My stomach rumbles, complaining that popcorn wasn't a decent dinner. I could log onto a messenger and try to pester Troy into paying attention to me.... I don't feel up to cyber-yelling just now though, so I shut the computer down, grab my shoes, and head out the door.
Following Sam's directions to the dining hall under the assumption the kitchen is next to it, I wind through the darkened building. There's very little light, but that doesn't bother me anymore. Another side effect of my strange new condition.
The kitchen is huge, with a walk-in fridge and a whole line of cooking surfaces.
Aware I'm probably not supposed to be in here, I nevertheless open the fridge and peek inside. I grab one of the first things I see, a package of sandwich meat, and retreat hastily from the cold.
I turn, walk three steps, and then scream.
The sandwich meat smacks against the floor.
Staring at the boy in front of me, who stares back with a frown, I try to remember how to breathe. “You should be in bed,” he says in a rough voice.
“So should you,” I tell him, searching for bravado through a mire of fear.
Pale, ice blue eyes glare down at me from beneath a shaggy mane of light blond hair.
He lacks Bryce's size, but there's an electric intensity about him that is far more frightening than mere mass could ever be.
“Wolf,” I whisper. The word catches in my throat and sends shivers through my body.
“Indeed.”
The agreement's far from jovial, and the boy continues to glare at me. But for about half a heartbeat, I think I see one corner of his mouth try to jerk upward.
“Arctic wolf,” I clarify, though I have no idea how I know that about him. The truth of it is inescapable.
“Yes.” His breath floats gently across the space between us, bringing a faint scent of apples. “My name is Warren.”
“I'm Mike.”
The corner of his mouth succeeds in forcing a half smile this time. “I know.”
Without saying anything else, or giving me time to so much as open my mouth, he turns and leaves, his long strides taking him out of the room almost instantly.
The kitchen feels a lot colder now.
Chapter Five
Haunted by thoughts of the strange wolf, I don't manage to fall asleep until almost four, so it's no shocker that I sleep straight through my seven o'clock alarm. Some part of me must be aware of the time though, because exactly five minutes before I'm supposed to meet with Mr Atherton, I jolt awake.
I spring out of bed immediately, grab the top sweater from my bag, toss it on over yesterday's jeans, and run into the bathroom. Pausing just long enough to drag a brush through my hair, which isn't terribly happy not to be getting a shower, I hit the door only a minute late.
Sam's coming up the stairs as I barrel down them. “There you are! I didn't realize how late it was, or I would have gotten you earlier.” She falls in behind me and follows me into the principal's office.
If he notices we're two minutes late, Mr. Atherton doesn't say anything about it, starting instead with, “Good morning, girls. Sit down.” He waves us toward two black leather seats on the opposite side of a huge mahogany desk from his winged office chair.
The desk is free of clutter, housing only a sleek black laptop and a wooden organizer with two trays and a pen holder. There are no photographs or other decorations, although the walls contain a vast assortment of pictures featuring a variety of people, none of whom seem to be related. I assume they're pictures of past students. Several of them have signatures and written messages on them, but I can't read any of the writing without getting closer.
“How are you, Michaela?”
The question brings my attention back to Mr. Atherton, who wears a gray sweater over blue jeans. I had assumed he was going for a casual look yesterday because of the flight, but apparently he just doesn't see the need to wear the business type clothes my other principals have embraced.
“Fine,” I tell him. “Maybe a little tired.”
He nods agreeably. “You'll sleep better when you get used to the place.”
Can't really sleep worse. In addition to not falling asleep at all until a few hours before I was supposed to be getting up, what sleep I did have was plagued by nightmares of being hunted down by an angry wolf. Leo had to transform into a real leopard and defend me. It was fairly messed up.
“I'm sure you still have a lot of questions about weres,” Mr Atherton continues. “But I'm thinking you're probably still processing what you've already learned, and the best thing to do today is just to go out and meet your fellow students. Are you comfortable with that?”
I take the time to think about the question before answering, “I think so.”
“Okay.” He gives me a dazzling smile. “If it gets to be overwhelming, you can go back to your room or come here, and no one will hold it against you.” He waits for me to nod my understanding. “We have a counselor who comes in during the afternoon. She'll want to talk to you. She was turned as a teen, too, and I think you'll like her. If you're not comfortable with her, you don't have to keep seeing her, but I would like you to meet her.”
Again, I nod, starting to feel myself shut down. I'll think about spilling my guts to a stranger later, but I'm not going to worry about it this morning. I'm not even going to think about not worrying about it. I'm too busy not letting my stomach tie itself in knots over the prospect of being stared at by the entire school all day.
“Samantha,” Mr. Atherton switches his attention away from me. “You're willing to show Michaela around? Make sure she can find everything and isn't too freaked out by us?”
Sam immediately responds with a cheerful, “Of course.” And we're on our way out of the office in a matter of moments.
“See you tomorrow morning,” Mr. Atherton tells me. “Same time. Unless you need me before then.”
“Yes, sir,” I answer, wondering if I should be freaked out that he's giving me so much personal attention. Sam doesn't seem to think anything of it though, so maybe he's like this with everyone.
As I close the door behind us, Sam reads over my schedule. “You have classes all over,” she tells me. “I'll just show you everything.”
With a grin, she starts her tour, waving a hand at the foyer. “This is the main entrance. Our rooms are all upstairs.” She heads away from the principal's office. “This is the Rec Hall. TV lounge, game room, and social area combined. That door goes to the parking lot, which is indoors because of all the snow. There's a student kitchen off through this other door here with snacks and a microwave.”
“Really wish I'd known that last night,” I mutter.
“Why?” She stops to look at me, her red hair swishing from the momentum shift of her halt. “What happened last night?”
“I found the big kitchen,” I tell her, swallowing awkwardly. “And someone saw me there. That's all.” Avoiding the rest of the story, I go to the student kitchen, more of a kitchenette really, and find a carton of powdered donuts sitting on the counter. I grab one and take a bite while I try to figure out where the cups that go with the coffee pot are.
Sam goes to a cupboard and pulls out two Styrofoam cups. She pours coffee into them, but holds mine just out of reach. “Who?”
I play dumb. “Who what?”
Her look is impatient, though in a friendly way. “Who found you in the kitchen?” She goes ahead and gives me the coffee before I answer, but I can tell she views my taking the cup as a pledge to spill.
“Warren.” Dumping a generous amount of the toffee-flavored creamer I find in the fridge into my cup, I wait for her to say something about that, expecting a shocked inhalation followed by commiseration.
“Why do you wish he hadn't found you?” Sam asks, her look one of quiet bewilderment.
I stare back at her. “Because he's so freaky he gave me nightmares? He scared me half to death.”
“Warren?” she asks, her nose crinkling. “The wolf? Tall guy, blond,
nice muscles? Laughs a lot?”
“Well, he was blond,” I admit. “And he was certainly a wolf. But I'm not sure he even knows how to laugh.”
Studying her coffee, Sam looks thoughtful. “What exactly did he do? Because Warren's usually a pretty normal guy. Really nice. For a wolf.”
“Well...” Leaning against the counter, I go over the scene again. “Maybe I was just freaked out so bad because it was the middle of the night.”
Sam nods. “That does do strange things to people's perceptions,” she says slowly.
“The way he was staring at me though...” Shuddering, I push off and take several steps to the door. “I'm putting that back in the file of things to obsess over later.”
Sam chuckles. “I should make one of those.”
“They're useful.”
I wait for Sam to catch up outside the kitchen door and we take our coffees for a walk around the rest of the building, passing all the interior classrooms. There are only a dozen of them, a side-effect of the student body totaling a mere forty eight combined with several classes being held in outbuildings.
Done with the indoors, we walk outside into the snow. Technically, the door leads onto a stoop, but only the top step is visible. Since I don't know how high the stairs are, I have no idea how deep the snow must be. I do know it's all packed though, which is why I only sink a couple of inches when I step out. I want to ask about that, but before I get a chance we're greeted by a pack of very vocal huskies. They scamper eagerly around, sniffing me and giving playful barks of welcome. They're remarkably comfortable with being around people who smell like predators, making me wonder what my scent is like for them.
“They're pretty smart,” Sam tells me. “They know none of us are going to hurt them in human form, so they get along even with the scarier species. Except during the moon. They hide then.”
During the moon... That seems to be the common way of talking about the nights the moon is full. I can see why the dogs wouldn't want to be around wolves or bears. And I can see why the foxes wouldn't want to be around them.
“Do the different weres separate during the moon?”
She laughs. “Yes, we do. Especially those of us who are younger. Older weres have more control over themselves in animal form, but we still tend to stay with our kind. Just in case, you know.”
Yeah. Bryce could snap Sam in half in human form easily enough, but in bear form a fox would be less than a mouthful. And Warren... He's scary enough human.
“By the way, feeding and cleaning up after these guys are on the list of chores.”
“List of chores?” I ask, wondering why I would want to volunteer to bag canine poop.
Sam gives the closest dog an extra scratch behind the ears before waving me toward a nearby building and answering. “You're probably safe for now, but eventually you'll have to sign up for an hour a day of maintenance. I usually work with the dogs or in the rink, but there are plenty of things to do inside the main building. Like cleaning the fridge and vacuuming.”
“But we get to decide what we do?” I ask.
“If it's open when you get to sign up, which is on the first day after the moon.”
Okay. So with luck no one will bother me with that for another three weeks.
My guide stops outside a barn. It's large, and its wood is painted a dull gray that makes it look older than its condition would suggest. “And this is my favorite place here.”
Swinging a side door open, she leads me into darkness. A light flickers on revealing a full-sized ice rink surrounded by bleachers.
“Year-round ice.” She grins and goes quickly to a locker room. “You skate?”
I shrug, wondering once again how much they were charging Dad to send me here. “I can skate.”
“Figure or hockey?”
“Um...” Blinking, I try to figure out what she means. “Neither? Recreational.”
She opens a locker and takes out two pairs of pink ice skates, which she holds up so I can see them clearly. “Figure skates.” She indicates one. “Hockey skates.” She indicates the other. “I've also thought about getting some speed skates. I'm really not very good at racing, but maybe I'd get better if I had the right skates, you know?”
“Sure.” Up until this second, I had no idea there was more than one type of ice skate. The people at the rental desk had never asked what style of skate I wanted, just what size.
Sam glances at her watch. “They start serving lunch in ten minutes though, so I guess we should go back in.” With a slight sigh, she puts the skates back in her locker and closes the door. There's no lock on it. There aren't any locks on the outside of our rooms either.
“Why isn't anything locked?” I ask.
Laughing, the fox shakes her head. “Why would they be? No one here would steal.”
My eyebrows go up. “That seems very trusting.”
Sam snorts. “We're not fully human, Mike. A lot of us would kill someone who tried to rob us. Possessions are sacred.”
“Oh.” That's... good to know. I guess. Not that I was planning on stealing anything.
There's a tendril of emotion trying to get my attention, wanting me to panic about the fact I am now part of a society where theft can be punished by murder without anyone getting upset about it. I refuse to give into it, focusing instead on getting to the dining room, which Sam lets me find without help.
There's a line there already, full of people who take a break from glancing from the serving counter to their phones and back again to look at me. They have features from a variety of ethnicities, although their hair tends toward reds and blonds. In an attempt to encourage them to stop looking at me, I send my own gaze to the floor.
“They're just curious,” Sam tells me. “We haven't had a new student other than freshmen in two years.”
“Really?” I ask, looking up to squint at her. “Two years?”
How am I supposed to break into that?
“Lots of people are really jealous of me,” Sam says, then laughs at my expression. “Your novelty makes you the center of attention. And I am the person everyone is going to be asking about you.”
“Sam?” someone asks, as if fulfilling Sam's prophecy.
The girl is about my height, but willowy thin. Her hair is nearly as long as Samantha is tall and is a pure, snowy white. Her eyes are huge, expressive, and... pink?
“Hey, girl!” Sam grins at her. “Mike, this Aliah.”
I don't have to be told Aliah is a fox, even though she lacks the vivacity Sam has me expecting from the species. The information of one's beast really does seem to be carried on scent. It's hard to put into words how it works, though, any more than one could easily explain how one knows a chocolate chip cookie from smell. One can get into how it smells sweet and like something with flour in it, but when push comes to shove, the thing just smells like a cookie.
“Hi, Mike?” the new fox questions. “Welcome to North Sky?”
Um... “Thanks? It's nice to meet you.”
She beams at me, her pale skin lighting up. It's almost as if she expected me to insult her or something instead of saying hello.
“Aliah's in my class,” Sam tells me. “And her sister, Alysia's a year ahead of you.” Her tone is colder when she speaks of the older girl.
“Aliah and Alysia, huh?” I shake my head. Their parents probably thought they were being cute using such similar names. At least the sisters aren't twins.
“Mom swears she never noticed the alliteration?” Aliah tries as the line finally starts to move.
Chuckling, Sam shakes her head. “Maybe it's because she thinks of Alysia as 'That Bitch' the way I do.”
“I don't think so?” Aliah whispers, sticking with her streak of making questions out of statements.
“She should,” Sam contests. “Honestly, I have no idea what my brother sees in her.” She looks at me. “They sort of have a thing. I can only hope the insanity isn't genetic.”
Nodding, I think of my mother's
fiancé. I can relate to the sentiment.
“Everyone calls her Lyly?” Aliah whispers. “So it's really not confusing?”
We shuffle forward. There doesn't seem to be a menu posted. Maybe there are too few of us for there to be any choices?
“Cooked or raw, dear?”
“What?” I stare at the lady behind the counter. I can't smell what she is because the odor of grilled beef is too strong, but my hunch is bear. She has the same facial structure and pale blond hair as Bryce, although she is much more petite and her skin is a deep ebony.
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