THE PORTRAIT OF MY PACK

10 FEBRUARY, WEDNESDAY, END OF ART

Our teacher came over to me, frowning. I think she had decided that I was just fooling around all lesson. She singled me out, "So, what's that you made?"

"It's the portrait of my pack!" I showed her proudly, "That's me as a wolf, and all my wolves running with me."

She frowned at the picture. Then she stepped back, still frowning at the picture. She tilted her head.

Okay, our art teacher was human, so I realised belatedly that she might not get it. I guess to a human it was just a messy streak of mostly bronze, gold, and dark silver confetti with a bit of red and light silver, and black, and a single blue heart in the front.

I gave her time to frown at my work and waited for her to berate it, or me, or whatever.

"I don't know what it is, but I don't hate it." Our teacher said at last, still frowning she continued, "There is a very laissez-faire feeling. Very free. Very original. I like the energy."

Okay, I did not see that coming.

"That's a pack of wolves running." I tried to explain, "That's Bell, and Ben, and Harvey and Ki and..."

"She's just naming all her boyfriends." Henry interpreted, "That's their trail of hearts dangling behind her."

I flared, "They are not!"

"Is Henry in it?" Pearl asked with her signature smile.

I flared again. Grrrr....I was beginning to dislike that smile, even though once upon a time I had thought it was her brave smile and admired it.

"Of course not! He's not even in my pack." I decided to answer as if I didn't catch her drift.

Why was Pearl repeatedly insinuating that Henry and I were more than friends? Couldn't she see how it upsetted Abigail each time?

And then I realised. Pearl was purposely antagonizing Abigail. I sighed. The two had a complicated friendship.

After that I asked Marcus to help me take a photo and send the picture to me.

"Where's your phone?" Marcus asked.

"In my school bag." I answered flippitantly.

Marcus sighed, "That's not good. It might get stolen."

I just laughed, "Then I feel sorry for whoever steals it."

I imagined Ben sending a SWAT team of warriors to retrieve his alpha's phone. Hahaha.

The bell rang and I got into line to hand in my work. Some of our class hadn't finished because we started so late, they remained at the tables, miserably sticking confetti hearts in straight rows.

But like my art, I was free. I left happily for my lunch, thanks to Marcus who had reminded me to bring my lunch bag earlier.

All the interaction from table to table at art class tired me out. I was like a social butterfly at art class! I felt pretty proud of myself for my social skills. But now I needed a break from humans. I decided to buy a can of coke and sneak to the rooftop for my lunch.

Up on the roof, it was quiet. That was nice.

I sat by myself and ate while the clouds hung unmovingly. The sun was out so it wasn't too cold for my werewolf body.

I was spending too much time with humans! I even referred to myself as a werewolf! Gasp!

I thought about my pack back home, I realised I hadn't included my parents in my artwork. If I ran with Dad now, he would be in front.

And there was Sabre, who if I could do it all over again, I would have put her as a little purple heart riding on Mum's wolf.

I didn't include Beta Lucas or any of the older generation. I guess the portrait wasn't of my pack. It should have been called, portrait of my training run.

I needed to redo it and make a portrait of my pack. I imagined running with everyone. Wow. Our pack run would be huge! I wanted to do that! Have our whole pack run together.

Or make a large confetti art piece with everyone running in it. That would be fun...and time consuming.

I just finished the last bite of my sandwich when I heard the door to the rooftop. Someone else had come up.

"Anyone out here?" The someone asked.

I immediately packed up and slunk back behind a water tank.

If anyone steps into a place that should have been locked and called out, "Anyone out here?"... I mean hypothetically speaking, if that should happen to you, it either meant your trespass had been discovered or worse, he's the trespasser who intended to do something shady.

Which would be why it would be best to never find yourself alone in deserted part of buildings that you accessed without authorization.

I only just realized that, so it was too late. My only comfort was that the voice was somewhat familiar and not very ominous sounding. Certainly my Wolfie could not be bothered to even stir. I'm starting to notice that Wolfie tended to sleep in the day, especially after long nights of dream travel.

But I didn't need Wolfie for this. I picked up a broken piece of concrete and threw it to the other side of the roof. It was a move I've seen on TV countless times.

"Who's there?" The other person called to the piece of concrete. I waited for his footsteps.

By now I could guess who it was. Male wolf, warrior, footsteps sounded uneven like a step and drag, step and drag. It was Principal Luara's old warrior driver, Bert!

I quickly darted towards the door. I had the advantage of speed. It was my chance to leave without being seen.

I got the feeling I was probably not dealing with a bad guy here, but I was still going to get in trouble if Bert found out I was the one who broke the door handle and trespassed the rooftops.

Slipping between the pipes and a row of large metal boxes, I made it to the door just in time to hear Bert clearing his throat, not two metres away from the door.

Gah! I was tricked. He only pretended to walk away from the door.

"Oldest trick in the book, Alpha." Bert said. He had a gun in hand.

I looked at it. Should I raise my hands?

He put the gun away with a polite bow.

"What's the gun for?" I asked.

"In case of vampires." Bert explained.

I remembered Keanu saying that the lock was probably to keep the vamps out. Which made sense to me. Less deserted places, less hunting grounds for vamps.

Bert opened the door for me, "Best not to be out here alone, Alpha. You are still a girl, you know."

No, I had all but forgotten.

I stepped back into the stairwell. Bert came in too. He shut the door and then picked up a power drill and replaced the handle with a sturdy metal lockset, and inserted a shiny new padlock.

I watched him work. He pulled out the keys, and then tossed me one of them with a wink.

I caught it in mid air.

"Don't go out if the lock has been tempered with, Alpha. The vamps like to hang out up here." Bert informed me.

I looked at the key in my hand, "You're giving me the key?"

Bert chuckled as he started making his way down the stairs with a rough and painful gait, "If I didn't, wouldn't you just break it again?"

"I wouldn't." I said.

"Good gal." Bert's voice trailed up from the stairs as he descended, "It's safer for you to stay with the other wolves. This school is no man's land now."

I waited a little while more at the top of the stairs, giving the old warrior time to go down. I looked at the key in my hand and felt somewhat stunned.

I thought about Grandpa Alpha. I suddenly missed him a lot. I wasn't even sure why.

And then Wolfie stirred from her slumber, suddenly alert and ready to run, which meant something was seriously wrong. I tried to sense what caught her attention.

My internal radar sense something was approaching us from below, quite quickly too... Three dark flames. Vampires.

I looked around me, I was alone and unarmed at the top of an enclosed stair landing. I could unlock the door and go outside, but what were the chances that the vamps coming up the stairs were meaning to go out to the rooftop?

If they considered the rooftop their territory, it would be bad for me to be caught up here.

Their flames were decent. One larger than the other two.

The moment the vamps hit the bottom of the stairs to the roof, I knew my best chance to come out of this unscathed was to meet them down there than up here.

Down there being the fourth floor of the senior section of the school. As long as there were other wolves or students around, the vamps would probably refrain from doing anything.

And if I didn't come up here again, they would not pursue it. They might even overlook the trespass.

Even though technically, this was my territory. I mean, I had the key! So why was I the one who had to run?

If I had a short sword, and if I wasn't in a school that had a peace treaty signed, I wouldn't had run.

We had a peace treaty, yes. But I've seen Aladdin feeding off Alena, so you can't blame me for not trusting the vamps to keep their end of the bargain.

I jumped over the stair railing and flew down the flight of stairs... Okay, I fell down the flight of stairs, but I fell very gracefully.

This was supposed to land me somewhere in the middle of the next flight of stairs, in view of the fourth storey corridor where I knew there were other wolves.

I was supposed to land there and walk "naturally" down the last few steps in full view of other students, pass the three dark flames, and coolly walk away.

No fuss. No interaction. No bloodshed.

It would've been a good plan, except that the three flames decided to speed up as they approached the 4th floor. They made the sharp turn up and mounted the few steps just as I was landing.

"Oh F***!" The first vamp said.

It seemed like the f-word was quite universally used by human, lycan, and vamps alike. Oh the commonalities that we shared!

And then I pretty much landed into them feet first. I crashed down on the first vamp toppling him over, and somehow all four of us tumbled down the half flight of stairs into the middle of the fourth storey hallway of the senior section.

I sat up as the senior students, turned to look. I would've expected the fall to hurt more, but I was unharmed.

The ground under me sat up, causing me to slide back from straddling his stomach to his legs. Eh! I was sitting on a Vamp's lap! And not any vamp either... It was Dino.

Maria was going to kill me! I flared and jumped back up to my feet.

Wait, what the heck?

Dino got up to his feet. His two friends who had gotten up as well patted him on the shoulder and laughed.

But Dino was looking at me. His eyes red. I checked my mind to make sure it was sealed. It was, and I supposed he realised it too and sighed, "Hello, Blue Alpha. I did not expect to bump into you here."

By now, we had a small but growing crowd of onlookers.

Dino's lips twitched upwards, "Or for the Blue Alpha to be wearing white lace."

OMG.

I grabbed my skirt and flared. Even though my hair went up, my skirt was perfectly, down right now, shortened, but down.

But this had nothing to do with skirt length. Since I pretty much flying-kicked them from one and a half flight of stairs, they would have seen it no matter how long my skirt was.

The vamps laughed.

For the moment, just for that moment, they could've passed for the guys in my pack just messing around. I mean, minus the fact that they had these dark voids and flames that at this moment was quite raised, like my hair.

Only that while my hair was up from mortification, their flames were perked up from having their interest piqued.

Okay, I don't know why I even thought they could be like one of the guys in my pack... They were vamps. Cold, soulless, creepy oversized mosquitoes.

Grrrr...

Dino raised his hands, "Don't worry Blue Alpha, the Kosan are friendly with Ciara."

His friend flashed me his fangs with a smile, "We won't bite."

They're just messing with me. Stupid mozzies.

I tossed my head, my hair falling back, "You shouldn't run on the stairs."

"What? F***!" The third friend spluttered.

Dino and the fanged one laughed.

Suddenly, the onlookers stepped back.

"Sam!"

I guess this was the Calvary. Matt, Jules, Bra, Henry, Marcus, Liam... And then from the within the crowd, Captian and a few other male wolves stepped forward.

We were blocked from either side of the hallway.

"F***. We're screwed." The fanged one said aloud.

"Don't worry Blue Alpha." Dino assured me, "They're here for us, not you."

He put his arm around my shoulder.

Eeeeekkk. His hand was cold. This was worse than when the dead rat fell on my head.

"I thought we told you that vamps weren't allowed on this floor?" Jules said.

"Let the girl go." Matt ordered.

"Or you'll what, Beta?" Dino asked.

Suddenly, there was a lot of growling around me. Oh... No good. There was going to be a fight. And Principal Laura would come, and she would call my dad, and I'll miss the theatre practice. I had to stop this before it was too late.

I shook myself free from the vampire's grasp. He let me go easily.

"They were running on the stairs. And we crashed." I tried to explain, "But no one was hurt. It's okay."

"We were running? F***, you were the one who jumped us on the stairs." The fanged one protested.

"Actually, I'm quite sure you broke at least one of my ribs." Dino informed me.

"Shut up or I'll break all of them!" I hissed at him. Why was he complaining? He was a vampire, a young and pretty powerful one from the looks of his flame. He probably already healed up.

The third guys chortled, "Oh, man, my heart! She just stole my heart!"

I grabbed him by the collar, "You want me to take your heart?"

I would have shifted and really clawed out his heart, and from the look on his face, he knew it too, but I heard heels clicking on the other end of our hallway. I let him go.

We were just next to the stairway, so I decided going down the stairs would be best.

"Bye!" I smiled and turned tail and ran.

"Sam! Wait!" Henry called. I heard him growl, "What the hell."

I didn't stop running till I reached my classroom.

A few teenage vamps, I could handle, but Principal Laura... that was like facing the vampire queen herself!