A/N: Warning for some strong language and some slurs in this chapter.
Wolfblood
Chapter 2
As I'm stuffing my rucksack into my locker before lunch, I spot a familiar head of brown hair.
"Joshua," I call as he almost passes me without seeing me. He turns, eyes surprised and uncomprehending for a moment.
Then a mischievous smile lights his face and he steps out of the flow of traffic towards me. "Yes." He answers, crossing his arms and leaning against the lockers as he waits for me. He doesn't have to wait long. "Ryan Mason," he says my name slowly as if recalling it, or testing it out for the first time.
"You invited me to sit with you at lunch?" I remind him, slightly amused. "Is that offer still open or do I have to find a seat somewhere else?"
"No, of course," He scoffs as he moves to walk at my side. "I mean what I say, even if my memory is absolutely shot. In fact, I probably should go see a doctor about that, among other things. I have this really big, gross mole on my butt that-"
"Isaac!" A furious voice shouts, and suddenly my friend's head is roughly cuffed and then put in a headlock. "I'm gonna kill you, you piece of shit," A clone of my friend growls, and the two boys wrestle a moment before the one I was talking to, Isaac, escapes the headlock with a laugh.
Twins, I realize as I see their identical faces. Joshua has a twin.
The real Joshua turns to me with a scowl. "I do not have a mole on my butt," he tells me, and I can't help laughing at him. Forks might not be so bad at all.
I pat him on the shoulder as I squeeze my way into the lunchroom before we can cause an even bigger backup at the doors.
"I'm sure you don't," I patronize.
"I don't!" he squawks, following after me. "I'll prove it to you," he challenges.
"No thanks," I grimace as I make my way through the buffet line. "That's really not something that I want to see, mole or no mole."
"I'll have you know, I have a beautiful butt," he continues even as the girl in front of me startles and looks back at us with wide eyes before quickly looking away.
"I'll check that for you once you magically change genders."
Isaac giggles manically as I select a slice of meat lovers pizza and move to pay for it. I can't help the slight smile as I'm dragged to an empty table. With these two buffoons hanging around, I'd never get a girlfriend, but they seem too amusing to immediately discard for something like that.
Now that I know that there are two of them, though, I'll have to quickly learn how to tell them apart. I just know they are going to try and switch on me all the time.
Another girl suddenly joins our group, excitedly talking but hardly looking up from the camera clutched in her hand. Then she's turning it and shoving the thing under the two boy's noses.
"See?" she says. "Proof."
I curiously peek over a shoulder and take in the paw-print and a small human foot next to it. In relation to the foot, the paw-print could have been the size of trashcan lids, or slightly smaller than them.
My eyes widen.
"What made that?" I ask, impressed.
The girl looks up, seemingly surprised at my presence.
"You're the new girl," she notes unhelpfully.
"Ryan Mason," I offer. "What's that?" I ask, pointing at the camera.
Her expression becomes slightly guarded, even as she answers me. "A wolf print."
"Wolves don't get that big," I scoff disbelievingly.
"Well, around here they do." She folds her arms defensively, finding a chair to settle in.
"There have been stories for years about giant wolves in the woods," Joshua says slowly. "They started when we were kids. Some hikers every now and then would come into town and mention seeing something as big as a bear, only it looked like a wolf. No one really believes it though." He passes the camera back to his friend.
"It's true," she insists.
"Jo thinks she saw one a few years back," Isaac informs me. "Now she's obsessed on getting proof that they exist even though there haven't been any stories or sightings in years. Parent's still use it to scare their kids and keep them from wandering off into the woods, though."
"If I was just seeing things, then what is this," Jo insists again, shoving the camera under their noses once more.
Isaac sighs, and it's the first indication that the boy can become serious about anything. "Probably just some kid playing a prank on you again. You remember what happened last year."
I watch as the girl suddenly deflates, and I wonder what happened the year before. Nothing good.
"I didn't even tell anyone that I was going out last night."
"You're always out there, Jo," Joshua sighs gently, and I can tell that this is a common argument.
Something about this situation nags at me. It almost seems familiar, like a story I've been told before. Then I vaguely remember Grandma Morris telling me stories about her human pack when she was in school back in the UK.
"Fine," Jo finally sighs after a long pause. "Enough about my wolves." She sets her camera down on the table and looks over at me curiously. "Now, how did you scam the new girl into hanging out with you imbeciles?"
"Easy," Joshua says. "I offered her a chance to look at my butt."
I choke on a bite of pizza I had just put in my mouth and come up cackling as I'm finally able to suck in some air.
The girl eyes my short air, my tattoos, and my clothes. "Somehow, I don't think that is accurate," she scoffs.
"Definitely not," I cough some more between my laughter.
"I thought not," she sighs.
…..
After school, I hover near my new friends as they chat around a car that has seen better days. I only half pay attention as I watch the school doors and wait for my brother to appear.
I haven't seen him all day, and there is a slight anxiety that wasn't there before our parents were shot. He's my entire pack now.
When a few minutes pass, longer than I think it should have taken him to appear, I tilt my head slightly and allow my ears to sharpen in search of him. I find him immediately, and when I hear what's being said, immediately stiffen.
"What's a scrawny thing like you doing in high school? The Elementary is just across the way; don't tell me you're too stupid to miss it."
"Ryan?" my new friends call, worriedly, as I seemingly take off across the lot for no obvious reason, but I pay them no mind. My attention is elsewhere, on the confrontation.
"You're the stupid one," my brother scoffs, "If you think that picking on a kid makes you look cool. It just makes you nothing more than a skeet."
I sniff the air subtly, using scent as well as sound to guide me.
My friends follow, confused.
"What the hell does that mean, you seal-fucker?"
I reach the senior boy, towering over my brother, just as he pushes him against the wall. It was a light push, hardly anything at all, but fury immediately lights in my vein.
"Don't you dare put your disgusting hands on him you bushed squatch," I snarl at the boy much taller than me and shove him backward a good three feet as I immediately put myself between him and my cub.
"Touch me again, you little dyke," he threatens, suddenly getting very close to me, shoving his face an inch from mine.
"Call me that again and I'll put you in the hospital," I growl, squaring up against this human male who thinks he's an alpha.
"Ryan.." my brother warns. I ignore him, feeling my anger rise and rise. The veins in my arms bulge black, but my tattoos help disguise them.
"Fucking. Dyke." He jabs a finger into my shoulder.
I snap, launching myself at the boy with a roar, tackling him to the ground.
"Ryan!" My new friends, my brother, shout, as the squatch under me screams and attempts to shield his face as I swing my fists at it.
Before I can get more than two hits in, my brother's smell is wrapping around me as he grabs my wrist and yanks me with all his strength off of the no-good human.
"Ryan," he snaps loudly, angling me away from all the eyes that are suddenly watching. "Calm down. Your eyes," he hisses.
I do my best to listen, taking deep breaths and trying to slow my heart-rate. I stare down at my hands until I watch the black veins disappear.
They have only just vanished when a furious teacher grabs my shoulder and yanks me around to face them.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading!
skeet- a miscreant, white trash, or petty criminal
seal-fucker- racial slur against Canadians
bushed- uncivilized
squatch- someone big and unkempt, short for Sasquatch
Please review! Let me know what you think of the twins!
~Silver~
