggy hair, and cute dimples. The third guy had lighter skin, light brown hair and hazel eyes. I recognized him as the guy from the store – Keith, if I remembered correctly.

The two girls were complete opposites of each other, though. One girl was tall, wore tight clothing, and had legs that went on for miles. Her hair was pin-straight and black, and her skin was darkly tanned.

The other girl, however, had light skin. She was what Paul jokingly would call a paleface – with other words she was like me. She was of average height, with curly red hair and bright green eyes.

"Hey guys," Clara greeted them. "This is Bella. Bell, this is the twins Rick and Nick," she pointed to the twins, "That is Renn," she pointed to the tall beautiful girl, "This is Keith," she pointed to the grocery store guy, "And this is Samantha." Lastly she pointed at the red-head.

I smiled at them somewhat forcedly and said, "Nice to meet you guys. And hi again, Keith."

Being singled out, the brunette blushed and ducked his head. The twins wolf-whistled and Renn gave Keith an odd look. "How do you know her?" she asked, and I was surprised at how low her voice was. I expected it to be high-pitched, so it was a nice surprise.

Keith shrugged and shot me a helpless look. I cleared my throat and said, "I borrowed his phone once when I lost mine." I shrugged to make it look like no big deal.

Renn still looked a bit sceptical but nodded her head. She lifted a perfect eyebrow and asked Clara, "Did you do something to your hair? It looks different."

For some reason I had the feeling that Renn was a bitch in disguise, but as I watched Clara blush deeply I knew all she wanted was her approval. So I said nothing and continued to watch.

"I layered it some," she muttered, for some reason shy. "And added highlights."

I lifted an eyebrow at the lie but watched as Renn slowly started smiling. "It looks really nice," she said sincerely with a smile. She lifted a strand of her hair and playfully flicked it. "You passed."

"YES!" Nick – or Rick – exclaimed and ran to pull the blushing blonde into a tight hug. She softly cried out and winced though and quickly pulled away. I scrunched my nose in sympathy as she pressed a hand gently on her wound.

Nick – I knew it was Nick since I realized he had earrings in that I hadn't noticed before – looked confused down at Clara. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

Clara quickly faked a smile and said, "No, I'm fine."

Rick, who was standing next to Renn, snorted. "Why did you cry out, then?"

Clara's eyes narrowed at the tall twin and angrily said, "I'm fine, damn it. The guys just tackled me and I got hurt. Okay?"

It dawned on me that she never told her friends that she was attacked by a wolf…

The twins and Keith seemed to accept this until Renn spoke up. "Lift your shirt."

"I'm sorry, what?" Clara asked, shocked. "I'm not lifting my shirt in front of Keith and the twins!"

"Lift your shirt, Clara, please," Samantha said quietly.

I started; I had forgotten the red-head was there! Clara shook her head quickly and said firmly, "I'm not lifting my shirt."

The five teens had formed a circle around her now, with Clara clutching my arm. People were starting to stare so I took a deep breath and muttered, "Guys, chill. People are staring at us."

Rick bared his teeth and said, "Let them stare, we don't care."

Somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed that he rhymed, but right now I was too focused on the yellow gleam that had suddenly appeared in his eyes. What the hell was that?

Nick shot a glare at his brother. "If she doesn't want to lift her shirt, then she doesn't have to lift her damn shirt."

I was really confused and noticed that Clara looked scared out of her mind. "What the Hell is going on here?" I hissed softly, mindful of the other beach goers. When no-one answered, I said, "Clara? Tell me, right now!"

For a tense moment no-one said anything. Nick was worriedly glancing between his brother, Renn and Clara. Finally Renn shook her head and said, "Nothing is going on. We've gotta run now, Clara. See you whenever." And with that, the five teens left.

"Well, that wasn't weird at all," I told Clara.

She snorted. "I don't know what was up with them." She shrugged and added, "Let's go to Jason's."