LONE WOLF (On Hold)

Chapter 17 - You don't think pink's my colour?

Chapter 17 – You don't think pink's my colour?

Alexa's POV

Seven days and thirteen hours exactly have passed since Beck and I found Tony's body. The memory of him sat there in the woods keeps me up at night but I'm trying my hardest to get things back to some form of normality. My parents have been hovering around me all week, waiting for me to crumble and give in to the horror of last Sunday, but that is the one thing I straight up refuse to do. I can't break down; I have to be strong. It's the only way I'll ever be able to move past this.

I know people are worried about me. It didn't take very long for the news to spread around town. It's Redwater Pine, after all. Darcy finds every excuse under the sun to call and check up on me multiple times a day, Jenny and Stuart told me I could take as much time off work as I need to and Pete from the shop has offered to home deliver our groceries to save me the trouble. Heck, even Dylan is being nice to me. Dylan is never nice to me.

I love them all for it, I really do, but a giant part of me wishes they'd just let me move on. If people stopped talking about it then maybe I could stop thinking about it. According to the news it was the result of an animal attack, some kind of wild cat or wolf that they reckon escaped from some zoo down South. The prospect doesn't seem quite right to me, although the animalistic nature of Tony's wounds can't be denied.

To me, the scene was far too well set out to be some wild creature.

"Alex," Cora says, dragging me out of my thoughts as she stands in front of where I sit on the sofa. The TV screen stares blankly out from behind her. Apparently I forgot to switch it on. "There's someone at the door."

Weird. I didn't even hear the knock.

It's probably mum on her way back from the shop; she's always forgetting her keys. No matter how much Pete insists on home delivery, mum refuses to accept the offer and instead has taken the week's shopping upon herself. I haven't left the house all that much since the incident. I can't quite hack all the stares just yet. This is the most interesting thing to happen in Redwater Pine in – well – ever, probably. Unfortunately for me I'm caught right in the middle of it. And Beck, of course, although he's been receiving weird stares from people since he first got to this town. He says he's used to it by now.

I ruffle my sister's hair as I stand up and walk out of the room, moving down the hallway to open the door.

As it turns out, it's not my mum.

"Hey, stranger," I say to Beck as he leans against the wall, waiting for me to invite him in. My mood instantly lifts when I see his smile.

Beck is no exception to the squad of people who have been hovering around me all week. Only, with him, I don't mind so much. It's been kind of nice having him around, actually. Probably because he's the only one who isn't acting like I'm some china doll. He's been around because he wants to be, not because he feels he has to be – he even told me so himself.

"Alright, Blondie?" he asks, pushing off the wall and stepping in the door as I move back to let him through.

"Beck!" a small exclamation sounds from behind me and I quickly turn to see Clara bounding down the stairs with a giant grin etched across her face.

"Careful," I tell her when she stumbles slightly on the last step and nearly falls flat on her face. She barely notices.

"Hey, Squirt," he says, having officially nicknamed her by her favourite Disney character. He was forced to watch Finding Nemo three times in a row on Tuesday with the girls. Apparently he's seen it plenty of times in his life and was able to quote almost the entire film which, in Clara's opinion, makes him the coolest person on the planet.