Loss

Chapter 2

Early the next morning, Asher yawned and rubbed his eyes as he made his way into the small bathroom. Rubbing his eyes he grabbed a small purple toiletry bag as he stepped into the shower.

Under the warm spray of water he ran his fingers through his faded "ash" dyed hair, brushed his teeth and got ready for the day. In the mirror he looked at himself, rubbing his chin. I might need to get a new razor, he thought idly, rubbing his fingers along his jaw, feeling the small prickly hairs of his beard.

He always liked having a cleanly shaved face, but with all the work (and stress) he was doing lately he had let the stubble grow out and it had taken over his face a little. Maybe letting it grow out however wouldn't be so bad... after all, it would be another way to disguise himself.

Holding a towel in one hand he dug through one of the boxes with his other, and decided on a decent looking black shirt with thin white stripes with a high enough collar to conceal the bite, and a pair of black jeans.

Walking down the small, dark hallway he knocked on Raven's door.

"Raven! Wake up, we're going out in..." clicking on his phone he checked the time, "around 2 hours!" He heard the tired grumblings of his teen from behind the door and Asher knew she had woken up.

Heading downstairs he groaned when he saw the stacks of boxes awaiting him. They had most of the bigger furniture already moved in, such as the kitchen table and the sofa but he sighed thinking of the work awaiting him. Great... unboxing. Again. 

Pouring a bowl of milk and cereal Asher kicked up his feet onto a chair to the side. He heard Raven walk down the stairs and he looked up.

She yawned and the long black hair she was named after was a mess, sticking out and tangled in places that were usually brushed smooth, most likely having not found a hairbrush yet. She had inherited the black hair from him, and chose not to dye it. The hair hung down to the middle of her back and she was dressed in a plain grey shirt with white shorts. Asher frowned.

"Aren't you going to wear pants? It might be a bit cold," he offered. Raven shrugged.

"I can't find any. And it doesn't really matter, we're only going to be out of a few hours, right?"

"I don't know how long the process will take, though I'm sure it will be fast," he said. Raven poured her own bowl of cereal, and plopped herself down. She scooped it into her mouth at almost a ferocious speed.

"Slow down," Asher chided, finishing his bowl with a gulp and setting it off to the side.

When they were finished, the pair deposited the bowls in the sink and Raven went out to the car, while Asher grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter.

The car wasn't anything impressive, an old blue-gray colored sedan that held the slight smell of wet dog which they couldn't seem to shake no matter how many times they washed it. The inside was a bit of a mess, with leftover boxes yet to be brought in and food wrappers strewn about the floor. Raven sniffed as she sat on the back seat.

Asher brought himself toward the front of the car, opened the window and slid in. Turning on his phone he put in the address for Raven's new school, a local pack-run middle school that supposedly had a mix of human residents as well as werewolves.

Driving the small car through the unfamiliar roads, they finally stopped and pulled into a parking lot in front of a moderately sized building. On the grass was one of those cardboard signs stuck on metal legs that wrote Welcome new students to Coningsby Middle School!

Asher had googled the pack before they arrived, on a hidden wolf safe-search of course. Turns out they were one of the older "original" residing packs, larger than his old pack, and owned half of the town, even having enough money to build their own middle school.