Revamped!

[Tangled is one of my favourite movies so of course Cresswell is precious for me to write.

And to the person who said that they liked the way I write Levana in this story, I'm so grateful that you said that. Levana is my favourite character to write in this story]. [2020: I swear, I have about 100 ANs explaining how I write Levana since there are always mixed feelings about that.]

The Big Bad Wolf: Part Three

Cress walks through Lunar Academy's halls, still feeling giddy and excited about the night with Thorne. The smile she wore last night was still holding up strong on her face. Speaking of Thorne, she hasn't seen him yet. A part of her believes that Thorne is skipping school to avoid seeing Wolf. She doesn't want to believe is that Thorne is here and just talking up some hot girls, brushing her off or not even looking her way.

Nothing will hurt her more than Thorne never looking at her again and acting as if that night never happened.

As she approaches her locker, she sees an all-too familiar sight. It's not Thorne but the other two members of the Wolf Pack standing at her locker casually. Their leader isn't there and it makes Cress wonder if Wolf skipped the day to go hunt Thorne. She hopes that's not the case. Or maybe she does so he'd hide at her place again.

"Excuse me," Cress says politely to the Wolf Pack so she could get to her locker.

The two rough and muscular boys tower over Cress by at least a head and reek of cigarette smoke. They look at her like the small girl she is and don't move. It's not like they don't know that this is Cress's locker because they do and if there was one place to hang out it would be here since her locker is the one that's furthest away from the teacher's lounge and main office. Cress is now shaking at the idea of needing to ask the Wolf Pack if she could get to her locker (it's really something that shouldn't even have to be done).

"Beat it," a stronger voice says from behind her.

Cress turns around and sees their hulking leader standing behind her, smelling of musky cologne and aftershave instead of smoke. At the sight of the infamous Wolf Kesley, Cress hopes her eyes aren't bulging out of her head. This is the closest she's ever stood to him. His Pack leaves Cress's locker and Cress stares at Wolf, wondering why he hasn't left with them.

"Thank you," Cress mutters to Wolf, avoiding to meet his eyes as she opens her locker with her head held low.

As Cress rummages through her locker, Wolf's cologne is still present in every breath she takes. She slowly turns over and sees Wolf leaning against the locker next to hers. A part of her wants to ask why he's still here but the other part of her is too scared to know the answer.

"Thorne sent me this picture last night," Wolf says.

Wolf turns his phone around and shows Cress a picture. It's a selfie that Thorne took at her house. He's winking from the corner and Cress is in the background playing computer games. She was too engrossed in her game to notice that the selfie was being taken. Would it be too weird to ask Wolf to send the picture to her so she could use it as her phone's wallpaper?

"Yeah, he came running to my house when you were chasing him," Cress says although she knows that Wolf already figured that out. "Why'd you ask?"

Cress looks up at Wolf and sees a snarky grin on his face as he gets off the lockers and leaves her without an answer. She's left staring at her opened locker, wondering why Wolf's minions seemed scarier than he did when it's usually the other way around.

-o-

"Cress."

She stops at the sound of her name and sees that the principal called her, Lunar Academy had a surplus of students and if the principal knew your name it meant a few things: you were either really bad, really smart, really rich, or a combination. Lucky for Cress she's really good, really smart in some subjects, and a little more than well-off when it came to her family's finances.

"I'd like you, as one of our school's honour students, to give our new student a brief tour," the principal continues.

Cress nods although she dreads this since she finds herself to be incredibly awkward with people.

"I'm Winter," the new girl introduces, "Winter Hayle-Blackburn."

Cress recognizes Winter, despite never seeing her face before. She's heard the rumours that finally dimmed down, the one about the extremely beautiful girl who almost got eaten alive by The Wolf Pack. Now, she's in the same uniform as every other girl in the school. No makeup covers the three scars underneath her left eye. Her hair is brushed, half of it in a bun while the other half is left down. She looks like any other teenage girl and a goddess.

Cress knows she's gawking at Winter but who could blame her? No matter what, Winter Hayle-Blackburn is absolutely beautiful.

"You're Dr. Darnel's daughter," Winter states.

Cress didn't realize that she zoned out from admiring how beautiful Winter is. Then, she processes the weird statement Winter just said and doesn't know how to respond to it.

"What?" Cress asks.

"Darnel," Winter states. "You're Dr. Darnel's daughter, Crescent, aren't you?"

Cress clears her throat awkwardly. "Well, yeah, I am but just call me Cress. How do you know my dad?"

Winter smiles. "He has your picture on his desk."

Considering that her dad is a combined psychiatrist and neurologist, Cress doesn't ask more on how Winter knows her dad let alone why she knows that her dad has a picture of her on his desk. It's not her business. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Instead, she decides to start the tour. It starts off with finding Winter's locker, then showing all the student resources, hangouts, classrooms, and so on and so forth. She'd even spare tips about the best bathrooms and cafeteria food.

"Look, it's my cousin!" Winter exclaims.

Cress doesn't have time to look over before she feels Winter grab her wrist and start dragging her. For a moment, it feels as though Winter was giving her the tour instead of the other way around.

"Hey, Winter, Cress," Cinder says when they approach her.

Cress is left silent for a bit as she looks at Cinder. "You know me?"

Cress wonders what it is with the Blackburn girls and knowing who she's without a formal introduction. And being so effortlessly beautiful. The only reason she knows Cinder is from their shared geography class (which is also a class with Thorne but that's not so important now). She didn't think Cinder noticed her in that class.

"Thorne pointed you out on my first day," Cinder answers. "He said that you were someone who could possibly erase the criminal record I don't have."

Cress is left speechless since she didn't think Thorne knew her before the whole "spent the night at her house because of Wolf" moment; or that she was into computer software. Maybe there was more to her crush that meets the eye…

-o-

After school, Cress starts her walk home. She usually walks to school and back since it's only about a thirty-minute walk - forty if she takes her sweet time to look at the neighbourhoods or isn't in a rush. She's not involved in any school sports so this is how she stays fit between the video game sessions. Besides, it's good for the trees.

Cress hasn't seen Thorne all day which makes her believe that he skipped to avoid Wolf. She can't help but think that even if Thorne were to show up, Wolf wouldn't have done anything. Wolf seemed a bit off to her. In her eyes, Wolf is just plain frightening but today, she didn't seem as scared as she would've been if that incident happened the day before.

While being lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice the car on the side of the road that's been driving at her walking pace for the past two blocks. Cress stops, unsure if she should be running or not from a possible kidnapper, but she sees Thorne in the driver's seat.

"Hey," Thorne greets with his charming grin, "been daydreaming about me?"

"What? No, of course not," Cress replies almost too quickly. Her cheeks are heating up. She quickly clears her throat. "Wolf spoke to me today about the selfie you sent him."

"Oh, that, don't worry about Wolf. Him and his pack won't hurt you because you're you."

Cress tilts her head a little. "What does that mean?"

"You're Cress. You're small and the embodiment of purity. Nobody would dare to hurt you. That's also why Wolf's Pack hangs by your locker. Not only is it the furthest away from anything faculty-related but you're an innocent shell that nobody wants to break. Not even those thugs would dare to touch you. You're the antithesis of trouble which is why they gather there."

"Wow…" is all Cress could say, "I'm lost for words."

"I have a habit of making girls speechless. Also I just learned what an antithesis was and wanted to use that word."

Cress smiles timidly as she laughs, brushing a lock of hair from her face.

[I didn't mean to call Cress a shell but I saw the opportunity to use a stupid pun so I went for it.] [2020: I always take that chance, even when it's not there.]