Hellhound (Supernatural #1)

20: A Day in the Life of

AWOL, adjective.

1. absent without leave; absent from one's post or duty without official permission but without intending to desert.
2. also, go AWOL, idiom. to absent oneself without explanation.

***

Monday morning, Tate is a no-show. Honestly, I wasn't that surprised. I figured he and Dean would have plenty to do; Tate would have gone to bed late, if at all, and he would probably slip into class seconds before the bell rang. Only he didn't. Still, I wasn't worried. It wasn't the first time he decided to skip. Danielle, in my Chemistry class, was the first to ask where Tate was. She hadn't seen him that morning and was curious. Well, that made two of us. When the teacher was explaining whatever experiments we would be doing that day, I pulled out my phone.

Where are you? You okay?

That was message number one. Over the next hour, I probably sent him ten others. Complete radio silence. Then I noticed something else that had been out of the ordinary. Yet, for some reason, it hadn't struck me as strange. Every morning, Tate met me at my locker. Then Devin would show up, and the two would have their annoying private conversation - because, even now that I was part of the supernatural, I was still excluded from those conversations. But, that morning, Devin hadn't shown himself, like he knew Tate wouldn't be around.

Is Devin with you?

I watched the text bubble on the screen of my phone, wondering if this was going to get an answer. When, five minutes later, there still was no answer, I decided to send another text.

Is it because I wouldn't kiss you? Did you decide to find your fireworks elsewhere?

If anything were to get me an answer, that ought to do the trick. Except it didn't. By the time lunch came around, I was definitely worried. I wasn't sure why; perhaps I was afraid Tate had given into that trap of knowledge he had told me about yesterday. I marched to the cafeteria with a purpose. I was going to get some answers, and I was fairly sure who could give them to me.

The soccer team occupied two whole table that had been pushed together. Even then, they still occupied some of the surrounding tables. Now that I knew a good number of them were werewolves, it all seemed to make sense that they were so big and imposing. However, knowing I could order them around and they would have no choice but to listen made it less daunting to approach their table. Devin sat right in the middle of it all, though with his back to me. One of the guys spotted me first and let Devin know. The guy across from Devin stared at me as he jerked his head in my direction; he wasn't discreet, that's for sure.

Devin had turned around and was waiting for me by the time I had reached their table.

"Are you lost?" One of the other guys asked. It hard to tell whether he was also a werewolf or just human like I had thought they all were up until recently. There were two ways of dealing with this guy who needed to mind his own business; I could either hope Devin would tell him to leave me alone, or I could do it myself. And, not seeing Devin stepping in to take my defense, I decided to do it myself.

"Shut up," I told him firmly without being mean about it. Just a clear message. If he was a werewolf, he would obey. If he was human, he would be stunned for a moment. The look on his face told me it was the latter. My eyes went to Devin, who looked a little impressed but tried not to show it. "Where's Tate?"

"What makes you think I know where he is?" Devin asked. Typical. When a criminal is guilty, they also answer a question with that kind of question. I had watched Dad interrogate a few people.