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It was Jason that took up for me first, "She was just defending herself! He sexually harassed her! He grabbed her and it scared her!"

"He's right," Isaac agreed, his tone dry, bitter, and matter-of-fact. "It was self-defense."

He looked down at me. There was blood down my arms, soaking the front of my shirt and staining my fingernails. There was blood across the front of my shirt from Isaac's nose and I could feel the blood across my face. It was clearly not self-defense. He snapped, "My office. Now. Mr. Lahey, please pick up Mr. Bruger from the floor and take him to the nurse's office. Everybody else, go to class!"

I followed him slowly and steadily to his office. He was kind enough to let me wash the blood off of my arms and face and to change my shirt into one of the school ones they had lying around. In the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror. At the way blood streaked across my cheek. At the way my eyes were still wild and exhausted with dark circles beneath them and my red hair created a halo around my head. At the way I was everything I hated. At the way I was out of balance with nature, my nature, my family's nature. I didn't look at myself again the rest of the time I was changing. By the time I was done, the principal had already called Mom and I gave him a calm breakdown of what had happened, making it very clear that I was only standing up for my rights as a scared young woman.

Mom, as was her nature, arrived in a violent explosion of dramatics and anger. I was calmly repeating that it was well within my rights to protect my body from the unwanted advances of others, when the door flew open with a violent bang and Mom's shadow filled the room. The first thing she shouted was, "My baby girl gets sexually assaulted by somebody three times her size and you drag her to the principal's office? What kind of school are you running here? What are you doing?"

"Hey, Mom," I greeted with the first smile since I'd been dragged into the office.

"Hey, honey bunny. What are you wearing? Did you have to change? Did they make you change your clothes too? So first she can't keep somebody from manhandling her and now you're oppressing her sense of self by forcing her into that shirt?"

"Umm….Ms. Erickson….she's….well, she….you have to know that she…."

"Please, explain to me what she did! Because I would love to know!" Mom dramatically threw herself into the chair next to me and waved her hand dismissively at him.

"Well, Ms. Erickson, although Carter was defending herself, and we acknowledge that she should not be punished for that, she went overboard with defending herself and the school tends to have a no tolerance for violence policy."

"Overboard!? How do you go overboard with self-defense? My Carter is the least violent person I know! She is in tune with the natural world and with herself! She doesn't need to hurt people."

"She broke his nose and was a little away from breaking his jaw," the principal informed her. "When two students attempted to intervene, she shoved one of them away and head butted the other in the face, which is why she is no longer wearing the clothes she wore to school today. She had blood all over herself. Ms. Erickson, Carter didn't just defend herself. It is our belief that she over defended herself, and there has to be consequences for those actions."

Mom looked over at me with one eyebrow raised. I replied, "I continued to feel threatened. I firmly believe that, had I not done what I did, my personage would have been in danger of further harm."

"Well, baby doll, I support you. If you felt like you were in danger, you must have been in danger!"

"Ms. Erickson…"

"No! You listen to me, sir. I understand that my little girl didn't have to break somebody's nose to get her point across. She could have done it a different way. But you need to understand that my Carter is miniscule compared to the people here! I walked through these hallways! Your students are monstrous! Look at my little girl! I give my permission for a punishment to be doled out, but I will tell you right now that it will not be suspension. Her academics will not suffer simply because she felt threatened in a place that is meant to be safe!"

"Umm….well, ma'am, the general punishment is suspension." Mom raised her eyebrow at him and his face twisted with the distinct impression that it would be a terrible idea to suspend me. "But, because you make a good point about Carter's safety, she will be allowed to serve detention instead."

"When?"

"Well…" He was genuinely frightened about saying the wrong thing to Mom and pissing her off even further. "I don't want to keep her after school every day, but I feel that she should have to stay after school at least two days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, for two weeks. And she will serve her detention during school hours the rest of the days. Study hall and lunch detention for two weeks will serve as an acceptable punishment."

Mom nodded happily and replied, "I can accept that. What else do you need?"

"Just for you to sign some papers and then Carter can go back to class."

"After the spectacle today? I think not! She'll come home with me. And while I'm here to get her, Brian will come home as well. No point in making one stay while the other is at home."

"Now, Ms. Erickson, Brian isn't being punished. Brian wasn't even near when…"

"I will sign your papers and then you will call my son to the office so that I can take my family home."

Stiles

"Stiles, you can't defend this one!" Isaac cried out. "Bruger is literally three times her size! Literally! He could eat her if he wanted to! And she destroyed him! Then, she broke my nose! How are you going to say this is normal?"

"Bruger assaulted her! He grabbed her ass! She had the right to hit him," I argued. "And you grabbed her too. It freaked her out. You already freak her out!"

"She was a couple punches away from breaking his jaw! And she wanted to. And did you hear the shout? That wasn't a girl shout. That was a roar like Derek's or Scott's! That was an Alpha roar!" Isaac argued.

"He's right," Scott agreed. "I was across the school and I felt it. I didn't hear it. It felt it."

"She literally made forty teenagers shut up," Isaac added. "If that's what normal's like, then we've been doing it wrong for years."

I sighed. With the dream that morning and Carter kicking the ass of somebody three times her size, they were never going to give up on her being dangerous. She'd gone from an interesting new person, to a possible threat within four hours. I admitted, "I know. But I really don't think she's a danger to us. Yeah, she's probably as dangerous as Allison, but we trust her now! Maybe there's a reason she was off today. The last person she was with was Greenberg. Maybe he knows something."

"That's a good idea. We can find Greenberg. Stiles, can you get into the school network?" Scott asked.

I winced and informed them, "I actually know where he is."

Isaac and Stiles' faces contorted into a mix of surprise and trying not to laugh. I snapped, "Oh shut up! I only know because he has government with Carter third period. I had to have her schedule memorized, remember?"

"Right. Well, come on," Scott commanded.

We slipped out of the study hall as stealthily as we could and split up. Scott and Isaac went to the locker room, I went to the Government class. I peeked in the door and called out, "Mr. Keys?"

"What, Stilenski?" The teacher didn't even look up from writing on the board.

"Coach wants to see Greenberg." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized exactly why that was a questionable statement.

"Really?" Mr. Keys asked drily. Greenberg's face lit up in a pathetic, sad way.

"Yep. Something about training. I don't know. Can he just hurry up, please?"

"Greenberg, go. Take your stuff. Don't interrupt my class again."

Greenberg grabbed his stuff and shoved it messily in his backpack before he leapt up and followed me out of the room. He asked, "What does the coach want?"

"I don't know, Greenberg. Just come on." The guy was so freaking happy that I almost felt bad for throwing him to the werewolves.

"Okay. I hope I don't miss too much in Government though. I already have a rough time in there and, without Carter being there today, I don't know how I'll catch up."

"Yeah, that sucks, Greenberg." It took me a second to remember that not all of our problems had to be dealt with by violence. Not all of our problems took werewolves. "But actually, that's what I need to talk to you about. I'll be honest. Coach doesn't want to talk to you. Probably not ever, actually. I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh…okay." We stopped in the middle of the hallway, a bit down from the locker room.

"What happened today, with Carter? I know you've only known her for as long as I have but, she's not exactly a violent person. What was wrong with her today?"

"I think she was having an off day," Greenberg didn't hesitate to talk about her. "She said she didn't get a lot of sleep and I really think it put her in an off mood. It was just almost impossible to talk to her. She wasn't in a bad mood. Just kind of really out of it. And then she was in a really bad mood because Bruger grabbed her."

"Wait, she didn't get a lot of sleep? Did she say why?"

"No, she didn't say why. But I think she had a bad dream. You know when you have a bad dream and you just can't get it out of your head? I think that's what was going on with her."

"Well, Greenberg, thank you. I really need to get hold of her. Check up on her. I want to make sure she's okay. That she didn't get hurt when she was hitting Bruger. You know, recoil and stuff."

"Oh, yeah. I need to text her too. I need to see if we're still going on a date on Saturday. I didn't get to tell her what time I'm picking her up."

I choked, actually choked. "Date?"

"Yeah. I can't believe she actually said yes, but she did. We're going out on Saturday. Nothing too big. Just bowling. But she actually said yes!" He grinned and I smiled back at him.

"I'll congratulate her when I call her but I have to go right now. You should enjoy not being in Government. Go do something fun. I have a study group I have to get to. If you get hold of Carter before me, you should let me know."

"Okay, I think I'm just going to go study in the library. See you later!"

"Right. Good use of your free time." He walked off and I went to the locker room where Scott and Isaac were waiting.