Wild and Free

Chapter 1: "Human" Interaction

(Auden's POV)

I could smell then before they even set foot in town. Why couldn't they just stay away? There were millions of other towns that they could pass through and it had to be White Chapel?

All I could do was hope that they didn't pick up a scent or even come within twenty feet of me before they left. If they left.

Traveling packs were a pain in the ass.

Forcing a smile, I set down the various breakfast dishes on my hungry customer's table. I fought back the scowl that threatened to break through and retreated back into the kitchen.

"What's up with you today?" Cassandra, or Cassie, my coworker and best friend asked me while she cleared the bartop area of someone's finished plates.

I put my now empty tray back on the rack, "Nothing I just hate the breakfast rush." I lied, running my fingers through my long, dark brown ponytail

"Don't I know it," she replied with a smile that I struggled to return.

Cassie was a really nice girl who was the same school year as me. If I wasn't in such a crabby mood and the diner wasn't so packed, the two of us might be in the break room laughing at our sick humors or sharing a slice of carrot cake we swiped from the dessert case. But sadly we were both racked with work, as we usually were on Saturday mornings.

We worked as waitresses at Mel's Diner, the best restaurant in town. Which wasn't saying much since there was little to no competition.

White Chapel was a large but secluded town that was mostly wooded and sat right near a large river. Almost everyone knew everyone there and unless you were going to college out of state, no one left. And that was how I liked it. If someone new came to town, you knew it. It was the perfect place to hide. A place where gossip spread like wildfire. A place with no secrets.

The little bell above the door chimed, signalling another customer.

"Hey! Auden! How's it going?" boomed a loud voice from the front of the diner.

A genuine smile broke on my face as he made his way up to the counter, "I'm good Sammy, how are you?"

"I'm great," he grinned.

"What can I get you?" I tilted my head at him, "The usual I presume?"

"You know me too well." he laughed, the boisterous sound filling the entire room.

I nodded at the burly old man and wrote down his order on my pad, tearing it off and clipping it on the rack for our cook Sean to see.

Sammy had been my first customer when I got hired at Mel's about two years before. Me, a nervous little seventeen year old that had just moved there and was forced to get a job. It was my first day of my training and both Mel himself and Cassie had gone off into the back to do something and I was left, stranded and clueless on what to do. That was until Sammy arrived and started up a conversation with me. He was so kind and didn't even bug me for not taking his order. Eventually Cassie came back out, took it, and gave me a proper training course. I got the hang of it after a while.

I returned to the counter where Sammy had taken a seat and hung with him for a second, as all my tables had been covered for the time being.

As I was filling his coffee mug with the steaming liquid Sammy, obviously one to love gossip if there ever was any, filled me in.

"So I heard that there's a new group of people coming into town," he said, sipping his drink. "Big group of maybe twenty or thirty people."

I knit my brows acting as if I didn't know, "That many? Coming here? What for?"