I inhale deeply as I make my way down the hall. New school, same students. The differences are names and faces because even their scents are too indistinctive. This place will be just as bad but with any luck it won’t be worse. Dad would have a fit if I acted out again. I look at the class schedule and the map that came along with it one more time. Biology in room 311 should be down the hall on the left side. I fold the paper back up carelessly and stuff it into my jeans.

High school sucks, no matter what road you take. I’ve been to enough schools to see all the different personas. If you’re popular, you’re too fake for even you too realize. The nerds need to get the best grades. As a loner, you’re a target or invisible. As a jock, you have to act the best but you don’t necessarily have to be the best. Art freaks all secretly think they’re the most talented. Bandos are oddly big on parties. Even the Dungeons and Dragons gang have their standards.

My wolf doesn’t like pretending to be anything other than it is. No one really understands that burden. My primal side is heightened, my instincts kicked into overdrive. I’m the youngest of my kind that my parents or I know of. We’re not sure if my distaste for the majority of people I meet is due to my wolfish side or my teenage angst. Most likely, it’s both.

Room 311 is like any other modern classroom: the floor looks new as does the SMART Board in the corner and the projector screwed into the ceiling. My Biology teacher leans on his desk as other students pile in behind me. The ugliest sweater vest I’ve ever seen is donned on his torso over an untucked blue checkered shirt. It screams ‘I don’t care about my job’ in a vintage sort of way. His arms are crossed in front of his chest and his salt and pepper hair is combed strangely to hide the small patch of skin on the back of his head. He seems like such a sweetheart. I shrug my shoulders and move closer to finally get his attention.

“You must be Rupert,” the man greets me. I glance at the whiteboard and see his name scribbled in blue marker. Mr. Baldet. The mismatched letters of the e and t in his name is enough to tell me how much his students love him. I extend my hand anyway but he doesn’t reciprocate. His mood is as reluctant to be here as the rest of the student population. Mr. Baldet coughs and nods his heads to the desks. “Take a seat in the back and get a feel for the class.”

I can already tell this period will be one I’ll totally enjoy. While trying not to trip over their backpack straps, I uncomfortably shuffle through the narrow space between desks and seated students. Mr. Baldet scratches his barely existent beard. What an exciting guy.

I take my seat as the rest of my classmates hurry in before the buzzer. A few people take their time getting to their desks. It’s obvious they’re glancing my way, their stares are hardly subtle. I’ve moved to plenty of smaller towns and many big ones too but never have I been as scrutinized. It’s been happening all day. I guess it comes with the territory of such a close-knit community like Wakeburg, Pennsylvania.

The buzzer goes off and our class finally starts. Before we’re learning anything, Mr. Baldet gestures to the newest tortured soul: me.

“So as all of you can guess, yes we have a new student,” he says, signaling me to stand. My chair scrapes as I get up and everyone turns to me. I’m used to it. “I’ll let him tell you about himself so you nosey sods can be satisfied. Alright? Mr. Briggs, take it away.”

“Uh, okay,” I start uncertainly. Almost everyone’s attention is directed to me except the girl I can tell is the class loner. She’s sitting in the front and closest to the door, keeping her eyes on the fascinating #2 pencil in her hands. I clear my throat and send an unenthusiastic smile to my new classmates. “My name is Briggs. I moved here because we’ve heard this school is just great. Really, your awesomeness is legendary. I like long walks on the beach and pina coladas. Oh, and getting caught in the rain is just fan—”

“Thank you,” Mr. Badelt cuts me off, clearly not amused.

“—Tastic.”

Not giving it a second thought if I embarrassed myself, I plop back on my seat and ignore the whispers. Mr. Baldet shushes them and we resume a normal school day. Biology was never something I was interested in but I seem to end up with good grades anyway. I tap my pencil on its side and begin people watching.

Every once in a while there’s another stolen glance in my direction. I tap my fingers on the side of my leg. Vito stirs beneath my skin, itching like always for me to run far away from this prison of a building. I shut my eyes and think soothing thoughts for my wolf. It’s enough to keep him satisfied for now but I feel as stir crazy as he does.

Vito isn’t like a split personality, more like a second layer of pure emotion. He feels what I feel only multiplied to the furthest extent of my emotional range. Everything primal about me is warped into one being. Sometimes I let him ‘drive’ to keep him happy. It’s an understanding I was taught by my dad that he learned from his travels. Mom encourages it. She says just like any human, you have to give in to your instincts. Otherwise, as she tells me, I’ll end up in a crap job with crap coworkers and I’ll end up killing them or myself eventually.

My mom is such an optimistic person.

Taking my eyes away from the slideshow on the SMART board about Mitosis, I check out the rest of the classroom. My eyes flit around the room over the deformed creatures in jars and over last year’s scientific method tri-folds. Each time I try and pull my gaze away, I end up looking toward the door. But it’s not the door I’m drawn to.

Sitting by herself and scribbling notes like the rest of class, there is one girl my gaze focuses on. It’s the loner chick. She sits by the exit, bouncing her leg anxiously like mine does when I really feel like ripping off my skin and fleeing to the forest. I keep her in my peripheral vision but throughout the entire class, she doesn’t turn my way. Her appearance is simple and in no way would it ever get anyone’s attention. It makes it that much more concerning as to why Vito is wary of her presence.

The girl’s dull blonde hair falls over her back in messy waves. It’s obvious she spends as little time on her appearance as possible. From what I see from the side of her face, her nose sticks out from her face and has the slightest curve upward, reminding me of a pixie cartoon character. It’s strange yet it adds to her cuteness. I mean, not that I find her attractive enough to do anything about it but she isn’t unfortunate looking.

My eyes trail further down her body and eventually rest on the backpack beside her. A single white flower protrudes out of its zipper. I shift in my chair to sit forward and still see only her cheekbones and nose. The fact she’s keeping herself turned from me is the most fascinating thing about her.

I never get a better look since the buzzer rings again, signaling the end of class. The nameless girl packs up her belongings and rushes out of the door before I even have a chance to scoot down the blocked isle between our desks. I zoom out to the hallway in hoping to catch a glimpse of her blonde hair dancing behind her as she hurries along. The most I see is the carnation sticking out of her bag as she enters the stairwell halfway down the hall. I sigh and adjust my backpack. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s class to see her face.

There is something about that girl that bothers me, something that’s not like the rest, and it wasn’t just her obvious refusal to look my way. I fumble for my new schedule to give myself and Vito something else to worry about. Whoever she was, it doesn’t matter. I have World History by Mr. Peters to find.

Tonight, we’ll take a long run and eat as much as we can take, I promise Vito silently. My wolf stirs in anticipation. Leaving Biology and using the same stairwell the loner girl had run through moments ago, I hurry off toward another dull class in this incredibly boring school.

.

By the end of the day, having no sign of that girl, I give up trying to understand why I was thinking about her so much. The hustle and bustle of the students leaving diminishes and I finally get a chance to go through the doors. My dad can’t pick me up until four on account of his new job so I’m not in a rush. It’ll be me, sitting on the brick wall by the main entrance until my ride gets here.

It’s not bad at this school. Dad chose this town especially for the environment. Unlike most places, it still has plenty of trees and the air feels cleaner. In the cities we used to live in, my dad and I had to change in storage units or abandoned buildings with enough strength left in their walls to contain our wild sides. They were torturous days. Vito still cringes when I think about it. He’d much rather the open forest. I just wonder how long we can stay here before we’re discovered.

Twenty minutes later, the front of the school has cleared out. Teachers are trickling out of the building slowly and every once in a while there’s a clump of students leaving a club meeting. I pace the steps for a while to calm Vito down. He’s so close to being able to run wild yet the wait is killing him. My mind wanders into fun memories at a river I used to change near as I take a seat. He enjoys this. My wolf is the oddest creature, loving to play in the water when he’s in his freeform. I watch along with him behind my closed eyes. These are his memories, not mine. Now it’s me along for the ride.

“How was the first day?”

My eyes flash back open and I turn to find myself staring at a classmate I recognize from Biology. His dark brown hair tightly curls into his head and his height stands a head taller than I would. His open varsity jacket lets me see that he’s lean but powerfully built, the perfect stature for the basketball player his team patch says he is. I shrug my shoulders. Vito grumbles cautiously but not enough to retreat. I take that as a good sign.

“Like any other: strange and full of quiet questions.”

“I hear that.” The guy turns his head toward the wind that’s picking up. My left eyebrow angles at his choice in words. “I was new last year,” he explains. “I’m still not part of the in-crowd.”

“Ah, so you’ve come to the newest outcast for a friend.”

“Pretty much. I’m Danny,” he introduces himself.

I nod and relax my head on the bricks. “I’m Briggs.”

Danny leans on the wall a few feet away from me and takes out his cell phone. I turn my gaze back to the sky. Dusty dark clouds float beneath a mass of white. From what I’ve gathered for being in Wakeburg for three weeks, it will forever look like it is about to rain. That could be a dangerous thing. During the change, it’ll be easy to leave tracks in the mud. I’ll have to remind Dad of that. Pennsylvania isn’t known for their wild wolves. If anything happens, the Phantom clan could catch wind of us.

“So, are you one of those kids that moves often or is this a new thing?”

“To be honest, I doubt I’ll be here long,” I tell Danny. “My dad’s job moves him around a lot.”

He shrugs his shoulders but there’s a hint of disappointment in his eyes. I want to tell him the real reason but he wouldn’t believe it. He seems like a cool guy, just lonely from people not giving him a chance. There’s a lot of that with new students.

“Ever try cyber-school?”

I chuckle cynically. I wish I could but sitting inside all day in my room would be worse for Vito. “Nah,” I tell him. “Me and my family need to get out and meet people.”

“Yeah,” he says rolling his eyes. “You seem great at that.”

I give him a look but before I can respond, my dad’s truck pulls up to the curb. I check the time on my phone and realize it’s 3:54 already. My bag is thrown back over my shoulder and I hurry back to the car. Before I open the door though, I shout back to Dan.

“See you tomorrow?”

His gaze looks up and I see a hidden smile behind his bland expression. He gives a quick wave and returns to the game on his phone. I climb into the pickup and slam the squeaky door behind me. Rosemary High School drifts away and Danny along with it. Looks like I made my first friend. Not in record time but I’ll take whatever socializing I can get.

Dad turns up the radio meant for classic rock and mumbles the lyrics as he finds his way around. I lean back, watching the pine trees pass and listening to the wind scream through the crack I left in the window. It’s a lonely kind of day; first days always are.

“How was this school?”

I groan and press my face onto my window. “As torturous as the rest of them.”

He sighs and turns up an old Foreigner song. It’s one of the songs I used to dance to as a kid before all of this happened. We used to have a great house with an in-ground pool in the backyard. Next to it was a trampoline and the patio was a perfect place to hang out on summer nights. I had cool friends who would do anything with me including things my parents will never find out. I had it made.

But that was before my dad’s camping trip was attacked by an animal they couldn’t recognize. It was before my dad survived with only a deep gash on his side while his friends bled out in their sleeping bags. It was before he knew what he was, before he accidentally scratched my arm during a change. It was before everything happened, back when we could call ourselves a regular family.

I miss my family days. We haven’t seen Poppop or Grandma in years. My mom’s side of the family calls every so often but we can’t visit them either. It’s just the three of us surviving together.

“It will get better,” dad tells me, bringing me out of the memories I still pine for. “You know it will.”

“Yeah,” I reply weakly. “In a few months, it always does.”

.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The picture for this chapter is of Gregg Sulkin AKA Rupert Briggs. I enjoy his face. It's a nice looking face ^^