Page 49 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

They weren’t answering.

I’d texted Clay right after I got off the phone with Jared. And I’d texted Jared after an hour of not hearing back from Clay or getting the callback Jared promised.

When I called them both between classes both of their phones went to voicemail. I was giving them until lunch to get back to me before I would allow myself to freak out.

They can’t very well answer their phones in their wolf forms, I rationed. And in Clay’s case, I had to assume that was why he wasn’t answering. His discarded shirt was proof of his intent to shift.

And Jared…well, he was working at the quarry.

Overseeing deliveries and whatever the hell else he was supposed to be doing there to help his uncle run the place.

He was busy. I couldn’t expect him to be available every second.

I just needed to breathe. That’s all. Just chill the fuck out.

They’re fine. It’s all fine. Fine.

But the minutes were ticking away towards lunchtime and with each slice of time cut away, another crack formed in my resolve. At this rate, my wolf would stop cooperating before the end of the day for sure.

Strangely, though, I found reassurances helped. Instead of fighting against her and trying to force her into obedience, my own internal monolog of reassurances seemed to calm her, too.

I spoke to her as though she could hear me. Telling her—and in a way, myself, at the same time—that everything was alright, and I was just being overly paranoid.

It felt like it was working, so I kept it up all through first and second period. I focused on the driver’s handbook I had concealed behind my textbook, inhaling page after page of information in between self-reassurances.

I doubted Clay still wanted to take me to get my learner’s permit after what happened this morning. And after I’d snapped at him. But if he did, then I wasn’t about to waste his time by failing the test.

By the time the lunch bell rang, and I still hadn’t heard from either Jared nor Clay, I was able to handle it without totally freaking.

I dumped my books in my locker and checked my phone again, grimacing when it flashed with my lock screen picture—a photo of Layla and Viv and me two years ago, before everything fell apart—not a single notification superimposed over the image.

Unruffled, I tucked it back into my pocket and scanned the crowd of students for Viv’s tall blond head above the others. I couldn’t see her yet and wondered if they were already in the cafeteria.

A pair of light gray eyes met mine from down the hall. They belonged to a girl with a mess of dark purple hair piled in a knot at the top of her head. She held her arms folded over her chest and her expression was one of open disdain.

I knew right away she wasn’t human.

I didn’t understand why, but there was this otherness around her like an aura. Invisible to the eye but I could feel it. Sense it.

Or maybe it was my wolf that could sense it.

A circle hoop of silver in her nose twitched as she smirked, turning away to leave the corridor and head into the main atrium.

She didn’t go to school here; I knew that much. I’d never seen her before. That hair would be hard to miss.

“Sorry,” I muttered as I shouldered past a gaggle of girls blocking the way and almost tripped over Trip Thompson’s gym bag.

He called something after me, but I didn’t hear him, I was already in the atrium, whirling as I scanned the area.

She was by the doors, waiting.

When our eyes locked, she pushed open the door and stepped out.

Clay’s warning made me pause, but if they were getting ballsy enough to come and approach me at school then I had to do something about it, right?

Jared isn’t here to stand up for you, Allie. Clay’s already busy with another one.

I’d have to handle this one myself. I shoved the door open and cool air stung my hot cheeks.

“Allie, right?” The girl asked, and I found her just outside, several feet away from the doorway, but still in plain view of the front parking lot where there were other people and teachers getting things from their cars and driving past for their afternoon Starbucks run.

At least we weren’t alone.

Easy, girl, I whispered to my wolf as she readied to force her way out if necessary. We’re safe.

“And you are?”

She smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile. “Call me a concerned pack member.”

“Okay concerned pack member,” I said, spitting her words back at her, struggling to smother my rising temper. “Why are you here?”

She narrowed her gray eyes at me as though she could see inside my soul and read what was written there. It unnerved me enough that I took a step back.

She laughed. “A bit skittish, aren’t you? I don’t know why Ryland doesn’t just make you leave. Save us all the trouble. Samson’s pack can have you as far as I’m concerned.”

Samson?

“Wait,” I said, reminded of the other wolf from this morning. The gray wolf in the woods. “Did you follow us this morning?”

She tilted her head to one side and gave a little forced laugh. “Follow you? Why would I follow you?”

No, it couldn’t have been her. She said she was a concerned pack member. She was part of the Forest Grove pack. Ryland’s pack. And Clay had said that the wolf in the woods was not pack.

The girl narrowed her gaze at me again, stepping in close so I met her steely gaze.

Before Layla and I became good friends, she always said my grayish colored eyes were unnerving. Now, looking into the heated gray eyes of this perfect stranger, I thought I might know what she meant.

When they caught the light, they almost looked see- through.

This time, I didn’t balk at her approach. She called me a coward once, I wouldn’t give her a reason to do it again. I was not a coward.

“The one who was following you,” she hissed, her gaze shifting between my eyes. “Wolf or human?”

“Wolf.”

“Not pack?”

“Not your pack.”

She cursed. “I have to tell Ryland,” she started, pulling out her phone. “When was this? What did they look like? Where—”

“Clay went after it,” I told her, suddenly exhausted with this conversation. “And I already called Jared, so Ryland probably knows by now.”

She squinted at me. “Not as stupid as you look then,” she amended, staggering back a step, but keeping her cell phone in her hand.

“If you’re done now,” I began, turning away from her. “I think I’ll go eat my lunch.”

“Just choose,” the purple-haired girl said, her expression fierce. “I don’t know why they’re all so interested in you—so you have two tails, whoop-dee-do—but they are. And now everyone seems to think your will is crazy strong, too, which, honestly? By the look of you, I seriously doubt that.”

She was rambling and I had trouble keeping up. I was about to ask her what the hell this will business was everyone seemed to be talking about, but the door banged open and Vivian appeared outside.

She found me and glanced between the girl who was only a few inches away from my face and back to me.

Vivian put her lacrosse face on. The one that made the girls on opposing teams get the fuck out of the way when she made a run.

I was tempted to put myself between the stranger and my friend, knowing Vivian was really no match for the other girl, even if she was half a head shorter and leaner than my best friend.

“You don’t go here,” Vivian said, eyeing the girl. The girl eyed Viv right back.

“Allie, do you know her?” I shook my head. “Nope.”

Grabbing Viv in the crook of her elbow, I tugged her in the opposite direction, back toward the door. “Come on, Viv, I’m starving.”

But Viv was still staring curiously at the girl.

I wondered if Viv recognized her for a second, but then the girl dragged her unnerving eyes over my friend again, this time, lingering over her with her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Viv stiffened as though she was just jabbed with a hot poker.

“See you around,” the girl called back to us as she walked away.

“Viv, come on,” I urged, trying to jar her out of whatever was holding her in place.

“You sure you didn’t know her?”

“Positive.”

Something in Vivian’s face hardened and I punched her shoulder just as Stella Baker pulled into the lot in her shiny red Volkswagen beetle, trying to bring her back to the present. “Punch buggy no punch backs!” I squealed, bounding away from her and into the school as she glared at me.

“What are you, twelve?” she groaned, but as she followed me inside, Vivian peered back over her shoulder one last time, her face flushing with something I couldn’t name as she searched for the girl.

“So, are you guys, like, an item now?” Viv drawled at the lunch table, her unimpressed stare taking in Layla and Quinn practically on top of one another on the other side of the table.

Beneath the table, I had my phone out, texting Jared again.

Allie: Is everything alright? I haven’t heard back from you since this morning and I’m starting to panic. Can you just answer this as soon as you get it? Please.

Right after I hit send, I realized I should probably mention something about the girl who came to ambush me at school, but I didn’t want to worry him. Instead, I flicked over to Clay in my contacts and typed out another message.

Allie: Are you okay?

I deleted the message before sending it. I didn’t want to sound, how did that girl put it? Skittish.

Allie: Text me back when you get this.

There. Now when he texted me, I would know he was okay and I could just say…well, I would figure that out later.

“You in, Allie?” Viv asked, staring daggers at me.

I set my phone face down on the table and winced. “Sorry, what are we talking about?”

“My birthday,” Layla chimed in. “Viv wants to have a girl’s night.”

“But your birthday isn’t until next week.”

Layla adjusted herself on the bench and as she did, I noticed Quinn’s hand wrapped around hers beneath the table. She flushed when she saw me looking and let go.

Layla pushed her hair back from her face, brushing it behind her ear. “Yeah, but you know how my parents are. They want to do the big family thing.”

Viv locked her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.

“So we’re going to celebrate this weekend.

Besides, her birthday is on Tuesday so it’s closer to this weekend than it is to next weekend,” she said pointedly.

I bristled but managed to calm myself with my hands wrapped around the base of the bench seat, pressing my fingers into the hard, cold metal.

The truth was, I’d forgotten all about Layla’s birthday.

We mentioned doing something together a few times last month, but we hadn’t really talked about it since.

“Don’t you want to go into the city or something?” I asked. “We could plan something for later in the month. Maybe hit up that new arcade that has the laser tag and go karts that you were talking about.”

“Actually,” Quinn butted in. “I already took her to that. Last weekend.”

Layla blushed.

I had just been trying to put it off a bit longer. My wolf had tamed some since I let her out, but the pressure of her would build again. I could already feel her growing restless by the hour. I needed more time.

“Of course, you did,” Viv rolled her eyes at Quinn. “Well, Al? You in? Or do you already have plans?”

I told Jared I’d go meet the pack, but…this was more important.

This was Layla. And Viv.

The two reasons I wouldn’t be easily forced out of my hometown.

My family.

I could shift again before the weekend. For them. I gulped. “Of course, I’m in.”

Viv grinned and I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Good,” she said. “We’re watching that movie La La loves that always makes her cry. That Fault Line Stars one or whatever it’s called.”

I suppressed a laugh. “Oh, you cried too. Admit it.” She looked away, brows drawing together. “Never.”