Seth taunts me now by humming the Wedding March or by calling me Mrs. Clearwater. What a grade A douche bag! In order to hide the ring at school, I just wear winter gloves, which doesn't look too weird since everyone else wears them now.

I tried to look up how to remove superglue on the computer at the school, but the stupid security system blocked the website and Seth doesn't own a computer, so I'm screwed! Maybe I should just give up and marry Seth.

The days passed by and I found myself still mad at Seth. I guess that we can never be happy together. I need a way out…

THURSDAY

Thursday was the first day that the school actually had something to talk about. On a normal day, conversation consisted of new CD's, parties, he said she said, and the stupid cooing of week-old couples. Thursday, however, everyone was called into the gymnasium for a surprise assembly. All five hundred students (we kind of have a small student-body because most kids refused to come to the new school) piled into the bleachers on the right side of the gym. In the middle, there were two police officers, one man and woman.

I glanced over at Taylor Sanders, who was beginning to sweat with anxiety because his pockets were stuffed with weed. I caught a glimpse of the green stuff last class, in which I sit directly behind him.

I went and sat in the front bleachers where there was a lot of room left. Most of the students had shoved their way to the back so that they could rest their backs on the wall.

"Boys and girls," the policeman said in a bass voice, "please take your seats that way we can get you back to class as soon as possible."

All the jocks pretended that they were frozen or stuck in a time-warp, purposely trying to piss off the police. As soon as they sat down (two minutes later), the policewoman stepped forward. "Hello Eastwood High School-" she was cut off by the preps cheering and whooping. "I'm Officer Sanchez and this is Officer Welsh." She made a gesture to her partner.

Officer Welsh then began to speak. "Boys and girls, we're here to talk with you about all the disappearances that have been occurring around the area lately."

A sigh of relief fell over the stoners.

"You see, over at the other high schools, some students have gone missing. Now we're telling you that if you have any information regarding these disappearances to come forward."

I looked around the crowd. Trevor was ignoring me because he thought that I stood him up Friday night. He looked the other way when my eyes went over him. Darren was faking attention, but it was evident by his face that he were bored out of his mind. Tracey was skipping school today. Mr. Bennett was standing up at the far left of the bleachers. He looked over at me, making me divert my gaze.

That was it for that assembly. We got released to our second period class and went through the rest of the day like any other day. The only difference was that some people were asking others if they'd heard anything about the disappearances. I kept it secret from Seth so that he wouldn't feel like he had to be even more protective.

The next day, we had another assembly. Officer Sanchez and Officer Welsh were back and had serious faces on. Everyone went back to the spot that they were at the day before. Tracey was even skipping again. She evidently went to her cousin's in Juneau yesterday and partied it up. Today, she's suffering a hangover.

"Students," began Officer Welsh, "we're sorry to inform you all that the bodies of Jacob Robinson and Marie Gregory were found in Conifer Forest."

A dead silence came over the gym. Conifer Forest was known as the Death Forest. It earned its name due to the fact that a majority of the trees had no leaves or pine needles. More than two-thirds of the large area was filled with dead trees, giving it a dead appearance. The fact that two dead bodies were found in Death Forest was genuinely a shock, as ironic as it sounds.

"As some of you may know," continued Officer Welsh, "Mr. Robinson and Ms. Gregory had been missing for a few weeks."

"That's why we're issuing a city wide curfew," Officer Sanchez interjected. "Starting today, everybody under the age of eighteen within the city limits is going to have to be indoors after nine thirty, unless escorted by their guardian."

"BOO!" the whole gym cried. "That sucks ass!" "I am not bringing my mom to a party!" "Do you have any idea how this will effect my social life?" "You can't do this! What about our rights?" "But I have a date!"

"Silence!" Principal Rockwell yelled at us, perfectly ending our riot. "No one cares if you like the law or not, but you will follow it. It's for your safety!"

After the assembly, we had an early release. I made my way over to my bus when Darren stopped me.

"Hey!" he said. "Can I use your help with something?"

"I have to catch that bus," I protested.

"I have a car. I can drive you. It should only take a few minutes."

"What do you need help with?"

"I had to build this roller coaster model for my geometry class, and I need help carrying it from my car to the classroom," Darren looked a little red like he was getting nervous talking to me. I hope he has a crush on me. It sure would piss Seth off.

"Yea, I'll help you," I said.

Darren's face lit up with a big smile. "Awesome!" He then led me to the parking garage. The new school was intended to be rather large for a large student body, so a parking garage was built. It was one of those creepy cement ones that have different levels. Ours had four, and Darren's car was on the third level.

We entered the first level and walked towards the stairs when Darren started a conversation. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm not going to rat you out for underage drinking with your boyfriend to anyone." He then gave a me a wink. His blue eyes sparkled and went great with the snowy outside.

"That was my guardian," I said. Seth's not my boyfriend.

Darren cocked his eyebrow. "Oh? The way he acted when I talked to you seemed like jealous boyfriend to me."

"He has boundary issues," I understated.

"I bet that must suck."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, my dad never took me anywhere in public. He was always too drunk to do anything. Then when my mom divorced him, we just lost touch."

That made me feel bad. I'm complaining about getting too much attention, while Darren doesn't get any. Wow, I'm a bitch.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. I patted his shoulder.

"It's alright."

We finally made it up to the fourth level and Darren walked me over to his car, which was a small 90's Honda.

"Uhh," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I've got a confession to make. There's no project, I just wanted to get you alone." He blushed and bit his lower lip.

I chuckled. "Well," I said, "all you had to do was offer a ride. I hate the school bus."

Darren gained some confidence and he smirked. "Then, may I offer you a ride home?"

"I think that'd be okay," I smiled. "Just keep your hands to yourself."

"No guarantees," Darren said. "I just want to eat you up."

How cheesy. I laughed.

Then Darren's face got serious. I then noticed that his eyes changed. It was as if the blue orbs vibrated and then shifted into red ovals with the elongated pupils of a cat.

"What the fuck?" I asked. I looked around the parking garage. No one else was here. It was just me and whatever the fuck Darren is. "What are you?"

Darren's teeth grew long and jagged. "I'm the one that's going to eat your heart out in order to make that shape shifter of yours suffer," Darren responded in a scratchy and deep voice that he didn't use before. How the fuck did he know that Seth was a shape shifter? It took me forever to find out!

Darren's nails grew and looked more like skewers than nails. They had the brownish-yellow color that bone has. Then he opened his mouth so wide that his cheeks split open and black blood squirted out.

I screamed and backed away. "Someone help me!"

Darren crouched low and then pounced at me, his mouth open wide. I shoved my body to the left and he came crashing to the floor. He growled and stood up, swiping his nails at me. He cut my upper left arm pretty good, and my blood splattered on the cement ground.

Darren looked at the blood and then his tongue seemed to elongate until it touched the floor, licking up my DNA. Gross! He then turned back to me and smirked.

I turned and took off running towards the stairs. Maybe if I get to the ground floor in time, then people will see and help me. Or they'll run screaming. God I hope they help me!

I was about ten feet away from the stairs when I slipped on some black ice and came crashing down to the hard ground. I turned my head to see no sign of Darren. Did he really give up?

I breathed a sigh of relief and lay my head down on the ground. When I opened my eyes, I almost shit myself: Darren was crawling on the ceiling towards me. He stopped when he was directly above me and then looked up/down at me and smirked. He growled and pounced.

"Lola!" I heard a voice scream.

I looked over just in time to see Mr. Bennett running up the stairs. At least he'll save me, or tell the news that I was killed by some monster-boy. Mr. Bennett started to shake and then he phased into a giant wolf. He leapt in the air and took out Darren.

Darren screamed a blood-curdling sound as Mr. Bennett/wolf bit his face off. Soon the screaming stopped and Darren stopped thrashing underneath the giant animal. Mr. Bennett then went on to eat the remaining corpse until no part of Darren was left. When he was finished, he looked up at me with his large gray eyes and wolf head. He phased back into a human and just stood there naked.

"Wha-?" I trembled.

"I can explain," he hurriedly shouted. "Darren was a demon, and I'm a werewolf."

"What!"

"I heard you screaming for help, so I came. I couldn't let Darren kill my mate, so I had to kill him first."

I paused and stared at Mr. Bennett or Zack in disbelief. "What did you just call me?"

"My mate," he answered as he came over to me. He was super taller, probably a foot taller than Seth and way more muscular than him as well. "Lola, I imprinted on you when I first saw you when you were only three."