Beacon Hills High was…charming, Mari supposed. It was bigger than the Liceo had been, which one would imagine would make it easier to blend in. But blend she had not. People had been staring at her since she made her way into her first period History class. It probably hadn't helped that apparently people in California didn't dress like she did. With how hot it was outside, she'd thought crop tops would be a lot more popular. Or maybe it had more to do with her leather jacket and biker boots. Yeah, that was pretty likely. She hadn't seen a lot of either.
Although two girls had complimented her outfit, to which Mari had replied with a small smile. One had been a small Asian girl with a camo jacket, and the other had been a strawberry-blonde decked in designer fashion (Mari had recognized her dress from one of Blue's Vogue magazines). But other than that pleasant encounter on her way to her math class, there had mostly been derision on her classmates' faces when they encountered her.
By the time lunch rolled around, she was desperate for some freedom, so she decided to forgo the awkwardness of finding a place in the cafeteria. She headed outside, making her way to the farthest part of the campus. She made quick work of the sandwich and chips she'd packed this morning and then decided that fresh air just wasn't doing as much for her as she'd hoped.
And so Mari leaned against the chain-link fence in a classic "bad girl" pose, completed by her leather jacket and a cigarette. Smoking was a nasty habit that she'd picked up at the Liceo, and it had become an instrumental coping mechanism during the upheaval of her entire life. A snap of her fingers brought the breeze towards her, fanning the smoke away before anyone could see it. As much as she enjoyed rebelling from time to time, detention was not what she needed on her first day.
Some of the smoke wrapped around her pinky finger before disappearing, and she sighed, dropping the burnt butt to the ground and grinding it her with her heel. Shifting her head to the left, she took in a newcomer to the scene. He was tall, probably a good foot more than her. He wore a leather jacket too, and it suited him, though he also seemed to be swimming in it. His hands were tucked in his pockets, and there was a strength coursing through him, though there also seemed to be a sadness. Digging her toe into the dirt slightly, Mari sent out a small pulse. Not enough for him to notice anything odd, but enough to make him want to look up at her. And look up he did.
The boy blinked rapidly, and she realized that he had some beautiful blue eyes. When matched with his curly brown hair, he looked strikingly similar to a fae prince. She nudged that thought to the back of her mind. It was a silly notion, and Mari had given those up long ago. Flights of fancy had no place in her world.
The boy cleared his throat, and she gave him a subtle head nod in acknowledgement. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but the school bell rang. As much as she dreaded returning to the fray, she couldn't chance being tardy. At least not today. Shooting the boy a wry smile, Mari snatched her bag off the ground and shuffled towards the school.
She sent out one more pulse, and noted the coiled springs that he held within. He was rather wound up for a day in middle-of-nowhere California. Maybe this town could be interesting, after all. Although she doubted that it was the type of interesting she was used to. All Mari could do was wait and see.
Isaac Lahey wasn't really sure what to make of the girl that had been standing by the fence during lunch. He'd only just gotten back to Beacon Hills, and had decided to hang around the school to wait for Scott since he didn't actually enroll until tomorrow. Isaac had been living in France with Chris Argent for a while, but then Chris had come back to work with a hunter family called the Calaveras. He had told Isaac that he could stay in France as long as he liked, especially since the curly-haired male was now eighteen, but eventually he'd gotten lonely and had decided to return to his hometown. So he'd phoned Melissa McCall, who was more than happy to have him return to living with them, and had made arrangements to get a flight out the next day.
Melissa and Chris were the only ones who knew that Isaac was coming home, and he'd made Melissa promise to not tell anyone. He wanted to surprise his old pack, something he never would've done before his stint in Europe. But he had changed following Allison's death. He was sure the entire pack had. He'd had a hard time carving out a place at the Lycée Alexandre Ribot in Saint-Omer, but adopting a sense of humor and a penchant for pranks had found him friends soon enough.
As Isaac made his way to the parking lot to wait at Stiles' Jeep, sure that it'd be where the pack would gather after school let out, he considered the girl he'd seen. She was beautiful, sure, but she had also reminded him of Erica. He sighed. As much as he loved Scott's pack, he desperately missed Erica and Boyd. They'd been his first real friends, and he'd never been able to thank them enough for that.
There'd been something off about the girl. She had smelled like smoke, and not the kind that came from the cigarette she'd been smoking. She also smelled like lavender and cinnamon. It was an interesting combination, and he was fairly certain he'd encountered it before, but he couldn't pinpoint an exact time and location. And it wasn't just her smell that perplexed him. When he looked at her for the first time, he thought he'd seen green in her eyes, though he also swore that her eyes were dark brown like her hair. If he wasn't a werewolf, he would think it was just his eyes playing tricks on him, but he knew better than that.
Isaac eventually decided to file the encounter away for now. He'd mention it to Scott later at the pack meeting he knew was coming. There was no way Scott was going to allow him back into the fold without a complete catch-up of every single thing he'd missed. He smiled. It'd been too long since he'd been surrounded by others of his kind. It was going to be so good to be back.
A/N: I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully the next chapter will be longer, and hopefully I will be able to post it sometime this week. If you didn't know, I just moved back to college yesterday and I'm going to be super busy this week (classes start on Thursday but I also have job training and a campus info fair to work at). So we'll see what happens. Have a great day/night!