CHAPTER 113

"How about you don't bring the whole pageant with you to sit at our table?"

Lydia shrugged at Allison, sitting her and Malia in the stands watching the lacrosse practice, and replied. "I can't actually turn off being awesome, now can I?"

"I doubt being 'awesome' is the real reason why they flock to you like bees to a flower." Malia retorted and Allison automatically stepped in before the two could start a war of words, one which Lydia always won.

"Can we just focus on the game? Please." She partially had herself to blame for throwing a shade at Lydia but it had to be said since the crowd made their lunch time awkward, especially for Tristan and Boyd.

Boyd was like a tortoise trying to shrivel back into his shell while Tristan looked like he wanted to poke someone's eyes out.

She sighed in relief as the two of them glared at each other and thankfully dropped the matter, for now at least. Although she knew that she'd soon find herself stuck between them again, a place that she has been finding herself recently.

Lydia rolled her eyes at Malia and turned to watch the lacrosse practice taking place but that dampened her mood even more.

Seeing Tristan and Scott as co-captains made her remember Jackson who died not too long ago. 'More like killed.' She thought.

Deciding to preserve whatever mental strength she had left in her, she pulled her eyes away from the game and opened a book to have a light read to pass the time and blocked the sounds from outside with the music from her headphones.

She easily became engrossed in her own tranquil little world while the world around her moved just as it always had.

Allison took a side glance at Lydia and saw that the girl was focusing on her and nudged Malia who sat on her right. "You know that you don't have to confront her on everything, right?"

"And you know that you don't have to force us to try to be friendly with each other, right?"

Allison could only sigh and drop it. Was it so bad and selfish for her two only girl friends to be friends with each other?

'Maybe this is their own way of bonding and they'll grow up to be great friends?' She hoped weakly.

"Now what do those two think they are up to?" She heard Malia say and a few seconds of focusing on the game explained why.

"Are they trying to one-up Tristan?" She asked after seeing Scott and Isaac strangely going to tackle Tristan everytime he was passed the ball.

"Hey! Watch it or I'll crack your skulls!" Malia yelled after they were successful in tackling Tristan to the ground and escaping a foul. She sat down with a huff after receiving a wave from Tristan. "Why does he have to be the only one to enjoy himself?" She complained.

Allison only shook her head. "I doubt he's enjoying it the way you think he is." Only Malia will call the act of hurting someone without taking responsibility as fun.

She got further confused as she watched the game and saw Tristan barely managing to escape their combined tackle and sometimes losing the ball. "Shouldn't he be faster and more agile than that?"

Malia snorted at that. "And display a talented level of sportsmanship? I very much doubt he fancies the thought of what that would bring him."

"You mean the attention?" Malia nodded. "So he's restraining himself to show a believable level of high school athleticism? Funny the lengths people will go to make a solid lie."

"Not like he has a choice to do otherwise." Malia sighed at what she thought was Tristan trying too hard to have fun and also partly irritated by the two cheating wolves.

The game quickly got boring, at least for her, after Coach subbed Tristan out when his rotation came.

She played with her hair in boredom until her eyes started darting around to look for something that'll steal her attention until the practice ran out, and her eyes just so happens to land on Lydia who was Allison's left, writing on her book.

"Hey bumblebee, what subject?" She called out to Lydia but the latter ignored her, seemingly lost in whatever was playing in her head.

While she would have left Lydia to her own at any other time, right now she was bored and her 'lively' conversation partner was actively ignoring her.

Why did she say actively? Because her hearing didn't pick up any sound from the headphones on Lydia's ears.

She didn't think much and just yanked the book out of Lydia's grasp. Expecting the normal spiteful confrontation and having her own spiteful retort ready after she took the book, she was however surprised when Lydia didn't react in any way and just sat there.

She frowned and looked at the book, French, but nothing she saw written in there was related to the subject in any way.

"Hey princess, I think she's having a glitch."

Her words took Allison's attention and both frowned deeper upon flipping to the next page.

On it were numerous sketches of a tree stump and the undeniable sketch of corpses around it.

She looked at Lydia and listened harder on what was playing on her headphones and what she had thought was Lydia ignoring her couldn't be more wrong as all she heard were faint grating static playing through the speakers.

She reached over and yanked the headphones from Lydia and that ended up snapping her out of whatever trance she had fallen in.

"Uh? What's happening?" Lydia asked in confusion upon seeing Allison and Malia staring at her, and then her eyes drifted to her book in Malia's hand.

The pages were open and she saw what was scribbled all over her French note. The worst part was that she had no idea when she had taken out the note.

"I…" Her words fell short as she didn't know what to say.

"Lydia, are you okay?" Allison asked in concern and quickly grabbed the clearly distraught girl before she could make a flight decision.

Lydia took in a deep breath and calmed her tumultuous emotions. "… I think I'm going crazy."

Instead of Allison comforting words, Malia's sneering was what she heard along with something weird that caught her fixation.

"I wish. Probably your banshee thing at work again. I wonder who is dying this time." Malia idly commented.

"What do you mean by 'my banshee thing'?" She asked confusedly and now it was time for Allison and Malia to pause as the latter noted her slip.

Seeing how they suddenly went silent and their awkward eye movements clued her in that they knew something that they weren't telling her, so she asked again, her voice clearly confrontational. "What do you mean by me being a banshee?"

"Guess the jig is up. You're up Allison." Malia had no interest in expanding the girl's worldview so she passed the baton to her best friend.

And just like that, Lydia's inquisitive gaze, tinted with an underlying plea, fell on Allison who was still thinking if it was a good idea to continue playing ignorant. That was until Malia singled her out.

"Fine, but not here. Come on." She beckoned on the two to follow her as she left the stands.

…..

"So let me get this straight: there's a real Halloween circus running around and somehow humans have no clue about it. And not only that, one of my two friends is a real life Van Helsing and the other…" Lydia squinted her eyes at Malia, "… is a furry."

That turned out to be the wrong choice of words as she shrieked and hid behind Allison as Malia's eyes flashed blue and her nails extended into fierce claws.

"Call me a furry again and I promise you that that will be the last time you use your tongue." Malia threatened and her claws shrunk back to her clear nails.

"H-how?" Seeing something and hearing it were two different things and Lydia was finally experiencing the difference.

"ANYWAY, yes, Malia is a werecoyote. Tristan is a vampire, while Isaac, Erica and Scott are werewolves. You on the other hand are a banshee." Allison turned to Lydia and once again clarified and this time Lydia wasn't as skeptical, though a little spooked, after Malia's little display.

"So I'm like what? Someone that cries when someone dies?" She asked after taking a moment to get back a semblance of her composure.

"That we don't really know. All we know for sure is that you can predict when someone will die and you end up drawing them or writing them out in cryptic words." Allison explained to which Lydia nodded.

Though a little overwhelmed, she was taking in everything with clear strides, perhaps due to Malia's proof.

"You said I can predict when people die, not cause it?" She asked tentatively to which Allison shook her head in a no.

"So I'm not responsible for anyone I draw that ends up dying." Her conscience cleared up a bunch at Allison's soft 'No' and that brought her to her next question.

"So who killed them? Who killed Jackson?"

.

.

.

=================

Don't forget to vote

Read up to 20 chapters ahead on my patreøn

Patreøn*com/Draul_TheOminous