Freedom Series: Chasing Butterflies

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Nova shielded her face from the sun, wiping the perspiration off of her brow and breathing heavily, as she forced her aching legs to move. She had gone on a run today with Neil in his stroller and had reached a particularly steep hill. Her exertion was clear as day but she hardly noticed as she pushed herself forward, the only thing on her mind being the catastrophe that took place three days ago. That was definitely the worst dinner party she had ever been too and things just continued to go downhill.

Recently she had begun to notice that within those few days she had been attracting attention from a certain group of people. In various stores she would be browsing the aisles and would find herself constantly bumping into hostile people, or at the park and little kids would run up to her and want to play in her hair until their parents shooed them away, or elderly people would scrutinize her from afar, making no attempts at hiding it. Although that last one could just be how old people are. She had tried bringing up the strange behavior to Maddox and Grace -who had been acting strangely nice- yesterday but they just brushed it off saying that she was imagining it.

The reviving of an engine coming towards her made her turn around just in time to be splashed by a puddle of dirty water, while a group of four girls all held their manicured nails out of the window flipping her off.

Did she imagine that too? Because it seemed pretty real to her.

Drying herself off with a towel she jumped yet again when a light touch tapped her on the shoulder. She spun and was blinded by a lot of curly hair and curious dark brown eyes.

"Hi!" The girl chirped, waving having her hand at Nova. "I'm Kalesta. It means beautiful." She announced.

"Okay." She responded, eyeing the strange girl decked out in a yellow crop top, light blue distressed high waisted skinny jeans and a black sparkly snap back. This girls outfit definitely matched her personality, which was loud and bright.

"Oh! You dropped this!" Kalesta suddenly exclaimed, shoving a yellow baby towel in Nova's face. Shocked she looked down at Neil to see him smiling with, what looked like, a mischievous glint.

"Did you throw this out again Neil?" She questioned him as she took the blanket from her. This kid really had something against this blanket, maybe it was the yellow. 

"Thank you." She said, throwing the blanket at Neil and watched as he tried to take it off of his head. Serves him right for all of the trouble he puts her through. 

Kalesta watched as Nova watched Neil accessing the girl that everyone had been talking about slowly. She was still breathing heavily from her run and the stylish purple sports bra she wore made it known that she had an ample chest. Her toned legs were clad in plain black leggings that showed off her ultra curvy bottom half and she wore worn out black running shoes. Her medium length kinky curly dark hair was up in a thick ponytail that had a few strands loose that fell into her pretty light brown eyes and clean complexion. To top that off, the girl had perfect posture! Although the girl had all of these nice features she could tell that she probably wouldn't be noticed in a room of gorgeous women, she was pretty, but it was more so subtle and not striking.

"So is this little cutie your son?" She asked, smiling gently at the little boy.

Obviously used to receiving this question Nova explained to her that he was her younger brother, but abruptly stopped her explanation there.

Just as Kalesta was about to respond she felt an agonizingly heavy stare settle on her and she suddenly stood straight up tensely. She turned to look across the street almost robotically and came into eye contact with piercing hazel eyes, her heart practically erupted out of her chest when she realized that she had been caught. The command was clear in those eyes; he wanted her away from Nova, now.

"Oh, its nothing I'm sure a lot of people say that-" Nova was in the middle of rambling when Kalesta suddenly cut her off.

"Yeah, I have to go! Nice meeting you Nilla!" She said, in such a rush that she messed up her name and retreated instantly up the hill.

"Okay," Nova mumbled and glanced across the street to where the girl was staring. She saw nothing odd but an advertisement for a caramel frappe that was obviously calling her name. Although when she looked at her phone she saw that she needed to be home soon to cook dinner or else Maddox and Nigel would have nothing to eat during their vicious rounds of Uno. That being said, she turned around and ran back down the hill.

.

.

.

Kalesta waited as Nova left before she made her way back down the hill and into the little cafe. Seeing Alpha Galloway she walked slowly towards him with her eyes downcast until she saw his fancy dress shoes.

"Sit." Was all he said, she sat quickly. Anderson studied the girl for a moment before speaking to his sister. "I already know that you were being nosy and prying into my business so we can skip the part where you play dumb." He picked up his orange coffee mug and stared at the dark brown liquid before asking her quietly "So what did you learn?" He wasn't curious or anything, it's just that an Alpha should always know whats going on around him.

"Nothing important," Kalesta said, hiding her smirk as she watched him grit his teeth at her answer.

"Oh." Was all he said in response, now staring her down over his coffee mug.

"Okay, I found out that she is most likely a decent person, has a baby brother and likes jogging." She said begrudgingly. Anderson simply raised an eyebrow at her. "That's it I swear!" She said, raising her hands up in the general "I surrender" position.

"Okay," he mumbled, looking down at his iPhone.

She looked sadly at her brother as he blatantly ignored her presence. She hated having an Alpha for a brother, she had to automatically respect him because of his title, most of her "friends" were more interested in getting to know him than her, and it was impossible to argue with him because his dominance was so great it was suffocating at times. She still loved him of course, but he was definitely more annoying than your average older brother.

Suddenly an interesting notion struck her.

"What are you doing here? There's a cafe in our community that has that little cinnamon swirl drink that you love and you don't work on Mondays which means you should be at home with dad doing whatever Alpha's do." She asked, making Anderson sigh "You did your own research didn't you?!" She accused and was shocked, yet pleasantly surprised, to find that he actually shifted around in discomfort.

"I know not what you speak of." He said, standing up and throwing a 20 dollar bill on the table before walking out of the door.

She smirked, he always talked like an old-timey person when he was lying.

.

.

.

So, thoughts on Kalesta?