The Alpha's Beta

Chapter 2

The white wolf prowled outside the girl's room, watching. Waiting. The girl went outside, and the wolf took its chance. It leaped forward, jaws open wide, ready to snap -

Beep Beep Beep

I woke with a start, reaching for my phone's alarm button. When I finally shut the alarm off, I got up to get ready for school. Ugh. It was only 6am.

20 minutes later, I looked in the mirror to check my outfit out. My long, black hair was hanging straight over my shoulders. My pale blue eyes lightly outlined with makeup. A light green hoodie covered my jeans, and my black Converse completed the outfit.

My mom stirred in her room as I went to find breakfast. We had unpacked the canned food and boxed food, and I'm pretty sure I saw Pop-Tarts somewhere. I opened all of the cupboards, finally finding them in the fourth one I checked.

Mom walked in just as I finished my food. "Morning," she said, still half-asleep. My mom wasn't much of a morning person. To be honest, neither was I. But I covered it pretty well. My favorite time was when the moon was out and shining. It made things look so much prettier than they were.

"Morning. Don't forget, we have to leave at 7, so I can get to the office and whatnot." I reminded her.

"Yeah. We'll be there on time."

**

Turns out, my mom can get ready fast if she needs to. We made it to the school at 7:03, which was good for my mom. Normally, she gets everywhere late.

"Love you, Mom."

"I love you, too. Have a great day!" With that, I got out of the car and walked towards the building. The map led me to the office, but it was easy enough to find, since it was right down the main hallway.

I walked into the office and an older woman who was sitting at a desk asked me, "How can I help you?"

"Hi. I'm Raven Black. I was told I need a schedule? I wasn't given one."

"Of course! We used to send them with the letter but recent events led us to keep those confidential. Where people couldn't intercept them and whatnot. It's a new rule." She told me as she rifled through a filing cabinet. "Ah, here we go. Raven Black, 10th grade."

She handed me the schedule. "Thank you."

"Your welcome. But don't go anywhere yet! I'll call someone down to guide you. Let's see." She picked up the phone and announced over the loudspeaker, "Teresa Evans, please come down to the office, Teresa Evans."

A few minutes later, a blonde-haired girl walked in. She was about my height, which was 5'6", and seemed pretty friendly. "Yes, Ms. Lore?"

"Would you be kind enough to show Raven around to her new classes?"

"Sure, it'd be fun."

"I thought you'd say that," Ms. Lore smiled. "Raven, this is Teresa Evans. Teresa, this is Raven Black. Have fun, girls."

As we walked down the empty halls to our first hour, which was English according to my schedule, she told me, "Call me Tia. That's what everyone calls me. Except the adults. They think it's 'unprofessional' to have teachers call students by their nicknames. All the teachers here talk about what's 'professional' and 'unprofessional.' I guess they want something to hold on to, since we're such a small school. There's only fifty of us in each grade. Sometimes there's less. I'm sorry, I've been rambling. I do that a lot. Do you have any questions?"

"Just one, and it's fine," I laughed. "Isn't this -" I consulted my schedule "- Mr. Barnes' room?"

"So it is." She laughed with me. "Let's go in, shall we?"

"Better now than never."

We walked in as Mr. Barnes was pointing at a whiteboard. "Ah, here they are. Teresa, you may sit down. And you must be Raven."

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Now don't be shy, why don't you tell us a little about yourself." It wasn't a question.

Man, teachers did this all the time to new kids at my old school, but I never knew how nerve-racking it was. Standing in front of a group of kids that you didn't know at all, telling them about yourself when all you wanted to do was sit down.

"Well, my name's Raven Black." Some kids laughed at the irony. "Yeah, I find my name funny, too. It gets annoying after awhile, though. I moved here from Monroe, down by Ohio."

"Everyone welcome Ms. Black to our class." He started clapping and a few other kids clapped with him, but most kids just stared at me, bored. "You can take the empty seat by Mr. Crest." He pointed to the spot.

I walked down the aisle and sat down at the two-person desk next to a boy with short, dark brown hair. The class resumed as Mr. Barnes pointed to the whiteboard again, saying something about participles. We had already learned this at my last school, so I tuned it out.

"Hi." The boy said. He held out his hand for me to shake. Who does that anymore? "My name is Noah Crest."

"Hi. I'm Raven, as everybody knows from that horrible introduction." I shook his hand, since he had it out. And felt a sharp pain. "Ouch! You shocked me!"

Noah looked surprised, then curious, then apologetic. "Sorry. I do that sometimes."

"Since you're so eager to speak, Mr. Crest, can you tell me what the definition of a participle is?" The teacher asked, annoyed.

"Uh." The class laughed a little.

"Ms. Black, since you were eager as well, can you help him out?"

"A participle is a word formed from a verb and used as an adjective or a noun." The class turned to stare at me, but I ignored them.

"Very good, Ms. Black. I suspect you learned that at your last school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then see me after class for an alternate assignment."

The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Walking to class with Tia, and Noah when he realized he had classes with me. When lunch came around, I sat with Noah and Tia, who were apparently friends.

"Hey, Noah. Who's this?" A boy I hadn't seen today sat next to Noah, plopping his lunch tray down.

"This is Raven Black. She moved from Monroe."

"Oh, a Southy, huh? The name's Ethan. Ethan Namir." He reached across the table to shake my hand. What's with the boys wanting to shake my hand?

As I shook his hand, I felt another shock. "Ow! Why do you boys insist on shocking me?"

There was that look again, but on Ethan. Surprised and confused. "Sorry. It happens sometimes. But you said 'boys,' who else did that?"

"Noah."

"I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting bored of this subject." Tia said, saving me from the slight awkwardness. The boys had started to stare at me.

"Have any of you lost a dog? I saw a white one in my woods last night. It was a little bigger than a husky."

"A white husky, you say?" Noah asked.

"Yeah, did you lose your dog?"

"You could say that." Before I could ask him meant, the bell went off. Noah and Ethan in one direction, Tia and I in another.

By the time school was over, Tia and I knew a little more about each other and decided, and I quote Tia's words, "We're friends now." I went with it because I liked her.

It looked like I was going to actually, kind of, maybe like it here.