Different.

Chapter 9: Training

Chapter 9

Training

Alexander's laugh was mocking.

"Did you honestly think you were the only one?" He asked smugly as the orange floated back down to his hand.

"I...I didn't know what to think." I admitted, stammering.

"Well you still have a lot to learn, so don't go around shifting everything in sight whenever you feel like it. It's risky." He snapped impatiently.

I snatched the orange out of his hand and tossed it back into my bag.

"Oh really? Who's gonna snitch on me? The squirrels?" I retorted, regaining my confidence.

His eyes narrowed. "Like I said. You have a lot to learn. And if you think that everyone out there is gonna be either excited about finding out you're a shifter, or just freaked out, you've got even more to learn that I thought. Not everyone out there is good, Kaylee."

I rolled my eyes and began picking up all of the oranges and putting them back in my bag.

"What are we talking about here? Some kind of gang war?"

He grabbed my wrist and yanked it towards him, forcing me to look at him.

"I'm talking about people dying Kaylee." He said angrily. "That's not something you can just make light about."

I snatched my arm back out of his grasp, and took a step away. But his words echoed in my ears.

Something about the fury in his eyes made me think that he wasn't messing around, and that there was a lot more to this than I'd known.

"Well what do you mean?" I asked, avoiding his gaze by gathering up the remainder of the slightly old fruit and plopping them back in my bag.

As I closed it back up, he let out a sound that resembled something of a groan and a sigh at the same time.

"If you had just waited until you came back with me, all of this would've been explained to you," he grumbled, fiddling with a leaf by twirling its stem between his thumb and index finger. "But noooo, you had to have it your way."

I shot him a look, as if to say, real mature. He gave me one back that said, look who's talking.

"Fine!" I shouted, throwing my arms in the air. "Take me back to the stupid place so I can have my history lesson." I gave in.

But Alexander didn't smirk, or crack a joke. Instead he narrowed his eyes at me as if deciding whether or not to chuck a rock at my head before shrugging and turning around to lead the way out of the patch of forest.

The nerve of that guy.

Yanking up my bike from where I'd sloppily dumped it on the ground, I pushed it through the leaves and followed after him, glowering at the back of his head the entire time.

It was only when we got back to the street that I realized something. "Are we walking there?" I asked, maybe more than a little happy at the idea of me barreling away from him on my bike while he tried running after me.

He just laughed again. "You know, just because I'm a Shifter doesn't mean I'm not a normal guy. I do happen to have a car."

I raised a brow. "Like a real car, or like the Bat-mobile?"

He frowned down at me. "Very funny Kaylee," He said, sounding like he thought it was as far from funny as possible. "But not quite. I have a Jeep."