Revamped!

[I would've updated this at the end of the week but I was too excited and already updated my other two stories so I figured that I might as well do this one as well.

Don't you worry, everyone, Cresswell is coming. (It's in this chapter.)

Welcome to the second arc, everybody!] [2020: I'm so excited to come back to this arc.]

The Big Bad Wolf: Part One

"Thorne!"

The howl echoes in his ears, louder than his pounding heart. Thorne's legs move the fastest they've run in years, even faster than when he had to run laps in his semester in military school. Unlike then, this time he has a purpose to run: he's being chased by Wolf Kesley. Thorne looks over his shoulder for a second to see how much of a distance he has from his current enemy.

Wolf glided over the fence that took Thorne five minutes to climb.

"Spades!" Thorne curses, continuing to run. He's dead meat.

If his calculations are right, which they never are so he turns to his luck - if his impeccable luck is on his side then he should manage to outrun the big bad Wolf … or at least outsmart him.

He doesn't want to be dead meat.

-o-

"No, no, no!" Cress Darnel exclaims, slamming on her keyboard as her computer game shows the words "GAME OVER" in big and bold letters.

Before hitting the restart button, Cress stretches her arms up, cracking her knuckles, elbows, and spine. If she wasn't wearing her headphones with loud music blasting through, she would've winced at hearing the sound of her body cracking. But after sitting at her computer for hours, it felt relieving. Cress stands, removes her headphones, and does some quick stretches and squats for her lower body. She glances at the time and didn't realize how late in the afternoon it was.

If there's anything Cress has learned about sitting in front of a computer for endless hours on end playing games, it's that your body gets super stiff and you lose track of time easily. She'd say she was productive today.

Cress hears loud banging on her front door and jumps. The pounding on the door is constant and Cress is home alone, unsure of what to do. She tiptoes out of her room, down the hallway, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. For a moment, she thinks the knocking stopped but when it starts again, she screams a little. Cress's heart is racing as she covers her mouth, her arms shaking as sweat starts to form on her forehead. So much for not appearing to be home. Now they know she's here.

"Please, open up!" The person knocking exclaims, a hint of desperation in his voice.

Cress grabs a frying pan from the cupboards and heads towards the front door where the pounding continues relentlessly. She takes a quick breath to calm her nerves, hoping that her inner badass ninja comes out to take care of this. In a second, Cress opens the door as she holds the frying pan high above her head. The person knocking swings the door open, causing Cress to fall back onto the staircase and drop the frying pan. The person quickly closes the door and locks it, closing the drapes of the neighbouring windows as she scrambles to pick up the pan. He takes a breath of relief as he turns around to face Cress.

"Thanks," he says.

Cress is speechless. Cress is in too much shock to say anything back. Cress's heart is racing for a whole new reason now.

The boy standing in her house now is none other than her crush since even before he officially met him: Carswell Thorne. The most dashing and suave boy she has ever seen is in her house.

"Hello, Cress," Thorne greets, barely peeking out the windows.

Her lungs suddenly have no air after learning that Carswell Thorne knows her name. She didn't think he knew she existed let alone her name or even her preferred nickname. As much as she wants to live in this fantasy, she has one predominant question in her mind.

"So, what brought you here?" Cress asks, picking up the frying pan but not to hit him over the head. "Fate? Destiny?"

Thorne snorts a small laugh. "A wolf."

Cress tilts her head a little in confusion. Thorne looks back at her, knowing that he needs to explain. To her surprise, though, Thorne never questioned the frying pan.

"Wolf, from school, was chasing me," Thorne says. "We're playing hide-and-seek."

Even Cress doubts that. Cress barely knows Wolf but based on gossip and rumours, she knows that he isn't the kind to play that game in his childhood, let alone play it now with Thorne. And if Wolf was with his pack, it's a miracle Thorne's alive.

"I'll get you, Thorne!" Wolf howls from outside.

Thorne immediately grabs Cress' frying pan and holds it up.

-o-

Wolf enters The Rampion, thinking that Thorne might have run here but he's nowhere to be found. Now he feels defeated from being unable to catch Thorne. He feels as though he's off of his game since Thorne got away. And when entering the diner, he realizes why. Behind the counter, wearing the stupid astronaut suit as her uniform is Scarlet. Ever since that moment where she locked eyes and threatened him for taunting the pretty girl with scars, she's been on his mind. It's not like he and Scarlet were strangers. They were classmates since she first came to Commonwealth but they never ran in the same circles. He's never even thought about her until that moment and, often enough, he always finds himself drifting to that moment because it gave him a good look at her face.

Wolf sits at the bar counter where Scarlet is and she immediately notices him.

"You look so gloomy," Scarlet states. Her voice naturally has this mocking tone to it even if she didn't mean it. At least it matches the cute and snarky grin on her face.

"No spades," Wolf replies. Unlike her voice, his voice naturally sounds harsh. He doesn't want to come across as such but she already knows he's like that.

"What happened? The Big Bad Wolf couldn't catch Little Red?"

Scarlet's smirking. That time she was mocking him.

Wolf shoots her a cold glare. "Do you care about my problems?"

"No, but sometimes venting fills up my tip jar. You wouldn't believe how many people have come in here to tell me about their marriage problems."

Scarlet jingles the small jar filled with a few coins. Wolf scowls at her but secretly respects her honesty and willing to help - like how she helped that new girl with the scars on her face from his pack. And there goes another reminder of that event. Her brown eyes are softer now than they were back then.

"I don't want to burden you with my problems," Wolf tells her, "and none of them involve marriage."

"How considerate of you," Scarlet says. "My tip jar could use a little burdening, though."

She jingles the jar again as she turns around to the food's warming bar. She picks up some plates to deliver to other customers. Wolf shifts his position on his bar stool and eyes that tip jar before pulling out his wallet and dropping a bill in there with the other coins. He forces himself not to look at Scarlet again as he walks out of the diner.

-o-

Cress tries her hardest to contain her excitement at the fact that the boy of her dreams is in her house, holding her frying pan, and now sitting on her couch. She doesn't care if it was Wolf that chased him here but she believes that it was fate. Out of all the places to run and houses to demand help from, it ended up being her house. Something had to draw him to it. Fate, that's what.

Cress looks out the front window of her house, searching for Wolf on behalf of Thorne who nervously taps his fingers across the frying pan.

"I don't think Wolf is around anymore," Cress says, keeping the curtains closed anyways.

"Wolf is never 'not around,'" Thorne tells her. "We've both lived in Commonwealth long enough to know that he's just lurking somewhere ready to pounce on me and eat me alive."

Cress agrees. Although she's only lived in Commonwealth for about four years, she knows about Wolf - well, just what she's heard about him and his Wolf Pack since she doesn't have the courage to interact with them - and if he doesn't catch his prey, he won't stop until he does. Maybe the reason they think of him like an animal is because he's brutal and is named after one.

"What are you going to do about it?" Cress asks.

Thorne shrugs. "I have no idea. He could be outside my house or down the street and my parents don't care about me so I don't have to go home. With that and my fear of The Big Bad Wolf, can I stay here for the night?"

Cress instantly freezes as those last seven words echo in her head. Carswell Thorne wants to spend the night at her house. First, he comes knocking on her door and now wants to spend the night at her house. These past thirty minutes have been the best thirty minutes of her entire life, mostly because she's been behind a screen for the majority of it all.

"Um, Cress?"

She instantly snaps out of the little fantasy she was enjoying and enters the reality she currently loves. This is all just too much for her to contain at the moment.

"I could stay here, right?" Thorne questions since she hasn't answered three of his questions. Make it four. "Your parents won't mind at all?"

"Dad's out of town," Cress replies as casual as she can but she still sounds awkwardly nervous. "He'll be back by the end of the week."

"Great."

"And, just to be straight, I'm not coercing you or suggesting anything."

Cress's cheeks redden. "I didn't think you were."

"Good."

Cress can't help but admire how much fate is really in her favour. She sees Thorne smiling with his ever-so-charming face, but she knows that it's because he claimed a hiding spot for the night and not because of the one-sided romance she feels in her heart.

"So," Thorne says, finally putting down the frying pan he's been holding on to this whole time. "The day is still very young and since we can't leave due to a certain predator on the loose, what's there to do at the Darnel House?"

Cress hesitates since she isn't prepared to entertain guests at all. "I have some computer or video games if you're into that stuff."

"Of course I'm into that stuff," Thorne replies excitedly. "I didn't think you were into that stuff."

Cress can't help but to cross her arms. "I'll have you know that my closet gamer name is LittleCress."

Thorne laughs a little. It's a laugh that comes genuinely from the heart and isn't forced in any way. Cress can't help but grin a little at how cute his laugh is despite her wanting to be a little bit offended.

"Your username fits you well," Thorne comments, patting her on the top of her head. It emphasizes her petite frame in comparison to him since he's almost a full head taller than her. "Mine's CaptainThorne."

"Does it fit you?" She questions.

"Pull out a spaceship game and I'll show you."