The Gamma's Warrior

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR: DUG A HOLE

I am weird, and you know what? That's OK. So are most interesting people.
-Em Bailey

SILLAGE

One thing that most of his family don't know about him, is that Gamma Jace is a very curious wolf by nature.

The way he hides this is by observing everything and everyone as much as he can, he doesn't need to ask questions. He's deceivingly good at reading people and atmospheres.

One of the many things that he is the most curious about, because he can't seem to read her like he does others, is Emma Pike.

Or, more specifically, her ability to fool everyone around her- -by acting like a fool herself- -and miraculously get away with it.

There's more to her than he knows and he's dying to find out, dying from the curiosity from both him and his wolf to discover everything about her. Why she acts the way she does when she doesn't have to.

As gamma, he's met feral wolves, legitimately insane people and genuine freaks. In fact he's met enough to tell that Emma isn't one of them.

He's come to realize through observation that one of the biggest ways Emma fools people- -including his brother and alpha- -is by pretending to give away enough information about her that makes people comfortable in 'knowing' who she is. Even if by knowing what she wants them to, they call her a freak or attempt to bully her. What she really does is give useless and often false information or tiny details of her life that have no significant meaning.

By pretending to be the freakish Emma Pike, the warrior has successfully destroyed anyone's knowledge of the real her.

Jace has pretended to know Emma Pike for too long now.

He wants to know Andromeda now.

To do this, he's been starting to keep a closer eye on her. At school, during training, when she's at the pack house. The only piece of the puzzle he's missing is what happens when she's home or hunting as a wolf, since he knows her wolf must be released of all it's pent up anger once or twice a week with her rank within the pack. But he never really notices when she shifts.

At the moment the gamma is silently following Emma's scent all around the academy to find her -a task that is quickly becoming more frustrating than awarding. Without her needing to, she has covered her scent through the whole school so she's hard to find. This made Jace feel like he's a predator trying to catch his prey, something that unexpectedly gave him a thrill the same time it pissed him off.

All he wants to do is find her.

He just wants her.

Why does she have to make it so hard?

Now that he knows it's on purpose that she's never found during lunch, which is his pack's social time- -something most growing pack wolves need- -it just makes him want to know more. According to her growling stomach during their sixth hour, Honors English 12 that she shares with all the top three, whatever she's doing isn't eating.

Luckily for Gamma Jace, he's always been rather sensitive to Emma's smell and can tell the old rosemary and jasmine to the fresh, the jasmine always stronger when the scent is fresh. He likes her scent, as does his wolf.

The relief quickly turns into confusion as he finds himself standing just inside the library doors, a place he knows Emma would rather be killed than be caught in -or even admit that she was inside to begin with. It was no secret in their group that she hates books, hates learning and math and science when she isn't forced to learn it. She hates being associated with the word 'smart' and lets everyone know it. Street smarts have always counted more to Emma, or so she lets everyone think.