Gang's All Here

‘November 17th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Eve

I woke up to the sound of pounding.

Not pounding on my own door, no. Pounding on the bathroom door in the hallway.

“REYNA, HURRY UP!” Anya screamed, and I could feel her voice clawing its way through my skull.

“I’M ALMOST DONE!” Reyna hollered back from inside the bathroom.

I tried to sandwich my face between my pillows to drown out their noise, but it was no use. Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl trying to get ready for their first day of school.

By the time they were stuffing toast into their mouths and putting their shoes on, ready to head to the school, I was zipping my leather jacket up by the front door.

“What are you doing?” Anya demanded when she saw me.

“Oh no. You’re not serious.” Reyna muttered, realizing what my intention was.

“I’m coming with you. But don’t worry, it’s just a one-time thing.” I pulled the door open and walked into the brisk October air, ignoring the girls behind me.

“She’s going to ~embarrass us!~”

“Anya, you’re being dramatic.”

“Oh, so you want her to come?!”

“I obviously don’t want her to come.”

“It’s not like you’re gonna have any friends to impress anyway.”

“You literally don’t know anyone at this school either, Anya!”

“GIRLS! Enough.” I scolded from the driveway. There was only so much I could take before nine a.m. “Get in the Jeep.”

I yanked the driver’s seat door open and climbed in, watching through the rearview as the girls approached the car and climbed in too.

I started the car and put my foot on the gas. The car lurched forward a foot.

The girls screamed.

“Do you even know how to drive?” Reyna demanded.

I put the car into reverse, barely reacting, and hit the gas again. This time we exited the driveway seamlessly.

The truth was I hadn’t driven since the eighties. I hated being in any sort of vehicle, especially when I could get most places faster by myself.

But the shrieking teenagers in the backseat didn’t need to know that.

“I’ve been driving longer than you’ve been alive,” I told Reyna.

She snorted. “Yeah, okay. You’re what, twenty?”

I looked at her in the rearview, and then I took my own face in.

She was right. I looked like a twenty-year-old.

My long dark hair, my porcelain complexion, my violet eyes. I had a face that was hard to forget; I’d heard that most of my life.

In fact, looking back at Reyna, it dawned on me how similar we looked.

She was still staring at me through the mirror, her eyes narrowed. She looked suspicious. “I’m not twenty,” I stated, eyes back on the road.

“Are you twenty-one? Can you buy us wine?” Anya chimed in.

“I’m 515,” I replied, my eyes moving to the rearview again to see the shock on their faces.

They were stunned silent.

~Good~. Now I’d get a quiet drive to school.

***

I was doing a lap of the empty school hallways, ducking into classrooms and peering into administrator offices when I felt like it.

Every Woodsmoke High student and teacher was in the auditorium for the monthly all-school assembly, so I had free rein of the grounds.

All I had to do was get a feel for the school and understand its layout and the points for quick entry, in case the girls were ever in danger and I had to come back.

I wasn’t some overprotective mother. It’s not like I was going to be coming to school with them every day or watching their every move.

I had no interest in keeping them on a leash.

My only interest was in keeping them alive. And if that meant walking through some sweat-scented gymnasium, then fine. I’d take one for the Morgan team.

Anya

shes here

Anya

look at the back she just walked in

Reyna

Stop texting me

Anya

shes watching us reyna!!

Anya

our every move

Anya

dont u hate it

Reyna

I hate you texting me

Anya

we wont be able 2 LIVE REYNA

Reyna

I was annoyed.

Beyond annoyed.

It wasn’t enough that I’d been taken out of the last shitty high school I went to. No, now I had to start fresh at a new one. An equally shitty one.

And here I wouldn’t just be the weird emo girl. Here I’d be the new girl ~and~ the weird emo girl.

I didn’t care about being popular or anything. That wasn’t what I’m saying.

I just wanted to graduate, turn eighteen, and forget about everything.

Leave Lumen, leave my strict dad, my obnoxious sister.

I wanted something cooler. Something different.

An adventure.

But now that Eve was here, watching our every move, it was like I was even more stifled than before.

I didn’t know who she thought she was. I didn’t know who she actually was. It kind of just hit me that we didn’t know anything about her.

I turned my head to the back of the auditorium, and it took me a few seconds, but I found her.

She was sitting in a chair in the second to last row, her leather jacket half hiding her face. She blended in well. I had to give her that.

It struck me for a moment that everything about her was a lie. As in, she looked angelic, but I knew she wasn’t.

She looked young and innocent, like some pretty little girl who’d just happened upon us. But that wasn’t the truth.

I could see beyond her beauty, just like I could see beyond the beauty of every popular girl I’d ever had a class with. Every single one of Anya’s dumb friends.

They might look good on the outside, but the icing was always much prettier than the cake.

Eve’s eyes locked on mine, and I immediately turned back to face the front.

The principal was rambling on about bullying or something, but I was beyond uninterested. That was until I saw him waving to someone backstage, in the wings.

A guy walked out on stage, and I recognized him. He was at the dinner we’d had to go to, the one at the Pack House.

I guess he was hot, if you were into the whole tanned-skin bad-boy thing.

He wore sunglasses, even though we were very clearly inside, and ripped jeans.

He took the microphone from the principal and waved at everyone. “Hey. I’m Zachary, the Beta of the Millennium Wolves.”

The second he finished that sentence, the whole auditorium went crazy. Every guy was cheering, and every girl was squealing.

The Millennium Wolves were like the hottest boy band ever to teenage werewolves. Seriously, they were like celebrities.

I guess being human, being around them never really did much for me. Or maybe that was just because, since my mom had died, I hadn’t felt much at all.

“Quiet down.” Zachary smiled from the stage. “Hello, students of Woodsmoke High!” More cheers. More applause.

I rolled my eyes.

“As some of you might’ve noticed, there’s been a few more Millennium Wolves in Lumen than usual this past week. In fact, all seven of us are here.”

There was so much squealing I thought I was going to go deaf.

I saw a gaggle of little blonde girls near the front of the stage, and there was Anya, among them. ~Of course~. She was waving her hands over her head like an idiot.

“I’m going to tell you why that is… but first, I’d like to welcome a very special man up here.” As if on cue, the doors behind me, the main doors, swung open.

The Alpha of the Millennium was standing there. I had to admit he was the best looking one. By far.

He was tall and strong and made it seem like he didn’t care about anything. Everything he did was so—effortless.

Actually, his Delta was just as hot, in my opinion. Jed was his name. Jed the Delta. I’d spoken to him a little at the Pack House dinner… more than I’d spoken to any other man before, at least.

“Sorry I’m late,” the Alpha of the Millennium bellowed from the middle of the auditorium.

He was as loud as Zavier, even though he didn’t have a microphone.

I saw him shoot a glance at Eve before walking to the stage.

~What is going on between them?~

They obviously had some sort of history. And then at the dinner, he’d just whisked her out of the dining room and she’d disappeared, not even coming back to eat.

It was all strange. Beyond strange.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Raphael. My Beta and I are here to make an important announcement. And you, Woodsmoke High, are gonna be the first to hear it!”

More thunderous applause.

~God, we get it.~

“All of us MW’s are in town because… the West Coast Pack has decided that this year… drumroll please… there will be an EQUINOX ASSEMBLY!”

Everyone around me went wild, even more wild than before.

I was going to need an Advil, and stat.

“This Friday night, at the Pack House, tell your family, tell your friends…”

I tuned out. There was only so much enthusiasm I could take from my peers.

Besides, the Equinox Assembly would mean dressing up.

It would mean a stuffy night of talking to people I didn’t like, eating food too fancy for me, and watching Anya dance with boys.

We’d be the only humans there, like always. That was what assemblies and balls were always like.

I turned my head, trying to find Eve. But the chair she’d been in before was empty.

I scanned the room, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.