BELL'S REBELLIOUS YEARS

(TIMELINE 3, WHEN I WAS 11-13, CONTINUED)

"No offence, Princess." Bell was kind enough to give me the heads up, "I need to make myself clear or they would never take me seriously."

I nodded even though I had no idea what he was making himself clear about. I did figure it out though - but only much later.

"You don't have to come anymore." Bell told me in front of our parents, "From today onwards, we have nothing to do with each other."

"Okay… but are we still friends?" I asked because I was still a dumb pup at 11.

Bell ran a hand through his dark curls, "Goddess, why are you so stupid? Didn't I say we have nothing to do with each other?"

"But we never did have anything to do with each other?" Why else did we have to pass the hours after dinner playing random sports every time our parents had dinner together?

Bell growled lowly at me because he had already shifted by now, and then he smirked, "Touché, Princess."

Which was a word outside my vocabulary range, but I was 11 now, so I was a little sassier, even when I didn't understand the argument, "Suit yourself."

The Lorents were still pressing in for our packs to merge. In this timeline, it seemed our Night Leaf was considered a very strong investment partner.

"Foolish son." Alpha James growled.

"What are you saying, child?" Lady Amber scolded.

"He's in his rebellious years." Lady Olivia chuckled because Bell had started High School.

If Middle School was bad for Bell, High School was worse. Now, Bell became too cool to even show up for dinner… or school. Someone saw him speeding on a motorbike in Gate City. The Lorent ladies really didn't know what to do. Bell had stopped listening to even his aunts.

"Our admonishments flies by like a passing breeze." Lady Amber sighed, "I cannot cease worrying for that child."

It was worse if his Alpha father should find out - the two of them would almost definitely end up exchanging blows.

"He's strong - our young James isn't the pup we used to know." Lady Olivia noted.

Unfortunately, Bell was fighting the wrong people. The adults were all sure it was his curse acting up - At the sound of the bell, his name would be Rebel. You know the one - it was the same in this timeline too.

The worst part of his rebellion though, was not that he was never home for dinner when my parents and I were invited, or that he was getting into fights with everyone from his own dad to random warriors or hooligans. The worst part was his string of very public scandals flashed across every screen and print media owned by the LNC.

I know I was just a dumb pup still, but even I knew that he was MY FIANCE - he wasn't supposed to be photographed kissing that model, or caught leaving the hotel with his shirt missing under his jacket, or involved in scandalous rumors involving his high school teacher.

Everyone was sure they were just rumors… until she got fired.

"Still, they're probably just rumors." Charles told me. He lifted his rifle to take aim, "Don't pay any attention to them."

He focused his aim at the target and fired, "Nice. Your turn, Princess."

Now that Bell wasn't around for dinners, Charles seldom showed up too. Charles had started Middle School and was always busy because he joined two school clubs and was playing some computer game competitively. But on the blue moon that he was around, we would almost always shoot at the gallery.

I picked up my gun, "I know."

I tried to sound like I really did know and shrugged. The Lorents shrugged a lot and there was a shrug for every feeling. I hoped mine showed that I couldn't care less, "It's not like he's my mate or anything."

"The adults still think he is, you know." Charles informed me.

I took my shot, and had the satisfaction of hitting the target. Since both Charles and I were pretty steady shots, this was largely expected and the both of us switched places for Charles to take his turn.

We had an entire shooting range, but we were sharing a target, just like we did when Bell was around. We used to count points, and Charles and I would share a lane to double our chances and combine our points.

Even so, we seldom outshot Bell back then. Now… I watched Charles shoot dead center and the score board add another 10 points. Charles and I got really good with practice.

"You know, Princess." Charles continued, "He still cares about you."

He stepped away so that I could take my turn to shoot.

"Yeah, sure." I took aim.

"He still asks me how you are sometimes." Charles said, "You know, you're the only girl he ever asks about."

I shot wide.

Charles blinked. I sighed and lowered my gun. The scoreboard changed and I groaned at the damage to our near perfect score.

Charles laughed, "Sorry, that was my bad."

Even though I was the one who missed.

Anyway, I didn't care. Not even a little bit. Boys were dumb and I didn't want to get mated anyway.

By my last year of Middle School, the dinners finally dwindled to just one or two a year. I think the Lorents were having a hard time with border control.

Dad offered to help, but Alpha James refused it, "We can take care of ourselves."

Yeah, but the rogue raids kept happening and at one point, Beta Oran and his entire family were murdered in their own home.

"Why won't they just let us help them?" I wasn't close to Beta Oran, but the news upset me anyway.

"Well..." Beta Lucas pulled a face and shrug, "Pride can cost you if you can't swallow it."

Because of the constant rogue attacks, the Lorents were often under lockdown. That was definitely another reason to our reduced frequencies of dinner together.

Actually, the one who seemed to be paying the most was Roy. Poor Roy... he used to accompany us as Dad's secretary, and he lived and breathed for those nights because it was one of the only times he could see his soul mate, Lady Amber... oh wait, so Roy never ran away in this Timeline?

I suppose that would be considered "as it should be" in Dad and Beta Lucas' books.

If Roy wasn't the Rogue King, who was? And in the same vein, who was orchestrating the rogue attacks on the Lorent Pack in this timeline? Could it be someone else other than Beta Lorent?

But we couldn't blame everything on the rogues.

Dinners were getting to become strained affairs for the adults. The merger talks were stalling for way too long. Mum and Dad wanted to call it off. The Lorents wanted to push it forward. But Bell was finally making himself very clear. He would have nothing to do with me.

Anyway, I didn't care. Not even a little bit. I preferred to have dinner at home and hang out with Savy, Lizzy, and Ben. Sometimes Jonah would join us, especially if his dad had to drive over for a meeting.

The four of them had a "study group" just for such occasions. I would join them if I were home, but I usually went to bed early. I needed to practice my merging technique, and also I would feel a little out of place when they swapped school news.

It would start off fun at first, but after a while, I would only be able to listen and nod, I wouldn't be able to add anything to the conversation, and sometimes I wouldn't even be able to laugh with them because there were so many insider jokes. But I was such a dumb pup, every time they had "study group" I would be excited to hang out too, and then I would leave Savy's room on my own…

Just like in my original timeline, I couldn't just go to the same school as everybody else. I had to travel out to other schools that my Dad had picked for me. I really hated my middle school years.

I hated middle school in my original timeline just as much, which wasn't surprising because it was the same one.

When I walked out of school on my last day, I looked back at the school gate and the brick building behind it, and thought to myself, "Goodbye and good riddance. I will never step foot past these gates again."

Was I so melodramatic in my Original Timeline? Maybe the Lorents were a bad influence on me.

After Middle School was High School. Now it was my turn to be rebellious too.

Hahaha, just joking. I was going to start High School at Winderhill and I was excited about it. A little nervous too, by mostly excited. Okay, so admittedly, I hadn't wanted to go at first, but this was going to be MY year. I might even experience my first shift this year! It was going to be my year of metamorphosis. I planned to record everything in the fancy moleskin diary Mrs Beta gave me as a Middle School graduation gift!

Oh... well that sounded really familiar.

It was like suddenly Timeline 3 snapped back on track with our Original Timeline and my first term in High School rushed by like a runaway train… well, at least it looked like that from a third person's perspective. I'm surprised I never noticed, but dang I was amazing! Now that I was recalling my most recent memories, there were still some significant differences between the Timeline 3 and the Original Timeline.

I mean, there were small differences that I could turn a blind eye to. E.g. my favorite cookie was no longer chocolate chip because in Timeline 3, Esther discovered a recipe for macadamia and white chocolate chip cookies - which was like the cookie version of my favorite ice cream flavor. She also used fresh chocolate chunks instead of chips which really upped the game from cheap chocolate chips… I think she picked these little tricks up from our Lorent neighbors. Night Leaf was much friendlier with the Lorent Pack in this timeline. We weren't friendly at the level of having combined training sessions, but we did have civil conversation and the ladies shared book clubs, cooking classes, live art demonstrations at some of our Gate City cafes and local shops.

Did we have fancy stuff like this happening in our Original Timeline? Maybe the Lorents always had them. In Timeline 3 though, Mum secured invites to them for our ladies too. I don't think such a deviation was a big deal. I mean, how dangerous could switching out chocolate chips for chocolate chunks be?

Please note that Dad and Beta Lucas had somehow managed to retain Roy as our Night Leaf Secretary. I don't know who the rogue king in this timeline was, but I grew up not just with Beta Lucas and Dad. There was also Roy who read me books and then as I grew older, would always be around to help me fetch the ladder, fix the broken latch, find a strong rope… and whatever else my gang and I needed to cover up past mischief and proceed to new ones.

"It wasn't me." Beta Lucas would tell my parents, "It was Roy-Boy."

"Sorry." Roy would bow his apologies, "Sorry."

Mum would sigh, "Oh Sam…"

Because it was still always my fault… I guess, it wasn't like my parents could blame the Omega. Roy was the kind of guy who couldn't say no to save his life, so he was the go-to guy for anything my gang and I needed "adult help" with before Ki.