The Liability (2023 - COMPLETE)

II - The School Day

Juno sat quietly in her spot, listening to the teacher go over the algebra problem. She had the math course first thing in the morning and it had the young woman frustrated. When she had gone over her work the night before, she thought that she understood the material, but apparently not. She was in one of the higher-level algebra classes, one that was meant only for seniors.

Although she pushed herself in her academics, she was just of average intelligence. She may have been getting nice grades, but that didn't happen without endless hours of studying. She had to come off as smart so that schools would be more willing to take her. Juno had applied to a few colleges but she knew her chances, with no extracurriculars, she was not going to be a good fit for any of the schools. Not that she could actually go to any of them, especially directly after high school. She could not support herself financially, and she certainly wasn't going to get any help from the pack.

Juno studied her work, still not quite sure where she went wrong but wasn't going to ask, knowing that she was only going to be ridiculed. If any other student had a question, Mr. Carmen was willing to answer them, but never Juno's.

She sat blindly through the lesson, jotting down the notes, making them nice for when she had to reteach herself later. She sat through the dreaded forty-five-minute class, wondering when they would get back to something she understood, which would probably be never. After her math lecture was over, Juno had to make it across the entire school to reach her English class.

She had gotten used to being shoved around and being body slammed by her classmates. She also learned to take the less crowded hallways. Avoiding the wolves was a hard task, but she did it the best she could.

The majority of the school that she went to was comprised of the wolves from her pack, seeing how she lived in a small town in Washington called Baring. The little human town had little over three hundred people, and the pack was about double those numbers. The wolves have spread out throughout the state of Washington, but most of them live in the Baring community.

Juno had gotten used to the wolves and their actions, even the ones that had landed her in the pack's hospital. Her legs and back still ached from her most recent beating. Two of her peers had been upset over something and felt that they needed to kick Juno senselessly to get over it.

Juno was sitting alone at a table during lunch, snacking on the god-awful lunch the school supplied. The Luna had set up a free lunch account for Juno so that she could have food. It wasn't often that something good comes from living in that pack, but one of them was that Luna was a complete darling. Luna Elizabeth Verdansky was a total sweetheart, and because she hadn't been raised in Washington, she treated Juno differently than the others did. 

In Nevada, Luna's home pack, they were completely different to their runts. Juno wondered what it would be like to be treated like an actual person instead of a breathing punching bag. It must be nice.

Luna Elizabeth was nice though, she went out of her way to be kind to Juno. In the five years that Luna had been living in Washington, she had been almost like a mother figure to Juno. Luna had even offered Juno a place to stay in the Alpha's house, although Alpha Alexander would not have allowed it. Alpha Alexander Verdansky was of fine werewolf breeding, coming from a long line of alphas. He was raised with a strong will and an issue with runts.

Juno sat at the table alone, snacking on the school-provided lunch and working on the homework that she had already been given that day. It was just normal for Juno to constantly be working, seeing how there was only so much daylight to work with. Sure, her little glass cabin had a light, intimidating exposed lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, but she did not enjoy using it.

She spent the half-hour period working on her algebra assignment, not quite understanding most of it. That should be fine, it doesn't matter too much. Mr. Carmen didn't grade on correctness, thank goodness. It did need to be complete though. Juno was able to complete a couple of the problems before the bell rang.

Juno packed up her things quickly before making it up the stairs to the social studies hall, finding her history classroom. She snuck in behind a small group of wolves, finding her way to the back of the classroom quickly. Juno liked to sit in the farthest corner of the room, away from most of her peers. Juno knew she didn't belong with them and sitting away from them made it easier for her to focus on her work. Sitting further away from her, she didn't have to focus on the mean things that were thrown at her.

Juno sat through the over two hours of her her fifth through seventh periods, waiting for the one class of the day that she actually enjoyed. Juno had accidentally been signed up for a painting class at the beginning of the year, but she had found that she enjoyed the class. The class was really laid back, and the students were allowed to spread out through the classroom and into the hallway.

The class was currently working on an acrylic painting, where the prompt had to deal with nature. Juno's painting was of the view from her cabin. The little cabin was on top of a small hill, so she was able to see lots of the evergreens around her. Although she was used to the view, she knew that there was a certain beauty that came with it.

She sat on the floor in the hall, her canvas sitting on an easel in front of her. She sat there, painting the greens and yellows of her work. Over the last few weeks, she had been slowly adding to the work, and she was slowly becoming proud of it.

It was nothing special, especially compared to some of her classmate's works, but she was proud that she could call something her own.

She sat through the class, slowly adding more shades and detail, actually finding some peace in the work. Although she had been placed in the class by accident, she was finding that she quite liked to paint. It was something she was actually good at.

She had to regretfully clean up early, knowing that otherwise, she was going to miss her bus. Five minutes before the last bell, Juno started cleaning her brushes and work area.

She set her work in a place where it could dry and not have other people mess with the painting. With how long she had worked on it, she didn't want them to ruin the work that she had been so proud of. She was packed up and ready to leave by the time the bell rang.

It was a bit of a fight to find the bus, but she had made it before they had shut their doors. She slid into the same spot from this morning and waited a few minutes before the bus left. The other riders were louder than they were in the morning, now that they were more awake.

The ride home was nothing special, as it never truly was. It was a long ride before they had gotten to the stop at the compound, seeing that it was almost twenty miles away from the school. The bus stopped for them, and nearly two dozen wolves got off the bus. The underclassmen had separated from Juno, all of them making their way to the main compound. Juno takes the way through the woods to make it to her cabin.

It took longer to make it back there than it did to walk to the bus. That was because Juno had to dodge the wolves, not wanting to get hurt by them. Juno remembered one of the last times that she had run into an angary wolf.

It had been her freshman year, and she was stumbling home late at night. There was a time when she thought that it was a good idea to hide in the little cafe in Baring, taking the long walk home late at night. Looking back, it wasn't that great of a decision. Anyway, she had stumbled upon a wolf late at night and they had clearly not been a good mood. She had been found later covered in bleeding claw wounds and had to be sent to the pack hospital. She had been sewn up and was still scarred by that experience. Physically and mentally.

That had been the last time that she had gone to the cafe.

This time she didn't have to worry about that, she had long learned where the wolves liked to spend their day and made her way back to her cabin. To her personal hell. To her own personal sanctuary. 

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15548 Words. Published 11.5.2022. Edited 12.10.2023