Free Me From the Wolves

[2] A Cliche and a Pre-Quarter-Life-Crisis

"I don't want to be any more cliché than I have been..." Cassandra started at dinner that night. "But how was your last first day of school?" Andrew and I dropped our forks to our plates. "That bad?"

"Cassandra," Andrew sighed with mouth full of food. Then he gulped somehow and swallowed all of the food he was chewing. "Even though I have a supernatural superiority over pretty much everyone at that campus, high school still sucks."

I laughed, understanding him completely. The extra sense of hearing and smell was just terrible. I didn't know if Andrew mastered it or not, but I for one took one inhale in chemistry unintentionally and smelled just about every chemical that wasn't properly stored. I had to inconspicuously go to the bathroom to wash out my burning nose, but the smells in there were even worse.

"It couldn't have been that bad," Cassandra laughed, but Andrew and I exchanged a look of understood misery. "How about you, Ash?"

"Um, it was okay," I said. "There was a mistake on my schedule though."

"Oh? I thought I got everything right for you," Cassandra frowned. "What was it?"

"Athletics," I told her. Andrew rolled his eyes.

"I thought you played soccer and ran track in Florida," she recalled with a frown.

"I did, but now—"

"Just because Ryder and his idiots can't play doesn't mean you can't," Andrew said. You're not part of his pack anyways, he reminded me through a thought and a look. Though I dreaded training and practicing, I loved playing sports. When I moved here, I picked up running again and figured I'd settle for that instead of trying to make a varsity team sport three years after not being here. But now that I was a werewolf, I didn't think that was possible. Not after what Ryder warned about hurting people.

"How is he by the way?" Cassandra asked. "He left this morning when I was waking up. Did something happen?"

"Something better not have—"

"No, I don't think so," I said over Andrew's attempt at a threat. "Why? Did he say something?"

"No, he just thanked me for letting him stay the night on the couch—which I doubted he actually did considering you were here—and then left," Cassandra answered. She was wrong though. Even though we had broken promises to Cassandra before about sleeping arrangements, Ryder really did sleep on the couch. Even though my girlfriend side wanted to just pull him into bed and sleep with a hold on him so he wouldn't slip through my fingers like he was trying to do with his emotions, he denied me. He was that angry that he slept hanging off of the couch too short for him in the upstairs den instead of in my room at all. "But I guess that makes sense. The funeral's tomorrow and Zander's back."

"Who's Zander?" Andrew asked.

"Ryder's brother," I simply said while Cassandra and I shared a look that knew those two words were the furthest explanation for the man.

"Is he someone I should worry about?" Andrew questioned and I wondered where he got that from. But he looked at Cassandra. "You said there were twenty years of an alpha title other than an Everton's. Marc's dead and Ryder hasn't been Alpha long, so was it this Zander guy?" Neither of us said anything because it was implied. "Well I won't really worry about him then."

"You should," I found myself saying for some reason. He winced.

"If Ryder's Alpha, that means he took it from his brother," he reminded, making me remember the story Ryder told me about his brother and how he challenged him and still lost. "I'm not scared of Ryder, so I'm sure as hell not going to be scared of Zander."