Wolves of the Night

Chapter 4: Introducing Humans

Classes seemed to have gone back to their usual volume. New students adding to the noise and old students being forced to be less rowdy. The classrooms weren't to hard to keep in control. On the other hand, the lunchroom was put under new security. Double the students, double the staff. Instead of two staff members in the cafeteria there was four, three monitors and a janitor.

It was becoming too cold outside for the students to eat their lunch in the courtyard, forcing everyone into the same lunchroom. The faculty had seen this coming and decided to give students different lunch periods. It was mentioned before that the school was originally very small. Since changing everybody's schedule and the school had limited time to prepare they decided to have freshmen and sophomores go to lunch first and the juniors and seniors would have it second. It will remain this way for the rest of the semester when they have the time to change schedules.

Brooke got his lunch and looked over at the table he and his pack usually sat at. There was people there, people Brooke didn't recognize. Dang it, he thought. How did they get here so fast? Where are the others?

Brooke noticed that the next table over was empty. Brooke took and chance and decided to sit there. It was only a small difference in seating. He didn't mind too much. William, however, probably wasn't going to take it so lightly. Werewolves could tend to be very territorial. That doesn't mix well with a loose cannon like William.

The three boys sitting that had taken Brooke's table looked at him curiously. They didn't know him either. That was expected since they were new students. They were humans. Brooke ignored them and started eating. It was lunch after all.

After a bit of silence one of the students asked, "Do you have any friends that sit by you during lunch or do you prefer to be alone?"

Brooke looked up to see the three boys looking at him. The first boy had light brown hair that wasn't done in any crazy way or had any distinguishing factor. The boy also had a confident look in his eyes. The second had black curly hair and glasses. And the third had innocent eyes and natural red hair.

Brooke replied, "Uh . . . there's some gray area there."

There was a pause before the redhead said, "Your hair looks cool."✧ The boy with glasses elbowed him in the side. "What? I'm trying to be nice!" Brooke realized he might fit in with the kids in his group but outside it his light blue hair does make him stand out.

The four of them sat in silence for a while. Soon enough, a girl with a blue T-shirt and purple hair came over.

"Sup, dork," she chimed without regrets. She placed her tray of food across from Brooke on the table. The three boys sitting at the table next to them stared at her in disbelief.

Brooke pulled off a half smile and responded by saying, "Hey, Lila." He pushed a strand of his hair back because it was getting in his face again.

Lila sat down by her tray and looked over at the three boys. She began to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" asked the boy with glasses. The redhead was squinting at Lila as if he were trying to read something really far away. The brown haired one shrugged and started eating his pizza.

Lila grinned. "Your faces," --she burst into laughter-- "You all look so confused!"

"How were we supposed to know you two were friends?" The boy with glasses seemed to be slightly angry.

The brown haired boy put down his pizza and said, "Maybe if we had introduced ourselves we would know this." He looked over at Lila. "Hi. My name is Landon and these are my friends." He gestured towards the redhead. "This is Jacob" -- he gestured towards the redhead -- "and this is Stewart."

All of a sudden a girl comes over and places her tray next to Stewart. She had long blonde hair held up by a scrunchie. She also had a second scrunchie around her wrist. She had a warm smile on her face, as if she was oblivious to her surroundings. "Thank goodness you three are here!" She said to the boys as she sat down. "None of my other friends transferred here. Crazy, right? Of all people, you'd think they'd at least consider coming."

"I heard Jessica's ex-boyfriend decided to transfer," Stewart said to humor her.

"Yeah, but Jessica's a bitch so I came out of spite."

"That does sound like you."

Brooke and Lila sat awkwardly as they watched this little bit of high school drama play out. Landon wasn't interested and just went ahead and introduced the girl. "This is Brianna, but we just call her Bri. She's all about gossip and was pretty popular at our old school."

"Cool," Lila said nonchalantly like there was nothing wrong with having a gossip loving teenager forever in your presence, especially when you have a super big secret you are trying to cover up. She soon enough looked back at her tray. She wanted to continue introductions but didn't know what to say or how to say it. Her face was starting to show fear again. She was doing everything in her power to remain calm and optimistic, but she knew it wouldn't last forever.

Poor Lila, Brooke thought as he watched her snap right back into an overly joyous mood. She has every right to be scared, but instead she does this. The stories about humans she's been told are much worse than the ones I've been told. A lot of them are just rumors, but her stories are, no doubt, -- Brooke looked downwards -- true.

,'~~~<>~~~',

After a while of silence, Stormie and Dustin placed their trays down. "Sorry we're late," Stormie said apologetically. "Dustin had trouble finding his lunch money."

She looked over at Stewart, Landon, Jacob, and Bri. Her expression went from joyous to confused. Dustin looked over. His eyes widened when I realized who that was. He looked away and held up his hand next to his face to block them from view.

Dustin wasn't used to hiding his ears and tail for this long. He was scared that he could mess up at any moment and it would all be over for him. Stormie was scared but she had been practicing for a long time. She'd mastered staying in her human form. Brooke was the same way. He hid his ears and tail all the time. That way it wasn't as easy for other werewolves to figure out how he was feeling. Lila couldn't care less. She was free-spirited and didn't care what others thought of her. This meant she was also having a tough time hiding her ears and tail. She had always been so confident in the way they looked. Now that she had to hide them it was a bit tough, but she did her best to act her normal self so others wouldn't worry.

"Who are they?" Stormie inquired while still looking at the human students.

Landon smiled at her. "Sorry you missed our introduction. I'll make this quick. I'm Landon and these are my friends Jacob, Stewart, and Bri." He pointed to each person as he said their names.

Bri butts in saying, "Bri is short for Brianna, by the way. Everybody just calls me Bri for short."

They're not as bad as I thought, she thinks at the same time as she says, "Nice to meet you four."

Lila suddenly looked shocked as she realized something. "Woops. We haven't told you our names." Brooke just eats his food as he listens to Lila introduce everybody. Dustin shrinks in his seat a little bit. Stormie smiled when possible and listened to the group. She wanted to make them feel welcome. She wanted them to be happy. Dustin seemed to be a bit surprised by the way everybody was reacting to this. After all that they had been told about humans, it seemed as if they just dropped it, forgot about everything. Dustin refused to believe that they were nice. He knew who would be on his side on this. William.

,'~~~<>~~~',

Lunch was halfway over. Conversations within the group had died down and they were mainly just eating. They were all a bit on edge, but Dustin seemed more worried than the others. None of them knew about what until Dustin finally spoke up.

"Where's William?"