Chapter 9

3 days until birthday   

Lottie POV      

I feel so tired. Thank goodness it’s Friday. One more day in that hell hole and then the weekend. I went downstairs to find Mom and Caren having breakfast. “Are you joining us sweetheart?” mom asked.  

“Thanks for yesterday.” I told her as I sat down. “I know it can’t have been easy and I know it hasn’t been easy raising us over the years. On a positive note, I met someone last night. He is offering to help me with the wolf stuff.” Caren started choking on her cereal. “What?”      

I explained to Mom and Caren about the wolf attack in the valley a few nights ago and meeting a man on my run last night, as well as his offer to help me figure out my future. When I looked at Mom, she was just staring at me with her jaw open. “Come on, Caren, we’re going to be late for school. Bye mom.” She sat there, staring at me in silence.    

As we got to school and were about to part ways, Caren turned to me and said, “They’re only human”.   

I hate this place, it truly is torture. The small-minded petty humans who think popularity is strength. On the plus side, there is a new student today. Parker was the name that the teacher used to introduce him. He has recently moved to the area and needs to finish his final year of school. The girls were practically throwing themselves at him. He was very tall and muscular, tanned dark hair with dark eyes, filled his T-shirt very well.    

It was lunchtime. I went to my usual table in the back, where I could be unnoticed. Or so I thought. Amber was on the warpath and I was somehow in her way. Even though I am at the back of the room. I put my head down as she tipped her tray of food over me. She then picked up my tray and tipped it over my head, smearing it onto my hair and clothes. Her friends laughed as she was doing it.    

I could feel myself getting angry, extremely angry. My fists clenched as I was gritting my teeth. ‘Don’t lose it, don’t lose it. She’s only human.’ I kept repeating in my head. I really was doing my best.  

I could see Caren sprinting through the cafeteria. I looked up just in time to see Caren punch Amber right in the jaw, then punched her in the abdomen. Amber fell to the floor, where Caren kicked her in the stomach. She bent down, grabbed her hair, pulling her face upward. “I warned you.” Caren screamed at her.   

Caren got up and came to me. “Calm down, calm down, I’m here, I have dealt with it.” she pressed her forehead to mine and whispered, “They’re only human, she is only human. I need to get you out of here.” She dragged me to the girl’s locker room. “Calm down, calm down.” Caren was pacing, she was fuming.  

“Thanks, sis, I am getting there.” I said to her. “I wasn’t talking to you Lot’s, I honestly can’t believe you took all that. Look at the state of you. I want to kill her, the pathetic piece of crap she is.”      

I laugh when I tell her I was close to losing control, but she ‘is only human’ after all. I reminded her she had come through for me when I needed her the most. She smiled and said, “Yes, I did. I have warned her over and over to keep her distance from you.”

‘Caren Wainwright to the principal’s office immediately’ was the announcement over the school speaker system. “Great, time to face the music. Wait here until I get back.” She said before she headed       

I got showered and dressed in my running clothes again for the second time that week. When I heard the door slam shut, “Caren, I need your help.” I shouted. But as I turned, I saw a man’s silhouette come towards me. Rising to my feet, I asked, “Can I help you, your obviously lost?” It was the new boy.  

“Oh, I am lost, Lottie. I am lost as to why you took all of that. Why didn’t you fight back? Who was the blonde?” He was questioning me, and he knew my name.  

I clenched my fists, ready for him to attack me, thinking I was weak, boy would he be wrong. “Slow down feisty pants, Maddox sent me,” he announced, grinning. What the hell, I only just met Maddox and he is sending someone to spy on me. “So?”  

“I know what you are and how much control it must have taken to sit there and take all of that. I just came to check if you were okay.”      

“I can’t fight back. I would kill them. They are only human, after all.” I said. “Yeah, I suppose.” He laughed.  

The door burst open and in stormed a raging Caren. She was livid. I feared for the new boy, who stood there wide-eyed. “That bitch told them I had attacked her in the middle of the cafeteria.”  

“But you did, sis.”     

“Yeah, but she left out the part where she treated you like a trashcan.”       

Her gaze shifted, she looked at the boy. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in the girls locker room?”      

“Bloody hell. Anger management issues run in your family, don’t they?” he responded. Caren started approaching him like prey.   

 “Caren, no. He’s a friend of a friend. I think, anyway.” She glared at him and turned her attention to me. “What happened in the principal’s office, anyway?”      

“A week’s suspension, but if I was going down, I took that bitch with me and she has a week’s suspension too, which will go on her permanent record and she needs that a hell of a lot more than I do.” she said gleefully.  

“What do we owe the pleasure of this visit, friend of a friend?”       

“I’m Parker. My brother Maddox is curious about you, Lottie. That you genuinely are who you say you are and if your story is true. It sounds far-fetched, a wolf being raised by a witch.” Both me and Caren glared at him. She folds her arms. “What is wrong with being raised by a witch?” She asks. I am glad she did, otherwise I would have.  

He must have seen Caren’s posture. “Nothing, nothing at all. Anyway, Maddox is too old and too big to pull off being a student, so I was volunteered.”        

“Volunteered?” I asked     

“Yeah, as if I would volunteer to come to a human high school. My own was bad enough.” Me and Caren looked at each other and we knew what each other was thinking about ‘human high school’. We turned and looked at him at the same time. It must have looked quite eerie. Caren spoke, “What are you?”      

“Wolf, just like your sister. Although she doesn’t have one yet.” He said with a broad grin, “But what are you? I can’t get a read on your scent.”        

“A hybrid, I suppose. Look guys, I would love to carry on with this conversation, but I have to get off the school grounds.” She turned and looked at Parker. “You’ll protect them, right?”      

I coughed. “You mean to protect me?”      

“Hell no, you kick my butt every night. It’s them that need protection. They are, after all, only human.” We both laughed.