AND THE WINNER OF THE 46TH ANNUAL TALENT TIME IS...

We waited till the last moment to leave for the hall, but Janice never came.

"Oop. We need to report to Mr Sinclair in five." Marcus reported.

Maybe Janice liked to take her time in the washroom?

"Someone text Janice to meet us backstage. Not you, Marc. Fluffy you text her." Henry ordered, "EJ, make yourself useful and carry the keyboard. Don't f***ing drop it!"

This really wasn't helping Henry's stress level.

"Maybe we can go without the keyboard." Marcus said.

"No!" Henry barked back, "We're not going to f*** this up!"

Poor stressed-out young alpha.

My wolves and I quietly coiled cables and packed the instruments after that. Even EJ's alleged butter fingers disappeared.

It wasn't that I was tip-toeing around Henry - I wasn't afraid of Henry! I just felt kinda bad for him. I think he really wanted to win (and not lose the bet with his dad.)

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have asked Marcus to go after Janice. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have bet Henry's allowance on us winning either. Hindsight was very critical of me.

Despite Fluffy's repeated texting, Janice didn't meet us backstage. She didn't even reply even though Fluffy said the app showed she had seen his texts.

"Hoi hoi, first girl to not answer Fluffy's texts!" EJ announced.

Fluffy smiled, "Do you think you can do better?"

EJ whipped out his phone, "Watch the master at work."

Idiots. My wolves were just idiots.

Meanwhile, the hall had filled up with students.

As promised, Beta Pete was here to get a video of our performance. It looked like he hired a professional events film crew to "unobtrusively" set up their black tripods and cameras around the hall.

Were home videos at the Silver Mountain's Alpha house all professionally filmed in three camera angles?

Jules and Ramona went up on stage to announce Winderhill's 46th Talent Time. According to Jules, Winderhill had historically discovered hidden talents during our Annual Talent Time. He named a handful of supposedly famous ones but I didn't recognize any of their names... Except for one. I think she was a Lycan singer - as in she sang in Lycan. It was a very niche market, but she was the Queen of Lycan Ballads.

When the first act began, it became a very real threat that Janice was really not planning on showing up at all.

"Maybe you should go tell her you love her." Fluffy told Marcus, "You can break up with her again later."

"I can't do that!" Marcus spluttered.

"If you need something done right, you have to do it yourself." Henry shook his head and stalked out.

Fluffy beamed, "One wonders how Scary Alpha plans to convince Janice to come back."

Maybe he'll bribe her.

Three acts later, Henry hadn't returned and I was starting to feel worried.

"Where's Henry?" Marcus worried.

It's nice to always have a beta around to be more worried than I was.

"He's not answering his phone." Marcus paced up and down, phone in hand.

"This is going to be a disaster." Marcus said.

Fluffy and I watched Marcus pace up and down. It was just the three of us now in the busy backstage. EJ was missing too.

EJ had left to flirt with the girls from the second dancing act... Here's hoping he remembered to return to us.

What kind of band loses half its members before its first and only live performance?

"Maybe we should forfeit." Marcus' forehead was creased quite permanently by now.

"Do what you want." I folded my arms stubbornly, "But I'm going up even if I have to do it by myself."

"Don't worry, Pretty Alpha." Fluffy smiled, "I'll never abandon you!"

"Ah, I didn't mean that!" Marcus quickly backtracked, "But how are we going to play with just drums and violin?"

Honestly, I wasn't musical enough to see a problem with that.

But EJ came back one act before ours -much to Marcus' relief. Now we had EJ to serve as the filler. Like I said, I wasn't musical enough to understand, but the guys talked about it and decided that EJ would beatbox the baseline if Henry didn't show and Fluffy would play more chords and they'd "sacrifice" the fancy solos.

"I'll simplify too." Marcus nodded, "At least then we'd still sound solid. Sam, we'll be relying on you."

Eh? What? Don't rely on me! I'm just going to sing how I felt like, you know? I'm inconsistent! I'm the drip! I'm really, really, noob at this! I'm also seriously panicking.

Luckily, Henry and Janice burst dramatically into the backstage area like 3 seconds before our band was announced.

I was so happy to see them! Our rock was back!

"Hoi, hoi! We're on!" EJ declared, "Go, go, go!"

And just like that, I was pushed out first onto the stage.

I almost didn't register that Henry and Janice were holding hands when they came in together. ALMOST. But I did see it, and I couldn't unsee it. Even as I approached the mic in the middle of the stage smiling widely.

Why were Henry and Janice holding hands? Omo.

"Hello, Winderhill High!" EJ called out into his mic. Marcus slammed a bit on the drums.

Our school responded by clapping, and our class whooted and screamed and drummed on their chairs like they were in another drum off. Troy was hands down the loudest.

"I can't hear you!" EJ challenged as he bounced to the front. He had to be deaf.

Meanwhile, the others checked their instruments. Fluffy tune checked his violin against Janice's keyboard and then played a fancy riff before leaning over to my mic, "This song is for all the pretty girls who make our days in high school beautiful."

The girl population in our school screamed back. Troy too. It was a volume and pitch that one could not ignore.

EJ tooted, "Give it up for Our Last Hurrah!"

He said OUR last hurrah. Not THE last hurrah. I guess that was right. This was OUR LAST HURRAH.

The baseline started and I took the mic with the right amount of regret mixed into the energy from the crowd.

I guess regret wasn't always a bad thing.

"All the small things... true care, truth brings..."

This song was for Winderhill. I had a good run here, but for better or worse it was over. Our Last Hurrah.

I don't know how to describe it, but there was just this point during the performance, where Fluffy's violin screeched and Henry successfully pulled off a slide down his base, and all the other instruments played just so we were perfectly balanced.

And just at this moment, my voice like the stars in the night sky soared with the words, "Say it ain't so, I will not go~"

And the whole hall went silent.

"Turn the lights off, CARRY ME HOME..."

That point when it was like the entire universe aligned perfectly and a shiver ran down my spine from the sheer connection of the moment.

This wasn't my pack. I didn't share a pack bond with them, but the music was like a magic that just for the moment connected us and made us more than just the sum of ourselves.

There wasn't any logical explanation or proof I could give for this. I just felt it, the moment of electrifying connection followed by an adrenaline rush like something amazing just happened to me.

We ended the song and the whole school went roaring wild. The stage vibrated from their combined sound.

"Encore!" Someone shouted. The single shout became a unified chant, but Jules and Ramona came up and told everyone there wasn't time. The judges would be announcing the results of the talent time in a bit.

We took our last bows and escaped the stage. It's not like we knew another song to play for them!

Backstage was a little crazy. The other competitors had crowded by the wings to watch our band play and now some of them there clapping and cheering too.

We squeezed past just beyond the stage area. I led my friends to a small space that looked enough for all of us to stand together and wait for the results. The moment I turned around, Janice hugged me, "You were SO great, Sam!"

"WE were great." I smiled at my friends. I think of all of them, I deserved the least credit. I certainly was the least skilled.

I just felt so glad and so lucky to be part of this! We were so definitely going to win.

And then Janice hugged Henry, and they kissed. Like on the mouth, properly kissed.

Janice pulled away blushing, but she was still all smiles.

Marcus' jaw dropped.

What the hell, Henry.

Like seriously. Wth was that?

Maybe it was just the high of the exhilaration, maybe it was an accident. (I know these things happen, ahem.)

EJ and Fluffy grabbed me in for a group hug.

"Pretty Alpha! I think I'm in love with you!" EJ proclaimed.

Fluffy smiled, "Your performance surely won many hearts today, Pretty Alpha."

Which was like the weirdest compliments I got... at least I think they were compliments. But this was EJ and Fluffy, so I didn't take it too seriously.

All I knew was that we had to be the winning performance by a landslide.

And then Mr Sinclair came up to announce the winner of today's Talent Time. He started with the 2nd runner-up, which went to the dancing act that EJ had become quite friendly with.

He got hugged by a few of them as they passed us to go on stage to receive their medals. Yes... Apparently, we were going to get medals like it was a sports competition. It was weird to me too, but this Talent Time was happening for 46 years now, so what did I know?

And then before announcing the first runner-up, Mr Sinclair wanted to say a few words. He started off innocently enough, all the judges agreed that the competition this year has been of the highest quality Winderhill had seen for a while.

We were all very talented and it was a very hard decision.

Wait, how was it a hard decision? Our Last Hurrah brought the house down! Or maybe Mr Sinclair just wanted to make the announcement more exciting.

Furthermore, the judges wanted to focus this year on identifying talent IN CLASSICAL MUSIC.

Immediately, I realized something was off.

"Thus the first runner-up goes to THE LAST HURRAH!" Mr Sinclair announced and fake clapped because he was holding a mic in one hand and the results slip in the other.

I was pushed out onto the stage again, but this time I was too stunned to actually feel anything. Someone loped silver medals around all our heads. The students in the audience cheered and stomped and booed - I didn't understand why at first, but later on someone explained they were booing because they didn't agree with the competition results.

Yeah, okay. I didn't agree with the results either - but when they did that, it was like they were booing at us!

"And the grand prize of Winderhill High's 46th Annual Talent Time goes to..." Mr Sinclair announced, "Anna and Odette for their duet, Adegio, Second Movement from Concerto No. 9 in A Minor!"