Two days ago, if you'd told me I would be racking my mind for excuses to talk to Jackson Whittemore, I'd have laughed in your face and probably picked something about you to insult. So why is it that I'm shadowing him, peeking around corners and looking—for all intents and purposes—like a love sick little girl? It actually brings me great pain to look like one of those empty headed fools who pines over some asshole that probably doesn't see much past her looks, if he sees her at all. But I won't go there—let's focus on what's actually happening.

Jackson is currently shaking his bottle, blabbering away to Danny about weights and bench pressing and blah, blah, mundane, ear-bleeding topics. Seriously, if this is The Lizard's alter ego I, for one, am sorely disappointed.

It's taken an embarrassingly long time for me to realize that in order for Jackson to have been a blip on Derek's radar, he would've had to interact with him at some point. No one is a person of interest to Derek unless they're somehow involved with the werewolfing world.

Now, why would a power hungry, narcissistic, controlling, absolutely cliché classmate of mine, who's the total embodiment of all things stereotypical about a high school star athlete—the son of one of the most notorious lawyers in the area—have any reason to be a concern for Derek Hale? Jackson's not a cop. He's not the son of a cop. He's not a hunter, or the son of one, he's not even friends with any of those people! So why does Derek even know who he is? Simple. He'd have to have been bitten.

But who would bite Jackson Whittemore? How would Jackson even know any werewolves? Oh, that's right! He's got several classmates who are afflicted with the lycanthropic condition, namely: Scott McCall. Somehow, Jackson found out about Scott.

I find it difficult to believe Scott would want Jackson changed for any reason, but I happen to know of a certain broody alpha who's been biting teens left and right.

Well, Jackson wouldn't be my first choice if I were Derek, but…

I pressed my lips together as Jackson continued shaking the drink and I glanced nervously around the severely populated halls that our classmates streamed through. Every time someone blocked him from my vision, I panicked and assumed he was finally taking a swig of his workout supplement, but then they'd pass and Jackson would still be shaking away.

Damn it. I could've planned this better. I'm giving Derek a run for his money. At least Derek does his dirty work behind closed doors! What if Jackson takes a huge swig of the poisonous shit and collapses in front of everyone? Not good! Not good at all!

I huffed anxiously and glanced at Danny, who seemed to be getting annoyed with Jackson's incessant chattering. Jackson had a curious fixation on how much he feels he should be able to lift—and when he mentioned the amount of weight he had been testing, it only reinforced my theory that he'd been bitten. I mean, Jackson's always been a dramatic little shit, but he's not suicidal, and unless he's pumping some serious 'roids, he's definitely risking his life. Three hundred pounds? I let my eyes flit over Jackson's form, which was built, but not buff or swole by any stretch of the imagination.

They had switched topics again, and I snickered as Danny told Jackson that if he ever crushes himself lifting more than he can handle even though Danny's told him implicitly not to do that, he planned to take Jackson's Porsche. Jackson didn't say anything, but I could tell the thought made him unhappy, and suddenly I stopped laughing. Struck with inspiration, I leapt out of the spot I'd been lurking in and quickly strode up to the pair; slowing my gait just as I approached their desks.

I let my eyes focus briefly on the brown sludge that Jackson was apparently allowing to rest a bit after his vigorous mixing, and when he looked away I strained my nose to sniff it.

The strange, almost yeasty scent that tried to overpower the chocolate flavoring wafted from the bottle and made my nose twinge, but there was an underlying, subtle note of the poison. Good, then. It's just waiting for him to drink.

Shoulders back, chin up, I cockily slid into the seat next to Jackson and propped my chin on my fist, staring directly at his face with a huge, fake grin. He had stopped speaking mid sentence and was currently watching me with an expression of absolute distaste, and Danny was watching me similarly.

Several moments passed as we all waited for someone to speak first.

"Um… Savannah?" I finally looked away from Jackson's face and focused my smile on Danny. He frowned at me. "Did you need something?"

"Not really." I simply said.

Danny blinked, and Jackson's eyes narrowed with impatience. "Oh… okay…"

"If you don't have anything useful to say, can you back up a little so that we don't have to breathe in your stink? Seriously, I get that you're homeless, but try the locker rooms. They have showers."

Danny gasped, quickly reaching out to punch Jackson's shoulder. "Dude!" He hissed. "That was really mean! Apologize!"

Jackson snorted and shrugged, unabashed. "Sorry for trying to help you out. If you're going to come to school, fine, but at least do everyone the kindness of practicing personal hygiene when you decide to show up."

"Hmm," I nodded, the rage boiling just under my skin. It literally took every fiber of self-control I had not to just sink my claws into his exposed carotid artery. "Yeah, thanks for the tip. Locker rooms. Never thought of it." I drew in a sudden breath and placed my palm flat on Jackson's desk, trying not to look at his protein shake that still rested next to my hand. "Listen, I think I have some information you'd like to know."

"I doubt that," He scoffed, eyeing my hand in displeasure.

"Don't be so sure, pretty boy," I let my voice drip with sweetness and tilted my head at him. "You own that gorgeous Porsche in the parking lot, right?"

Suddenly, his expression was wiped clean and he sat up a little straighter in his seat. "Yeah, so?"

"I'm pretty sure I saw someone breaking into it." I told him, and he hesitated only briefly.

"That's impossible." He dismissed. "It's got an alarm so loud, even someone who's killed as many brain cells as you could hear it."

Excuse him? Internally, I bristled, but I was careful to keep my face outwardly cool. I hummed thoughtfully without missing a beat, pretending that he had just said the most interesting thing in the world. "Weird! I guess Scott was just taking a peek, then."

Jackson immediately snapped to attention, all traces of mocking clearing away. He leaned forward with such intensity that I actually leaned back in surprise. "Did you just say Scott? Scott McCall?" He growled, and my eyebrows rose as I smirked in amusement.

"Well, yeah, but you just said it was impossible—"

Before I could finish the thought, Jackson was out of his seat and stalking toward the hallway. I turned and gave a little wave to Danny before sliding out of my seat in a much more collected fashion than Jackson did, taking time to walk calmly and casually after him with his forgotten drink in my hands.

It wasn't hard to follow the trail he left, because he'd actually done the whole 'move or be moved' piece and shoved some unsuspecting classmates into lockers. They stared after him; some of their papers scattered on the waxed floors, and turned to exclaim incredulously at their friends about how rude he was. I stepped over some kid's biology lab as I continued to slowly follow him towards the exit, pushing the doors open and calmly making my way towards the parking lot.

Jackson insisted on getting the best spot in the entire parking lot, of course, so it didn't take long to catch up to him. When I got there, his driver's door was open and he was rooting around the interior. I puttered to a stop on the sidewalk in front and crossed my arms, watching him panic needlessly over his precious car, and patiently waited for him to realize it was perfectly fine. His shaker bottle was cool in my grasp, and I sniffed casually as I unscrewed the top.

Finally, after what seemed a dramatically long time, Jackson quickly backed out of his car and slammed the door shut. His face was the perfect picture of rage, and he turned on me with what appeared to be a nasty string of insults hanging off his tongue—but before he could say anything I stole his thunder and scrunched my nose up.

"Oh," I made sure to dial the fake confusion way up. "This is a Porsche? I'm sorry, I thought that was your car." Jackson whirled on his heels to look at a darker, more bulky sedan, and I think I saw steam coming out of his tiny little ears as he rounded on me. I mockingly winced, letting my eyes go wide briefly with danger and disdain. "Whoops! Oh well, at least I can blame it on my dead brain cells." He was moments away from exploding, and I paused, looking over his form. "What about you, Jackson? What do you have to blame that shitty attitude on? Wait, wait! Don't say." I held out my hand, the lid to his shaker bottle grasped between my fingers. "Let me guess… Dead parents?"

He swelled up like a volcano about to blow its top, and before he could so much as open his mouth, my hand flashed out and a stream of the poisoned whey-protein cascaded over his face, quickly pouring down his neck and soaking his expensive leather jacket and grey t-shirt.

"Man, that felt good." I mused, letting all traces of fakeness drain from my voice as it fell down to its usual raspy tone. The cup dripped onto the ground slightly, and I smeared the liquid with my boots and disposed of the bottle in the grass behind me. "Listen," I said, as Jackson continued sputtering. "I understand that dead parents bit, and I can respect a good antagonistic asshole game when I see one, but I think you've let yours get away from you."

I stepped down onto the parking lot and Jackson opened his mouth to finally spit insults back at me, but something went wrong. He froze up, choking on his own words as the poison apparently began to take effect. I actually stepped back in surprise, my eyebrows disappearing into my hairline and jaw drooping a bit when Jackson swayed and put a hand on the top of his Porsche to steady himself.

"Wow," I breathed, watching as he quickly began to lose control of his motor functions. He managed to glare up at me, his breathing labored as he grunted in confusion and rage. "Seriously? I did not see that coming! I thought it was you for sure, especially after that pretty little speech you just gave me back in the classroom. Honestly, Jackson, you're a horrible person."

I easily caught him as he started to collapse, reaching down to pop his door open. I deliberately held him so it looked like we were embracing, but leaned my head to the side as far as I could manage so that as little of the poisonous shake touched my clothes as possible. Lowering him down onto the driver's seat, I had a major sensation of déjà vu from when I had done the same thing not two hours ago for Isaac. But I was much less gentle with Jackson, making sure to shove him roughly into the car.

Placing my hand on the roof of his car, I ducked inside and took great pleasure in seeing his defenseless form. His chest was rapidly rising and falling as he struggled to breathe through only his nose in his white-hot fear that I could smell, and a sweat had broken out on his forehead. "Oh, and, don't tell anyone about this or try to retaliate in any way because if you do," I paused for emphasis, my eyebrows raised. "The next time we cross paths I won't be nearly so forgiving." I let a claw come out of my finger but kept it in my hand, hidden from his view, and his wide eyes popped even wider when I let it run across the smooth skin of his neck. He probably thought it was a blade of some kind, which is exactly what I wanted him to think. The last thing I wanted was for Jackson Whittemore to figure out that I was a werewolf. "You can't reclaim your spot as the alpha of the school if you're permanently paralyzed, can you?"

If it's possible, his eyes popped even more, and his heart was pumping so fast I thought he'd explode. So I smiled sweetly, pityingly at him, and retracted the claw. "It's been nice getting to know you, Jackson. Don't make it necessary for our paths to cross again, okay?"

And with that, I swung the door shut. But my rage was insatiable, and it demanded that I do something to spite the bastard, so when I swung the door shut, I did so hard enough to rip his handle off. I knew the noise probably scared the shit out of him, but as soon as I'd broken it off I frowned because I realized this wouldn't be an easy part to explain away. Then I tried to bring myself to care, but couldn't quite muster the strength, so I stepped onto the sidewalk and chucked it in the grass next to the bottle. Taking long, deep breaths to calm my nerves, I tried to convince myself to leave him there and not to turn back and cut his throat to let him bleed out onto the expensive leather interior of his shining, overly expensive, obnoxious, pretentious vehicle.

I'm a lot of things, but a first-degree murderer is not one of them. I'm more of a manslaughter, second-degree murder kind of girl. I wasn't about to let someone like Jackson Whittemore change that about me. But, it was just so hard to keep my feet planted, to keep from tearing back into his face and striking the fear of god in him.

I took solace in the fact that I'd probably already accomplished that particular duty. I looked down at my clothes and saw a rather large spot from where Jackson's soiled head/shoulders had dampened my shirt.

Panic laced through my chest despite the many layers I was wearing, but I quickly tore off my jacket anyways, and then didn't even hesitate to shed the rest of my clothes from my skin. They fell onto the sidewalk and I ran a frantic hand over the spot that had been damp, but my skin was dry. Immediately, I relaxed, and threw a dirty glare at the Porsche that was still sitting in the parking lot.

"Whoa," A muffled voice cried from within the school. "Check it out! Topless chick!" I whirled on my heels and looked at the row of windows on the school building.

Sure enough, there was a class. And of course, class had started long ago. And naturally the window was flooded by a bunch of hormonal teenagers, who all gawked and freaked out about seeing me standing there—topless, in only my bra and shorts, right outside the window, right by the parking lot. And would you expect anything less than for the classroom to belong to Mr. Harris?

It was at that moment that I realized two things in rapid succession. One, Mr. Harris was glaring at my topless, exposed body. Two, I had missed that detention he gave me the night of the game, and the night of the pool.

Well, crap!