Chapter Two

Broken Barrier

I hold another earring against my ear, hoping to finally be satisfied but to no avail. After groaning at my ears' failure to look good with any earrings I own, I move all the pairs from my mattress to my dresser and pull my hair over my bare ears. No point in trying any more, I already raided my mom's jewellery box and asked my friends for their support to drive to my house just to give me a pair of studs I probably won't even wear anyway.

Straightening out my jacket, I do a mental overview of myself. Jeans: good, boots: kick-ass, shirt: pretty, jacket: works. I'm not the best at accessorizing, but I really gotta hand it to myself, I managed to make a necklace and rings go together. I never exactly know what really looks perfect. Like; what I'm wearing may look good enough for me, but to someone else it could be a fashion abomination.

"Kenna," My mom's yelling yet somehow still quiet tone of voice overlaps my thoughts, making me nod at myself with approval and walk out.

I meet my mom in the middle of the entrance of our house. She looks me up and down before sighing, "I hate to be tough mom here but I gotta make rules for tonight."

"Understandable." I nod.

"So, your first date…" She hesitates for a moment, squinting at me, "No trouble. I want you home by ten thirty. Considering it is your first date, no… inappropriate touching."

My eyes widen, "Mom!"

"Kenna you are my daughter. My thirteen year old daughter who's not ready for the use of a condom,"

"I'm not planning to-" I try to stop her before she has the talk with me before I've actually fully processed what exactly that is.

She raises her hand to stop me, "I know you're only thirteen and you probably don't even know what that is, but I'm just trying to tell you to be careful." She releases a breath and sends a small smile my way.

After returning a familiar smile, I touch her left shoulder and speak with reassurance lining my words, "I will be careful. I know you have a thing about me going out at dark but we're just going to Brianna's house for a bit, I won't even be gone long enough for you to miss me."

My mom accepts this and nods before smiling devilishly, "So… Cole."

"Don't start." I stop her before she starts off on her mocking trail. Everyone, even my very oblivious mother knows about the world sized crush I have on Cole Bradley, son of Miranda Laurent and Clarke Bradley, fourteen year old god. He is truly something. I didn't even ask him to go out tonight; I had to get my best friend to do it for me, which is pretty lame. "I have to go." I make my way to the door, making sure to turn back and wave goodbye to my mom before I close it.

Nerves dance around in my stomach as I check my phone, sighing as I read the digits displayed at the top of my screen. After shutting it off, I nudge Brianna and use my thumb to signal I was going to head home.

Brianna laughs lightly, "No way, Ken." She walks behind me and pushes me in the direction of all the others. I stop walking and turn around to face her.

"Brianna, I can't," I let the seriousness stand out in my voice.

"Kenna, lighten up! It's only ten thirty!" She walks around me with her arms crossed, a playful grin playing on her face.

My eyes widen. I was supposed to be home already. I was already in so much trouble; I didn't need to be creeping around the preserve only for it to end up adding to my mom's anger.

I shake my head, getting ready to just turn around and walk away without passing another word to her, but Brianna speaks up once again, this time saying something that actually made sense. "Besides, would you really just leave Cole mid-date?"

I roll my eyes, "This isn't a date, it's a bunch of friends hanging out," I scoff.

"You will regret not coming, you know. If you leave that gives Lola every chance with Cole." Although I hadn't yet agreed to Brianna's offer, the look on her face was easy to read. It was so easy for her to know when she was successful or – on the rare occasion – not. I nod lightly and she jumps up once, grinning like a child as she grabs my hand and runs into the woods after everyone else.

Once we catch up to them, the boys - Cole and his friends Dylan and Zach - try to figure out how to light a fire, eventually gaining knowledge from Lola on how do it with nature and a small flame goes up. Dylan claps for himself and stands up, walking towards the duffel bag he took from Brianna's house and carrying it over to the fire. I'm pretty sure I was the only one here completely unaware that we weren't just going to watch dumb movies in Brianna's house for three hours. I probably shouldn't have agreed to go with them but I guess with all the pressure my friends put on me, it didn't take me lone to succumb to it. To be honest, out of all the places in Beacon Hills, an eerie forest with insects crawling around the leaves in the freezing cold was not the preferred place to visit tonight.

While everyone else goes to sit on the logs around the fire, I stay standing, trying to get a text through to my mom but something keeps going wrong. I groan and put my phone back in my pocket, sitting down exactly where I was instead of with the group. It was really bad of me, but I really wasn't the biggest fan of them any more – except Cole because he's Cole for crying out loud. But Dylan, Zach and Lola aren't such great people, and from what I can tell, their personality seems to have rubbed off onto Brianna so now she and Lola are joined to the hip and I'm just sort of… there. There isn't much point in my presence here, or my existence for that matter. No one appears to have acknowledged the fact that I'm even with them and if I just left they probably wouldn't notice. But I can't, because that's just rude.

I lay back on the leaves, not worrying about the bugs as I count the stars in the dark winter sky. Once I got to eleven stars – four noticeable by anyone and seven you had to be concentrating to see – the space to my left was taken up, "I got nine, how about you?"

I turn my head, smiling at the thought of seeing more stars than Cole did. "Eleven." I answer, re-adjusting myself so my body was at its full extension. Cole laughs and puts one of his hands behind his head.

"That's not fair, you've got great vision," He complains as he looks at the sky again, "Got the tenth… Where's the eleventh?"

Figuring he couldn't find the most complicated star up there, I move closer to him and point to the biggest one, "You see the tiny thing right next to the big one?"

Cole exhales, "Wow, that's a star? I am such a moron." He looks at me with a smile.

"Very true," I nod and laugh. In response Cole playfully hits me and laughs along with me.

"So this group date thing…" Cole starts.

"Is incredibly boring and stupid?" I finish his sentence off for him.

Cole chuckles and nods, "When Brianna mentioned you and I being together I guess I just assumed it would just be us on a date."

I smile most likely wider than initially intended, picking up the hint, "And you said yes."

"I did."

His body closes the space left between us and he uses the hand that wasn't currently holding his body weight to push a piece of my hair I swear didn't even drop down onto my face away, probably all for the sake of being cliché and filling out my long waited dream of feeling like I was in a movie. His hand stayed at the back of my neck and he slowly moved his face closer and closer. I try to keep down the excitement I have for this moment, but before I even get to breathe in the aftershave from his neck, several screams make me jump and get back onto my feet, along with Cole.

I frantically look all around. "Where did they go?" I ask, not really a question to be answered but is the only thing that popped into my head. From the space around the fire, the only thing remaining is the blue duffel bag now opened and revealing several bottles of alcohol. Trust Dylan to be a drinker.

Cole starts to walk but stops when another's feet start quickly running in a circle around us. I turn around with every crunch of a hard leaf at the touch of someone's foot squashing it but see nothing but a dark blurry figure, only existing in the same position for a few milliseconds before running off once again.

"Kenna, run," Cole whispers sternly, also trying to catch a glimpse at whatever that was.

I give him a look of both shock and terror, "No! I'm not gonna leave you!" I don't even bother whispering. The thought of leaving him behind when everyone has gone missing and someone is currently circling us was ridiculous. Not just because he's the guy I like, but I wouldn't just leave anyone – even including Zach, the worst of the worst.

"When you're far enough away, call the police." Cole doesn't even look at me, as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

I was still hesitant to move any part of my body, put when the running cuts and an alarming grunt sounds, I decide to trust his not-so-well thought out plan and run down the route behind me as it's the only one I'm sure I won't be found.

When I'm only far enough to put a metre stick at my feet to reach the opening, a thud makes me spin back around to see my phone on the ground. I roll my eyes at how frightened I got and pick it up, turning it on quickly to make sure it hadn't been damaged when it hit the ground. As I'm about to run again, another long-lasting scream hits my ears. My head snaps up to where I once stood, seeing now that the scream belonged to Cole. My eyes widen and my body goes numb as I watch what I would call a wolf on its hind legs tackle Cole to the ground and lower its head to his neck. I jump behind a tree and soon enough, the screaming stops. The worst of possibilities has happened, and I just stood there.

The mind-numbing silence goes on for too long, and I give in to my need to peer to the clearing. I look down, the only thing making it possible for me to see anything being the quickly dying fire. The creature rises to its feet with a loud howl, its arms lifting to the air as the ears go down, the skin turns to colour and the standing out red eyes disappear. My breathing quickens and the sounds of terror as I exhale are enough to attract… whatever the predator was. I cover my mouth and return to the spot behind to tree, closing my eyes and wishing on all eleven stars that I'll get out of this.

After a long amount of time goes by without a noise excluding my breathing and silent whispers for safety, I let my eyes part one by one and look around. The fire had disappeared to ashes by now, and fortunately I couldn't see whatever remained of Cole. It seems awful just thinking about how I could have been in the same position.

I allow myself to believe that I was actually okay, and start walking. I stumble a lot as I try to make my way out of the woods on my own, only hearing the howling and grunting reciting in my head. I don't like crying but obviously my refusal to do so was beat out by the death of possibly all my friends.

All of my friends, the thought finally races through my head, hitting me so hard that I have to hold on to the branch of a tree for support. "All of my friends are dead…" I whisper to myself as I kneel down.

What are you supposed to do when you witness your friends dying? Do you call the police? Should I go home to my mom and tell her first? It didn't even matter what I did. The point was all of my friends are dead. I let the thought sink. I am now in a state of shock, unsure of how to completely process the situation or what to do about it. Without thinking, I grab my phone from my pocket and dial 911, only to find myself ending the call immediately.

Confused by my own actions, I stand up, the audible breathing returning as liquid falls from my eyes. I don't even bother wiping the tears away, instead I run in the same direction until I find myself in a street a couple blocks from mine.

I stare at my front door for a few minutes, going over what I'd say when my mom started yelling at me for being late, but what would I even say? I exhale and open the door walking inside and slamming the door, just to be sure she heard me.

I hear the soles of my mom's slippers dust along the floorboards and my mother shows up in front of me with a look of fury, "Where the hell have you been, Kenna? What happened to ten thirty?" She speaks with a voice that matched her expression.

"They're dead," I say in a low voice, probably impossible to hear.

"What?" She asks sternly.

I raise my head and look in straight in the eyes, "Brianna, Cole, Zach, Dylan and Lola are dead." I silently gasp. Hearing the words in my own voice was different than them being in my head.

My mom's face goes pale and she loses all expression, "Kenna, if this is some kind of joke-"

"It's not!" I yell, "My friends are dead and whatever did it wasn't human."

Not human. I go over my choice of words. Not human wasn't the first thing that comes to mind when I allow myself to see that thing again. I don't know how I would manage to say it out loud but I know what I saw.

I saw a werewolf.