Chapter 24

The moment the lunch bell went, so did every shifter kid in class. It was like they couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

Sheesh! Sure, Sophia thought Health and Wellness Studies were boring too, but no one saw her trying to wedge herself between ten other kids irrationally trying to peel through the exit all at the same time.

Even though Mrs. Carrick had seemed very distracted today, same as all the other teachers had been for the whole of that morning, for that matter, the class hadn’t been that bad. Despite Ailis not being her usual excitable self either, Sophia had been quite intrigued by her explanation of why the brain could be seen as a muscle.

She’d never thought of it like that, but it made complete sense that the brain needed to be kept fit with regular ‘exercise’, just like any other muscle in the body. And like any muscle, for it to acquire any sort of fitness, or simply to remain in shape, constant exercise was required.

Sophia had also found it interesting that there were so many different activities one could do to optimize the brain’s fitness. From something as simple as reading a book, playing Sudoku or Scrabble, to learning new skills such as learning to play a new musical instrument.

Especially when Ailis had said that by doing this, one’s fit brain would function better and quicker, which also led to becoming more resourceful, confident and could have a tremendous effect on one’s mood and state of mind. The moment she explained how a ‘fit’ brain was associated with happiness, whereas a neglected brain tended to make one feel lethargic and depressed, she had Sophia’s full attention.

“It just makes you feel like you have a bit more of a purpose in life, and for many, that is all that’s needed to feel happier and like life is worth living to the fullest,” Mrs. Carrick had said.

She then warned them that there were obviously a lot more other factors and variables involved in the matter, and that exercising one’s brain regularly was just one of them. But the point remained; happiness wasn’t necessarily something determined by what a person owned, or their circumstances, but that it was something more likely to be the result of keeping the brain healthy and functioning positively.

Hell, Sophia was already thinking about what book she was going to grab from the bookcase next to the fireplace in the living room when she got home!

And as for learning a new skill, she doubted her father would allow her to take up any music lessons, much less buy her an instrument to practice with, so she thought of sticking to what she already had that she could use for that purpose. Sketching came to mind, which was something she’d always thought was a skill she would like to be able to do.

Maybe she could use her pencils and pens from school and start practicing how to sketch on the back pages of her school books? They rarely used those anyway, so she might as well do something creative with them.

With her mind made up on what she could do to make her life feel less bleak and cheerless, she was about to pass Ailis but was stopped in her tracks.

“Are you alright Mrs. Carrick?” Sophia thought that the teacher looked like she was going to be sick. “Can I get you something, or help you to the restroom?”

At her concern, the teacher almost looked disgusted with her, but it was accompanied by a look she could only describe as hopelessness.

“Just go away from here, Sophia, and never come back!” was all she said to a confused and dismayed Sophia, who didn’t know what to think or do about the teacher’s sudden emotional outburst, before she had run out of the class just as quickly as the other students had just a moment ago.

What the hell is going on with everyone today?

Even the somber atmosphere everywhere was disconcerting, and Sophia had no idea what could have been causing the sudden change in everyone’s behaviors. But there was no denying to herself anymore that something odd was definitely going on, and no matter how much she wanted to, it wasn’t like she could simply walk up to someone and ask.

On the bright side though, Matthew hadn’t even bothered to show up for Health and Wellness class today, which was another reason why the class had gone better than most had in the past.

Maybe he’d decided to skip school for the rest of the day, she reasoned-slash-hoped. It wouldn’t have been the first time. And those days where he had done that before, had always brought something of a small comfort to the rest of her school day.

Or he had probably just decided to take an early lunch break, Sophia surmised half-heartedly, not particularly caring what he did, as long it had nothing to do with her.

As she exited the class and entered the hallway, everyone seemed to be in a rush. It was like they couldn’t get to the cafeteria quick enough.

Were they serving something special today? She hadn’t gotten any notifications or heard any announcements concerning the matter, so that was all Sophia could come up with that made any sense to her as she watched their seeming urgency.

But it appeared to her as though they weren’t as much trying to get to the cafeteria as much as they seemed to want to get completely away from her, she realized.

The shifter kids at school had gone from quiet, almost sympathetic, avoidance all morning, to full-on running away from her all of a sudden?

She was definitely missing something…

Not that Sophia was complaining about being left alone, but she couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was really going on either. If she’d seen only excitement on their departing faces, then the feeling would have been different, but she’d seen worry and fear there too. Only very little, but it had been enough to markedly spike her own blood pressure and heartbeat in concern.

Despite Matthew’s glare in class earlier that morning – and not trying to think about how it had been filled with so much promise of all the unpleasant things he must have been imagining he wanted to do to her at that moment – which was quite vile by the way he looked, and the other students seeming to avoid so much as looking at her, the morning had gone well so far.

For all intents and purposes, Sophia hadn’t gotten picked on, laughed at, thrown with something, tripped, or been called any names, which all should have been classified as good in her book. Shouldn’t it?

However, the relief she was supposed to feel didn’t come. In fact, it was somewhere stuck in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

Whether it was after all due to everyone acting unusually weird today, or the certainty that she’d never been this lucky, especially not for this long, she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling trailing her like a dark shadow in her wake as she walked down the quiet hallway. It was like a stalking predator, ready to pounce on her at any moment.

When she turned the corner, and was about to enter the cafeteria, Sophia had her suspicions confirmed again. Something was definitely off. There were a lot fewer students there than usual at lunch. And it was quiet…

It was so unearthly quiet that if a needle was to drop at the end of the hallway, she would hear it as clear as though the sound of it had come from right next to her. And it had nothing to do with her heightened senses since her first shift.

Glancing around her, searching for a certain security guard as she could at least have asked him to clear up this mystery for her, Sophia couldn’t spot him. For some reason, everything sounded even quieter and felt a hell of a lot emptier without him there too. In fact, there was not one security guard to be seen around there.

Just add that to the already overflowing mental list of ‘unusual strangeness’...

Usually, the security would be vigilant around the cafeteria around lunchtime, specifically to break up any fights that might break out, which it constantly did.

Maybe they had been sent to wherever the rest of the student body had gone? Well, that was other than the few groups sitting bunched up together there, eating their lunch in either silence or whispering to one another. They eyed her every now and again, seeming to wait for something.

It could have been that they were simply waiting for her to move and stop staring at them like a damn idiot, but even as she walked in and grabbed a tray, she could feel their gazes lingering.

She swore, if they kept this up for much longer her restraint was going to snap! Sophia wanted nothing else than to demand what the hell had been going on with them. All. Freaking. Day!

What did they know that she didn’t?

Maybe they had something going on at the football field? Something to prepare for the up-and-coming match this week? It would have explained why only the ‘not so popular’ kids were the only ones there for lunch, as they were usually the ones that didn’t care much for sports.

It would also have explained why Matthew had been absent in class just now, as he was back on the team again. Sophia had heard it in passing a group of students bundled together that morning, that there had been some kind of mistake made in Matthew Ballen’s previous math test, that he had retaken it, and that he had been reinstated as Tibald High’s star quarterback again.

She knew very well what ‘mistake’ they were referring to, but she just hoped that she hadn’t been found out. She hoped that they hadn’t gone searching deeper into the cause of him suddenly failing, whereas she had suddenly done a heck of a lot better.

Dread filled her. What the hell was I thinking?

But if she recalled correctly, Sophia hadn’t necessarily thought of the long-term consequences. All she had thought about at the time was getting some semblance of revenge and seeing shame and horror for once on his satanic face. Anything past that hadn’t been of any concern to her then, but she must have known that it would come around to bite her in the ass eventually.

Did the truth somehow come out? Was that why people were acting so strange around her? Not only was she a disgusting murderer and pariah to them, but a cheater and liar now as well?

Sophia finally sat down at one of the benches with her lunch, which was a chicken burger with snotty-looking lettuce and not much better-looking sliced tomatoes. That effectively erased the theory she’d had earlier that there might have been something special served at the cafeteria today, if the lack of shifter students around her there hadn’t been enough of an indication already.

Eating her lunch, Sophia tried to ignore her mind which was grasping at straws the whole time, trying to come up with viable explanations for what was going on. She even pretended that she didn’t notice the kitchen staff and other kids’ eyes on her there.

But mostly, Sophia attempted to not let their less than accusatory gazes unsettle her even more.

“Do you think she knows?” a girl on the other side of the cafeteria’s voice sounded.

She had whispered very softly, and if her senses hadn’t been heightened yet, Sophia might not have heard anything, but it took every last drop of willpower within her to not let her head snap in the girl’s direction. Whoever she was, she knew more than she did about what was going on.

Instead, she kept playing the absentminded pariah eating her lunch in silence. If she could keep listening in without them noticing that she had been able to all along, Sophia might just finally figure out what the ‘non-commotion’ had been all about.

“Doesn’t look like it…” Sophia heard another girl answer, who she assumed was girl number one’s friend. “If she did, she wouldn’t be hanging around here with that oblivious look on her face, now would she?”

Okay, that had just sapped out the last bit of strength she had to not show any reaction.

“I don’t know, she looks pretty petrified to me. She’s just good at hiding it, I think.”

“Poor girl. They’re going way too far with this whole thing. People are fucking cruel.”

“But you saw what the Alpha commented on Ballen’s post after some people told him exactly that? No one is to object or interfere, otherwise there would be unpleasant repercussions…”

Yup, that sounded like her father alright, but what bothered her the most was not that Matthew had posted something he planned to do to her on the social media platform, Wolf-A-Gram, as he’d done that many times before, but the fact that her father had to jump in and tell others not to interfere with whatever he was planning, was what scared her the most.

Was he still planning to sell her to his team after the game this weekend?

The one girl clicked her tongue before she whispered to her friend again. “That he allows something like that to be done to his own daughter, despite what she’s been accused of, is beyond me. She’s still his daughter.”

“I agree. The beatings and bullying had been one thing, but this? It’s fucking barbaric– Shit, I think she heard me.”

It was impossible to keep her face neutral anymore. In fact, she’d jumped up from the cafeteria bench, her chest heaving from being unable to breathe anymore, Sophia realized.

Her heart felt like it was being gripped by the most powerful and merciless talons of a ravenous vulture, squeezing tighter and tighter with each attempt she wanted to let air into her lungs.

In urgent desperation, Sophia abandoned her books and her half-eaten lunch right there to go to the restroom. Maybe some cold water on her face would make it better, or at least get her to think past the terror that had just paralyzed her motor functions, as she found her legs had turned to jelly and barely able to keep her up, much less transport her to anywhere.

Maybe jumping on that train was her only solution. Maybe she should just have taken the leap and worried about what followed later when she was far, far away from her father and Matthew. Any other life would have been better than this one, Sophia thought as she reached the hallway again, but held onto the row of lockers for support as she willed herself forward.

Feeling herself getting weaker and weaker, as oxygen was still an ever-elusive commodity to her at that moment, Sophia found the strength somehow to glance over her shoulder in a final hope that she would see Neil somewhere there. He was the only person she knew that could help her now, but he still was nowhere to be seen.

Her steps getting more sluggish and uncoordinated, she was worried that she was going to pass out right there, almost welcomed it, especially when she suddenly had all her strength back and ready to run in the opposite direction the moment she saw the opposite of Neil standing in front of her.

Suddenly, with her panic attack all but forgotten, her body was now very much alive with the instant shot of adrenaline those malicious ice-blue eyes gave her. It powerfully zinged through her legs and her entire body then, but still she couldn’t move.

Suddenly, she much preferred those talons, her heaving chest and weak legs above what she saw and felt now.

The hateful male had just come through the football team’s locker room door she hadn’t even realized she was just about to pass.

“Here you are! I’ve just been about to go look for you, but this is more convenient,” Matthew said, his tone spontaneous and friendly, but Sophia could see it didn’t reach those hellish eyes of his. “I know what you did, Sophia.”

He didn’t have to say anything more. She knew what he meant, and it confirmed her fears from earlier, but it was too late to make it to that train now if she ever really had intended to.

“You’re a very bad girl, you know that?”

Why wasn’t she running? Why was she just standing there frozen in place?

“Switching my test with yours like that? I must say, I’m very impressed that you had the balls to even do it,” he said, sounding amused but vindictive as hell. “But since you embarrassed me and put me through the trouble of having to prove myself again, you will need to be punished…”

As he said the word ‘punished’, the most rancorous and hostile smile Sophia had ever seen him make before settled there on his face as his eyes scanned her body.

Still, she couldn’t make herself run or do anything other than just helplessly stare at him. What could she accomplish by either running or fighting him in any case? Matthew was much faster and stronger than her. But Sophia still felt like she needed to do something. Something was better than nothing – but before she could even start to see any opening, it was too late already.

“And your first payment for your crimes is due right now.”