ON THE WAY TO LUNCH

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, LUNCH BREAK

By the time the lunch bell rang, our class had decided to perform a LuvMoonMoon cover concert at the end of the year. It sounded so exciting, I almost felt sorry I would miss it. Marcus definitely regretted, "She wants to hit Battle of the Bands next year."

"Your chances at New Leaf Academy would be better." Henry told him, "Like the Alpha Princess said, the first time is always the hardest."

When Henry quoted me, he was smirking, and I wasn't sure if he was about to make fun of my earlier attempt to inspire our music teacher. Sigh, it usually worked with my wolves.

But Henry had already moved on to Marcus' Battle of the Bands prospects, "Winderhill's entry in the first year would just be for the experience. Meanwhile, in New Leaf, you'd be battling for the gold."

This didn't comfort Marcus, "I might not even make it into their Main Set."

That's true. Unlike Winderhill, which had no band at all, New Leaf had many bands, forming and breaking up as fluidly as teen romances. But for Battle of the Bands, I knew for a fact that they sent four bands each year, and the positions for each band were auditioned for the year before - the Main Set Marcus mentioned would the band expected to bring home the trophy this year.

"Hm..." Henry said as if considering it, but then when he spoke, I realized he had already moved on again. It was like he was just going through his own internal agenda and had assumed the rest of us were going to run with it, "Call the gang together for lunch at our usual table. Sam, you too. I think it's time to break the news to the others."

What? Like THE NEWS? Like that we were transforming out of Winderhill at the end of the term news? Like tell them now? I felt myself panic.

"Yeah, okay." Marcus took out his phone.

Wait, I wasn't ready!

And why did he have to text it? Jasmine and Liam were just inside the music studio behind us!

Luckily, Fluffy and EJ appeared from the stairs across from us, both in their school uniforms and their usual smiles. Fluffy's masked and unreadable, EJ bright and airy. I felt immediately glad to see them and realized belatedly I had missed them in school earlier. Wait... since when did I consider these two clowns part of my highschool life in Winderhill?

"Hoi, hoi, pretty Alpha!" EJ waved energetically, his whole body bouncing up and down with each wave, "We were looking for you!"

I felt my wide smile stretching out my lips in response, "How did the hunt go?"

EJ made a face, "Mou! It was a mess! But we caught them all in the end. Big Brother Beta made us give them to the local warriors."

Good beta!

Fluffy nodded, he shifted a large black duffel bag down from his shoulder. "Your luna made them kneel by the road outside the school in chains for the rest of the day though."

He did what?

EJ grinned, "Yeah. Then we threw all sorts of things at them."

They what?

Fluffy's smile was unflinching, "Yes, that was fun."

Wait, what? WTH did my wolves do now? Grrr...

Henry had taken out his phone to check something, but now he was going, "What the hell, Sam!"

What now?

Marcus who was watching the same video on his phone shook his head and made "oof" sounds.

Someone had posted footages. Even as I watched them on Henry's phone, I wasn't sure what to make of the scene. The rogues were chained and under heavy guard. They knelt in a row on one side of the road.

On the other side, where the paparazzi used to be corralled, the fencing had been reassembled, and now it contained an angry mob of local wolves/rouges/humans of all different ages and walks of life. They threw insults, they threw things - anything from stones to empty cans and shoes.

"My daughter is in hospital because of you!" One otherwise gentleman was shouting from behind the barrier. He threw an unidentified object but because they had to throw it to the other side of the road, he missed.

From the bloodied faces of the captured rogues surrounded by litter, not everyone had missed.

Another video had some teens - I'm not sure why they weren't in school. They threw water bombs at the rogues and made victory signs at the camera like they were the ones who had captured them.

"Eat our shit!" One of them yelled.

And then they threw something else across the street.

I turned my head and pushed Henry's phone back to him. That was enough.

"Fluffy, get them off the road." I said.

"But there is a long line of angry people waiting for their turn, pretty alpha." Fluffy informed me, "If we did that, we might start a riot!"

"It can't be helped." Marcus sighed, "Winderhill had been a hot mess recently, what with rogue influx after Silver Mountain cleaned up their territory, crime is on the rise, and most long-time locals blame the underground rogue gangs. But all rogues have become suspects, and discrimination against rogues grows rampant."

Marcus stopped to sigh again, "One company fired every employee of rogue descent. It was a downhill spiral after that - I'm sure you saw quite a bit of it being discussed on the LNC. Anyway, I just think Alpha Stephan sure had it tough since taking over the reins of his pack."

"In general, wolves in the Gold Packlands are getting increasingly frustrated at the rogue population." Henry shrugged, "Unfortunately for Stephan, the rogue gangs are well hidden, and while its possible to catch a few small fries, the big guns are well protected by an underground network of rogues."

Henry put his phone away, "Everyone's frustrated."

So now they were taking it out on the bunch of captured rogues kneeling in front of the school?

"See that tattoo?" Marcus zoomed in on one of the rogues, "They're from one of the rogue gangs here."

Seriously? Did gangs still use tattoos to mark their men? I thought it was just something in the video Mrs Hen had shown us - you know, the one about the teen who ran away and joined a biker gang with the ugly tattoo?

"Pretty Alpha, don't mind it." Fluffy coaxed, "I'm sure your luna has a good plan."

Henry smiled then, "Yeah? Yeah... you're probably right. In that case, let's wait to see what happens."

Seriously? But it seemed like that was that. Henry moved on to reminding Fluffy and EJ that the Last Hurrah was going to be practicing at his place tonight.

Some of the other guys in my class passed us, and I accidentally overheard Troy suggest too loudly, "Let's go to the school gate and throw things at the rogue gang!"

It's always like this when Bell stepped in. No matter how angry I had been with the enemy, I would begin to feel terribly sorry for them. I honestly didn't feel anyone should have to suffer such humiliation - not even rogues. Couldn't we have just put them in jail, tried them, and punish them accordingly? I had been naive to think that just making my mate hand over the captured rogues could keep them safe from his wrath.

And that's the most annoying part of it all! Why was I worrying about how to protect rogues from MY MATE? How did everything get so twisted? I blamed my dumbbell mate!

We stopped walking and I realized we were outside the girl's washroom. Fluffy unzipped the big duffel bag to produce a zip lock bag containing a fresh uniform.

"I'll see you later, Sam." Henry told me. To Fluffy and EJ he ordered, "Make sure your alpha comes straight to lunch at our usual table. It's important."

And then he left, Marcus at heel.

I sighed and took the bag of clothes. Fluffy rummaged some more for a navy knit vest, and a bag of hair accessories. I shook my head, "Maybe just give me the whole bag."

There were passing students staring and I didn't want to have to choose in front of an audience.

Fluffy put the vest and hair accessories back into the black duffel bag and obediently handed it over to me.

I took it and escaped into the first empty cubicle in the safety of the girl's washroom.

Whew. I had to say I was relieved to be alone. Just for a moment to catch my breath and think. WTH! My beautiful luna was evil! Goddess I want a refund! But even as I said that, I felt Boo grow protective. He was MY beautiful evil luna. MINE.

{~ ❤️ }

I guess it can't be helped. I'm the alpha. I'll protect everyone. I'll protect my beautiful luna (even if he's evil), and I'll protect everyone else from him. I'm not sure how... but surely there had to be some fail-safe installed in him! Some kind of plug that can be pulled before any disaster befell.

But now, let me fix the disaster I was wearing. Now that I was alone, I dared to pull my hair away to properly look down at what I had on. I was really lucky, the explosion had burned a large hole through the clothes over my upper body as well as most of my sleeves, BUT it left the top part of my blouse and ribbon, and that tucked in neatly just under the opening of Harvey's jacket.

So I guess no one knew I had no clothes over my chest and tummy under Harvey's jacket?

I pulled of the scraps of whatever was left. The fabric had a strong burnt stench which had been contained within Harvey's jacket. I looked at the label, "BETAMEN." I had guessed as much. Bullet proof, slash proof fabric turned out to be quite good at containing odors too. And with all the lux details like a lining which felt like warm silk on bare skin, and smart pockets hidden under it. The jacket also buttoned up rather high, ending with a statement mandarin collar than the usual lapels - I guess since it was essentially bullet proof armor, it wouldn't make sense to give the jacket a deep and wide V opening.

Anyway, even without looking at the label, I knew it was a BETAMEN.

I hung the jacket up on the single hook at the back of the cubical door, careful to not let it lie flat against the door so it wouldn't smell like toilet. It already smelled like BBQ or forest fire on most of the inside. (Sorry, Harvey. But I'm sure Ki magic would be able to clean it out.)

Okay, let's get what was left of my blouse and school jacket off. It was weird taking off only bits of your clothes, and every time I thought about where the hole in my clothes was, I felt my cheeks flush from embarrassment.

Anyway, I put on a clean (and whole) bra and school blouse and opted for the vest Fluffy had pulled out earlier over the school sweater that had been packed with the uniform. The weather at Winderhill was much warmer than back home. This could be due to the presence of the Snow Wolves - it was still snowing this morning when I left for school!

It's not like we could blame the warlock for any weird weather phenomenon anymore. My beautiful mate had killed him last week.

Now I understood why they say beautiful mates were nothing but trouble.

Okay, I checked everything on my person, and then went out to the strangely empty girl's washroom to check myself in the mirrors - I checked front and back, you know, just in case there was a big hole where my butt was or anything mortifying like that. But no, everything else was alright.

I pulled my hair back and braided it, just a few twists, before fastening it roughly together with a hair tie. Then I rejoined Fluffy and EJ - who turned out to be the reason why I had the entire girl's washroom to myself during the lunch hour - there were two beautiful guys guarding the door and flirting with the girls outside.

They said their goodbyes so the girls could get on with their business. And then we headed out to the new picnic area where it was Spring - but that wasn't anything special now. Everywhere was Spring.

I can't believe it. I had been waiting for Spring since the year started, but it was like Spring had suddenly sprung out on me from no where. I don't know if I were ready to step out into Spring.