15 Chapter FIFTEEN

[Hours before the werewolves assembled at the beach…]

Ryker was in the bedroom of another house on the island. He had moved there to live with Axel and two of his friends, Maxwell and Landon.

He had earlier been staying with Emmett and Charlotte, but the move had to be done when Axel had made an unexpected appearance on the island. Ryker did not think that the guy would come just because he was there.

Ryker could have stayed with Emmett; he was not forced to make the move, but he worried. He wondered what Axel would have done if he refused to stay with him. The guy could get crazy at times.

Ryker snorted at the word. Crazy. The word felt like an insult to people locked up in mental wards. Now Axel… he was a phenomenon Ryker had trouble figuring out, even though they had known each other since they were kids. The two of them used to get in a lot of trouble together, but it had been fun. Unfortunately, as they grew up, Axel seemed to drift apart. He got into more trouble. He became more daring, doing things that were way out of Ryker's comfort zone, not caring about right or wrong. He became a person Ryker did not know anymore, especially when he introduced two new people to their small group. Maxwell and Landon did nothing but propel the change in him.

Ryker did not know what Axel wanted, and he was uncertain if the guy would ever change. However, he still cared for him. He considered the guy a brother, even though Axel acted the way he did. That was why Ryker had himself be around the guy, even when he didn't want to be around him at times, in order to quell Axel's urges to hurt people whenever they came about.

His mind then wandered to the new addition that had been made on the island: Amelia. She was a peculiar purple-haired girl, and she was the most difficult person to read. He had questions about her that needed answering. The most important thing was, could she be trusted not to wipe out the vampires the same way she did the werewolves?

The power she possessed was worrisome. No one knew the limit. For the moment, Ryker and the rest could do nothing about her, and it bugged him. He did not like feeling powerless; he wanted to be in control of what would happen to him and everyone else he cared about. He wanted to sleep easily without worrying about dying in the middle of the night. Who knew what the witch had in store for everyone?

Ryker sighed. His ears suddenly picked up the not-so-faint sounds of people screaming in the distance combined with loud music playing.

"You have got to be kidding me," he grumbled, able to tell that someone was throwing a party.

He could not believe the nerve of people. They were having a party when a werewolf was killed. They were throwing a party when they were living with a witch on the island.

They were throwing a party when the said witch was responsible for exposing their kind to the world.

That was another thing Ryker did not understand: the bliss spell. How much did it affect the students? Did it affect them to the point where they forgot about their parents and everyone they had left in the outside world as they lived their lives carefree?

However, a part of him understood the need for the party. After everything that had happened in the past week, everyone needed a distraction. Hopefully, the party would also take his mind off of things that threatened to bring him a headache.

He got up from his bed to put on his black leather jacket. He combed through his black hair, styling it into a satisfying mop. With a nonchalant shrug, he walked out of the house and into the starry night.

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Charlotte and Emmett were already at the party. Loud music boomed from every corner of the house, and there were people yelling out their fun as they moved to the beat of the music.

The two had moved away from each other the moment they entered the house; Emmett had gone to mingle with the girls who were quick to show him flirtatious smiles. Charlotte had decided to move towards the drinks table.

She hoped no one had spiked the drinks before she took one gulp of the punch on the table. If she was going to party, she needed to let loose.

She sighed, moving to dance in the dining room. She busted a couple of moves, having most eyes turn to look at her. Then she moved to the table to make sure all eyes were on her.

"You go, girl! Twerk that ass!" someone yelled at her, and she laughed, doing as instructed.

"Oh my goodness," Amelia commented, feeling mortified as she watched Charlotte shake her butt on the dining room table. She had no idea why she felt embarrassed as she watched, but she did. Then it clicked that the girl did not really know how to 'shake that thing', as the kids would put it.

'Do they still say that?' Amelia wondered. Her life in Wolverstone had been lackluster in terms of socializing. Sure, she knew verbal cues, what to say and how to express herself well enough (which was a miracle in itself despite what she had gone through), but when it came to being part of the crowd, that was where the trouble started.

Apart from that, she also felt guilty that she had infiltrated a party she was sure no one invited her to.

Bright, rotating colourful lights that were pinned on the ceiling illuminated the living room as students danced. Amelia spotted couples dancing and grinding against each other, backs against fronts with them laughing at the fun they were having.

It was Amelia's first time attending a party. Back in Wolverstone, she barely hung out with the other children, and so she was not invited to the parties that they hosted. She was certain that if she had tried to crash any of them, she would have gotten into a lot of trouble.

Currently, on the island, she did not know what to do the moment she entered the house, and so she decided to watch what the other kids did. She started by going for a drink at the drinks table. There was an assortment of them, but one with a pink colour stood out. She went to drink it, and she almost puked it out when the taste hit her tongue.

It was the first thing she had tried, and it was enough for her to decide the party was not her scene.

A sense of sadness mixed with emptiness suddenly entered her.

'Whoa. Where did that come from?' She thought to herself. She shook it off, deciding not to dwell on it as she made her way towards the exit of the house.

Just as she was leaving, she collided with someone. She grumbled at the impact.

'So much for going in and coming out unnoticed,' that was what she thought when she came face to face with someone she last wanted to see.

"Well, well, well," Ryker said, fixing his posture as he stared at her with amusement in his eyes. For a moment, the look took Amelia back. The guy looked calm, and he was not giving her an angry look as she expected.

"Oh, crap. Not you," Amelia commented aloud. "Why did it have to be you? I don't have time to deal with your judgemental issues."

"I have a right to judge. We need to talk," he said, ignoring her words.

"Talk?" Amelia tilted her head. "Don't you mean 'fight'? I'm a witch, after all."

"I'm serious," Ryker sighed, wiping his nose.

She regarded him. He looked exhausted in that moment, not at all energetic to yell at her. Amelia tried to see if something was amiss. She sensed nothing wrong, and she hoped she was right as she settled on her answer.

"Where do you want us to talk?" she sighed. Ryker looked surprised for a moment, but he quickly hid it in a mask of indifference.

He moved to enter the house.

"You have got to be kidding me," Amelia said. Ryker ignored her, moving farther until the crowd of people swallowed him. She sighed, deciding to follow him.

She spotted him at the drinks table, finishing a shot before moving to take another. Her eyes momentarily widened at his actions.

"Come on. Drink," he urged, giving her a shot. Amelia stared at the drink distastefully, her face scrunched up.

"Don't like alcohol, do you?" Ryker said in amusement.

"I don't do well with the flavour."

"Flavour?" he exclaimed. "No one drinks this shit for flavour. It's for the feeling."

"Which is?"

He went on to drink his third shot.

"Maybe you tried the wrong one," he stated. "I know the guys who live here. They have other drinks in the fridge."

"Again. No, thanks," Amelia smiled.

"Really? How about water? Juice? Root beer? Soda?"

"Fine, fine," she relented. Ryker smiled before moving past the crowd, heading towards the kitchen.

'Am I seriously having a conversation with her? Her, of all people?' Ryker thought, moving to get Amelia's drink. 'No. This must be a hallucination.'

Ryker had been at the party for about an hour. He had already taken a couple of drinks into his system. Even though it was hard to tell, the guy was buzzed. But he still had some of his wits with him. If he was fully sober, he doubted he would have approached Amelia to talk in the first place.

'Am I seriously having a conversation with him?' Amelia thought to herself. She had no idea her day would come to that. Maybe things would go well for her for once.

Amelia's face seemed to brighten up, but then her thoughts reminded her of who she was. She was a witch, and she was at a party with vampires. They feared her and they did not want her there, especially Ryker. Why was he talking to her? What if he wanted to kill her at that night?

Oh, who was she kidding? Of course, he planned to kill her.

"Here you go," he said, seeming to come out of nowhere as he handed her a drink. It was a plastic cup filled with orange fruit juice, and it had a sippy straw.

"Thanks," she said, going to drink the liquid. Ryker looked at her, and that made her pause and wonder if he had poisoned it.

"I didn't dare," he confessed, seeming to read her mind. "Something tells me I will need something stronger than poison to take you down."

Amelia smiled at his indirect compliment, moving to sip the liquid. Ryker stared at her, seeming to see her in a different light. He saw she looked timid like a little girl left alone to sort herself with her own devices.

It made her look human. Like someone who knew how to feel and react when someone needed them; also like a person who needed to be cared for and to be sheltered from the demons of the world.

But then again, those demons had a hand in making her who she currently was, and who knew the damage they had done. Ryker could not risk trusting her.

"What?" Amelia asked him, starting to feel uncomfortable with the stare he was giving her.

"You look cute. You know that, right?" he commented, testing out something.

That made Amelia tense; not out of shock, but surprise. What surprised Ryker was the blush that tinted her cheeks. Despite the colourful lights in the room, he could clearly see it.

Amelia wondered what was up with him, and what he really wanted to talk about.