Chương 7: IT WAS OKAY

The second half of the school day was uneventful. Then again, after meeting a vampire, everything else that happened paled in comparison, and I didn't mean this in a good way. Most classes were held in our homeroom, so Jasmine and Liam would take the time in between lesson blocks to turn around and chat. Okay, Jasmine turned around to chat, Liam just turned to pose. Most of the time, Jasmine would talk, I would listen, filtering in and out of the one-sided conversation, and asking only if it caught my interest.

Liam just made like a statue with the same small smile and his eyes curved like upside down crescents. Except that he stayed completely still and silent, he would have annoyed me. Every now and then, Marcus would walk past my desk. This happened a whole lot more than the average guy. Henry had taken to using him as a personal assistant. It turned out that I totally underestimated Marcus: he was the future Beta of his pack.

In my defense, none of us had shifted yet, so his wolf could have been still not at the emergent stage. Yeah, alright, fine! I made a mistake. Get over it. Or it could be that his pack overestimated him too, you know. Hahaha. Whichever way, he was now Henry's at-school beta, which kind of sucked, cos now he had two alphas to pander to, one at home and one at school. Every now and then, he stopped at my desk to see if I needed anything too. He would ask, "I'm going to hand in our worksheets.

Do you want me to take yours too?" I guess that's what made him a good beta? His willingness to serve and good initiative. Who was I to deny a hard-working beta from fulfilling his full potential? Hahaha. Sometimes I'd slip in Elena's worksheet too. Sometimes Jasmine would flash him a smile and flutter her lashes at him so that he would take her outstretched worksheets too. Liam had tried, but Marcus had ignored him. The worst position in the pack to get was the Beta. Seriously. It's 24/7 on-call work.

And if you knew how alphas are like, you'd understand if I said that it's like binding your lifetime career to serve the most aggressive and short-tempered boss you could possibly get in the entire pack. If I were a strong male wolf, I'd try to slot myself into delta or elite warrior positions so I could take off days. But that's me. I'm told that it's different for guys. Rank was everything. Guys were stupid like that.

Oh, and the fact that Beta and Gamma positions were usually passed down the bloodline meant that the poor Betas were born into it. Liam was the coolest warrior in his pack. He was really popular, good-looking and chill. He was voted the most good-looking guy in his previous school too. At least, that's what Jasmine said. This also seemed to be either everything Jasmine knew about Liam, or everything she found of importance about him. TBH, I haven't seen Liam break his cool at all.

Not when I kicked out the legs from under his chair, not when Marcus pointedly ignored his outstretched worksheet. He didn't even blush at Jasmine's claims about his good looks (maybe he was used to it). Nevertheless, he was so chill, I almost doubted his wolf. I wondered where his wolf was going to summon the aggression to fight. So far, even though he was a warrior, he was the lowest ranked among us. So that could be why he stood down a lot. Our little school pack was really just us five.

The upperclassmen were mostly from the main packs that used to send their kids here... they did come in before the last bell to check out their juniors... mostly us wolves. The whole class became an overcrowded blur of noises. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I just really wanted them to leave, which they eventually did. Having two alphas and a beta on our team had helped.

It was either that or the fact that Henry's deteriorating mood continued worsening and by the last bell his alpha face was a tight ball of pent up frustration. Meanwhile, I was hungry enough to bite heads off. (I didn't, but no one stuck out their heads too close to me to test it either). Maria was the only vamp in our class. It was obvious that the school had separated the vamps, one in each class.

Maria, for the most part occupied her corner desk near the window, and everyone for the most part, tried to ignore the dark presence in the corner of the classroom. She had enough sense not to bother me when I was with the other wolves. So all was calm. The beautiful human in our class was named Arlene. She sat with another girl, just in front of Maria.

Jasmine pestered Elena about why she came back to class with Arlene earlier, and found out some gossip-worthy news: Arlene was approached by the most good-looking boy in school during lunch break, a second year with a fancy name she couldn't remember. Elena herself seemed starry-eyed to be the onlooker of what she seemed to believe was the most romantic encounter in the history of all high school. If Liam was offended that he was apparently not the most good-looking guy in this school, he didn't show it.

He just posed silently throughout the conversation. I began to think he might make a good guard dog. When the final bell did ring, our seniors left, calling out to us to go to them if we needed help and not to get into trouble. The class packed up to go home with a lot of chair scraping and chattering. None of the wolves moved. Henry hadn't moved. I heard him take out his mobile to call his driver. He would give Marcus a ride.

Jasmine and Liam looked to me, but the human noise and smells had only just poured out into the hallways. I didn't want to dive into that right now. I waited a bit. When the noise outside the classroom finally dulled, I got up to go. Jasmine and Liam popped up with me. The advantages of two alphas – you can leave with whoever left first. I smirked.

"Bye." And made sure to leave too quickly for Jasmine and Liam to walk me out of the school. I was in no mood for company. Alone, I followed the general student population down to the cafeteria level. Since the school was on a hill, the cafeteria was on a basement level on one side, but the ground floor on the other. Passing it, I had hoped it would have been a little open, but it was not. I was starving and I had a long journey back. Apparently, none of the other students were there for the food.

They were just passing through... Oh, it was then that I remembered the stairs down the hill. Was everyone going to that same flight of stairs down the hill? I followed quickly, looking straight ahead. I didn't quite remember the way back to the train station, but my sense of direction was always lucky. At any rate, I didn't need it. Most of the students seemed to be headed there. I followed the swarm of students down the stairs.

Funnily enough, I noticed how the parade split at the foot of the stairs, half walking back down along the path I had taken to school, another half crossing the road and walking through a cluster of old apartment buildings. As I took my turn down the long flight of stairs, I considered the two paths. And although I knew the open path winding around the school hill would take me to the station, I felt sure I should cross the road. So I did. I crossed alongside the other students. The road was empty.

Stepping quickly, I made sure to keep along with the majority of the students. The old buildings and worn pathways felt like a dilapidated maze. This, plus the fact that I was in a new, foreign packland on my own for the first time, made me decide to stick close to the human students. We traveled through an alley, down several sketchy stairs, and passed a row of small dingy shops. I smelled food but didn't dare to stop.

The students I was following were trickling away and by now, there were only a handful still walking purposefully towards a certain direction. Ignoring those who lingered, or dawdled off to the sides, I kept going and was rewarded ten minutes later by the side entrance to the train station. Score! I had found the human shortcut, halving the thirty-minute walk between the school and train station. The train station was buzzing with students. I looked at the time 3: 45pm. It would be past 5 by the time I got home!

I got a seat on the train. It was not that crowded and, for the lack of entertainment, I took out my homework. I was aware I looked like a nerd. But my pack was not here to see it. I was surrounded by human students for the most part, all of whom I would never recognize the faces of. And the sooner I finished my homework, the sooner I could call it a day. And what a day it was! My first day of school. I thought of our tiny five-member pack and the human shortcut I've discovered.

My first day had gone better than I had hoped. Then I remembered Maria and her vampire mind games, and had to admit that alone made my day bizarrely worse than I had imagined too. But all things considered, today was okay. Which was exactly what I told my mum when I got home and she predictably asked me, "How was your first day at school?"

"It was okay." And before she could prod further, "I've finished my homework."