Kari's POV:

2 months later:

"Get your backpack and pencils Evie. I don't want you to be late for the bus!" I shout through our little apartment. I hear giggling from my little sister as she suddenly appears in the doorway of her room and smiles at me.

"You sound just like mom, Kari! Don't worry, I'm a big girl now too. I can take care of myself, just like you!" She states proudly. I stand up straight then raise an eyebrow at her.

"Oh yeah? So you think you can take care of yourself huh?" I say teasingly to her. She nods her head and begins walking toward the front door. I smile wickedly.

"You might want to change out of your pajamas..." She freezes in her tracks, looks down at her clothes, and hurries back into her room without looking in my direction. She walks back out of her room wearing a pair of jean Capri and a blue and purple flowery t-shirt. She looks at me then sticks out her tongue and walks through the door. This is why I love kids, they are so cute and unpredictable!

I grab the dishes from this mornings breakfast and try to tidy the apartment up as best I can. I take my time and decide to clean up Evie's room as well. I check my watch when I'm done. Shit! It's eight am! I knew I was going to be late today, but I didn't think I would be this late! I run into my room and grab my school uniform. Luckily, in my last school I got all A's so the private school here accepted me with a full scholarship. If only they knew how much it helps that I don't have to pay for my schooling. Our uniforms are cute; in a religious girl kind of way. It's not really my style, but everyone has to wear them.

It's finally my first day going to school. Ever since we arrived in this new town, all I was worried about was getting a place to stay, getting a job, and getting Evelyn back into school. I figured I could just get into a high school as soon as I had the rest settled. Since I have a job as a waitress at a small diner in town and we have this apartment; I feel that it is time for me to head back to school.

I sigh as I look into the mirror. If only I had time to do my hair and makeup. I would look so much better. My violet eyes look pale and my mane of brown hair looks dull. I decide to just throw it up in a messy bun and move on with my life. There are plenty of things more important than looks. Right?

I grab my backpack and slip it over one of my shoulders as I head out into the busy streets of down town New Haven. I walk toward the bus stop and wait for the bus to arrive. While I wait, I lean against the huge sign with the picture of the bus at the top. It only takes about three minutes before I see the bus's silhouette back behind a couple of cars. I smile to myself; glad that it didn't take long for the bus to arrive. I stand straight up and lean off of the post when the bus stops in front of me. Right as I place one foot onto the stairs to get on, a voice comes from in front of me.

"Where is it you would like to go little lady?"

I look up to see an old man who is driving the bus stare at me expectantly. So I open my mouth and answer the question, "Grendiles Academy please."

He smiles and nods his head at me. I place my quarter in the machine and he shuts the doors. Slowly I walk to the back of the bus and realize something weird, there's no one on the bus. That can't be right? This town has so many people. I shrug it off anyway.. I proceed to walk to the back of the bus, and sit near the emergency exit; just in case something goes wrong.

The bus ride goes smoothly. I had nothing to worry about. I have no idea why I freaked out about the bus driver! He is a really sweet man. He drops me off at the front entrance of the school and I stare at it amazed, this place is beautiful. The grass looks full and perfect, the school building itself is huge and made of old fashioned brick. Even though it looks old it also looks modern at the same time.

Right in front of the school is the America flag, and on a pole next to it another flag is raised slightly below the American flag. Looking at it closely I notice a mark on the flag and it looks like it must be the school's symbol. The middle of the symbol is a crescent shape with long pointed oval shapes coming away from four sides of the crescent. In between the four ovals are much smaller ovals.

After I finish admiring the school's scenery, I head into the building and try to find the main office. The whole place is rather extravagant and beautiful. As I walk around I approach a sign that says 'Main Office' that hangs above a door. Obviously that's where I need to be so I open the door and walk in. I see a skinny girl frantically picking up papers and transporting them to a file cabinet. Suddenly she trips. I don't know what she tripped over because there was nothing at her feet, but, I drop my back pack on the floor and run over to help the girl pick up the sheets of paper. She looks at me and smiles in appreciation and I give her a friendly smile back. When we gather all the papers I hand her my stack.

"Thank you so much! I'm interning here with the office secretary for first block, she said she was going to be late today so I'm doing all her work." She lets out a huge sigh.

"That sounds rough," I laugh. "I'm Kari Brewer, I'm new here obviously. It's nice to meet you," I hold my hand out and she shifts her papers to her other arm and roughly grasps my hand.

"I'm Macy Stewart, it's nice to meet you too," She releases my hand and walks over to the file cabinet. "Let me just put these away and I will try to find your class schedule in this huge mess!"

She slides all the papers into one drawer and forcefully slams it shut, then she goes behind the desk and searches for my papers. Looking at her now, she has really short dark brown hair almost in the fashion of a bob but slightly longer, she is petite, and has a very cute quirk about her.

She grabs something from the desk and says, "Ah! Here we are, Kari Brewer!" I watch as she quickly scans over the paper.

"Hey it looks like you have gym third block with me! I guess I will see you then Kari!" She reaches over the desk and hands me my papers. I smile genuinely at her.

"See you then Macy! It was nice meeting you!" I wave to her and walk out the office.

Let's see. My schedule says that I have English first block, Photography second block, Gym third, lunch, and then Bio fourth. Well there is still about ten minutes left in first block so I better head toward English. Following the directions on the schedule, I make it to my first block classroom door. I take in a deep breath. This is the first time I have been to school since we left over two months ago... Here goes nothing. I open up the door and step into the room. All heads look up at me and the teacher stands from her desk.

"Ah, you must be Kari. Late on your first day I see. Not good for first impressions."

She says to me. I just stare at her not knowing what to say. My cheeks flush when suddenly she bursts out laughing along with the rest of the class.

"I'm kidding hunny, take a seat wherever you want." I nod and speed walk to the back of the classroom.

"Okay class, we will be having a test on Monday on the 'Scarlet Letter' so make sure you study over the weekend. It will be easy but you need to at least know what happens in the book."

The whole class groans.

"Oh stop it, this is like the second test you've had all year! I think you can spare a couple hours this weekend to study." She scolds playfully.

I'm glad it's on the Scarlet Letter, we just finished reading that book a week before we left my old town. So at least I know what's going on. The bell rings and I stand and throw my backpack over my shoulder.

"Kari can you please come here for a moment?" I walk over to her desk.

"Yes Mrs. Hinder?" She giggles at me and I look at her confused. Why did she laugh at that?

"Call me Nancy Hun, Mrs. Hinder is just to old for me." I smile at her and nod,

"Okay well you don't have to take the test on Monday, since you weren't here when we were reading the book. So I will give you two weeks to read it and we will schedule another time to take the test, is that alright?" She asks looking at me.

I shrug my shoulders, "I can just take it on Monday, I read the book at my last school so I know the basic storyline of it." She smiles at my response.

"Good, then it works perfectly for everyone! I will see you tomorrow then!" I wave and head out the door and go to my next class; photography.

When I get into the classroom I am immediately greeted by multiple pictures, displayed throughout the room. I look around and see that there are only three kids in the class so far. One girl and two boys. They are so busy on their computers, that they don't even notice me. I walk over to the teachers desk and wait for her to arrive. Ms. Whittington walks in a few moments later and claps her hands together,

"Kari Brewer, am I correct?" She asks me. I smile knowing immediately that she is going to be my favorite teacher.

"That would be me!" I say happily. She walks behind the desk, takes out a camera, and plops it onto the desk. She looks me in the eyes.

"This is your new best friend. Get to know everything about her. How she works, how she functions, how much memory she has, and how well her battery works." I nod my head at her while she speaks. Suddenly a girl with velvet red hair comes skipping into the room and comes to a stop when she sees me.

"Mrs. Whittington! Is this Kari?" She cries excitedly and runs over to me and grabs my hands.

"I was so excited to know we have another student in this class! Trust me your going to love it here! You can come sit at the computer next to mine if you want!" I smile at her, wow everyone here is so nice.

I open my mouth to answer her but Mrs. Whittington cuts me off, "Oh dear, Mimi stop pestering the new girl." She turns her head to me, "Kari this is Mila Stewart, we call her Mimi. Don't let her push you around, she may seem bossy but she only does it to be friendly." I hear Mimi gasp.

"I am not bossy! Kari don't listen to her, now come on let me help you set all your stuff up!" She shouts and prances toward a computer.

"Okay!" I laugh at her and grab my camera off the desk,

"Thank you for letting me borrow the camera Mrs. Whittington!" I smile. She smiles back and gives me one wave. I walk over to where Mimi's cubicle is. She is setting up the computer that is in the cubicle next to hers. I glance into her cubical and notice there are pictures covering all her walls. They are of people and animals in all different scenery.

"Did you take all these pictures Mimi?" I ask in awe.

She looks up from the computer and blushes, "Yeah I took those, I really enjoy taking pictures of people and animals. Life is just so interesting, I like to capture many moments."

"They are really good," I reach for one picture of a bunch of wolves together. One of the wolves is almost the same color that my mom was in wolf form, an auburn reddish color. My eyes begin to water thinking of her sacrifice.

"Are you okay Kari?" Mimi snaps me out of my daze. I quickly blink away the tears and turn to her.

"Yeah I'm fine, sorry about that." I smile. I go to my seat and sit down in front of the computer that is now mine.

"It's all good, you just had me worried for a second! Anyway here's how you use the computer..." She then goes on a huge rant, explaining every small detail on the programs and things that I will need to use to edit photos and such. When she finishes she takes in a huge breath and slowly lets it out as she crashes into her seat next to mine. "Glad that that's over!" She huffs.

"Me too, but thanks for showing me all this, you're helping me in the long run. I know nothing about photography." I say gratefully. She gives me a huge smile.

"No problem Kari! Hey, what class do you have next?" She asks me as she gathers her things. I take out my schedule and see gym for third block.

"I believe I have gym next." I say to her. She squeals really loud. I quickly look up from my paper to see an extremely happy looking Mimi.

"I have gym next too! Yay I get to introduce you to my friends! They are so nice, trust me you will love them!" She shouts. Just then the bell rings, I put my schedule back into my backpack pocket and Mimi ushers me up.

"Come on slowpoke, we need to go get changed for gym!"

We stand and rush to the locker rooms. When we get there, Mimi goes up to a locker and pulls out clothes and hands them to me.

"This is the required uniform for girls, I have an extra pair so you can wear it today! I'm sure they haven't given you one yet. It's supposed to come in the mail."

"Wow, thanks so much Mimi! That's really nice of yo-" I'm cut off by a loud familiar voice.

"Mimi! I see that you met Kari. I knew you guys would end up getting along!" Macy shouts from behind me. I turn around and give her a huge smile.

"Yeah we met in photography, we are now photo-buddies!" Mimi squeals and claps her hands together. I laugh at Mimi's excitement. As we begin to change another girl walks in with straight black hair and joins us in our corner without saying anything. She's wearing glasses and looks nice enough.

"Kari this is Gina. She's the quiet one in the group. Gina be nice to Kari and say hi."

The girl looks to me.

"Hi Kari, I don't mean to come off as rude; I'm just more of an observer than a talker." She explains quietly.

"I don't think your rude, don't worry. Sometimes I do the same thing, just observe and don't talk." I shrug at her. She gives me an approving smile. I manage to get on the short shorts and small cross back shirt, that they have for uniforms. Macy looks up and looks around.

"Wait we're missing Laine. Where is she?"

"She's probably hanging out with the boys. She usually gets here way before the bell rings, because she has internship first and second block and it ends before the begging of third block." Mimi answers without a breath. Hmm, I wonder what she will be like. So far there is Mimi the crazy outgoing one, Macy the normal down to earth girl, and Gina the quiet observant one.

We exit the locker room and head out into the gymnasium. When we get there, there are so many people. About 40 kids just standing around, talking. The girls lead me toward another group of people, mostly made up of boys but there's one girl. She's blonde and has the body of a model. I can already tell that she's popular with the boys. She turns and sees us coming toward her.

"There you guys are! What took you so long?" She asks. Before anyone could answer her she sees me.

"Who are you?"

I'm about to answer when Mimi cuts me off,

"This is Kari Brewer, she's new here." Then she introduces the blonde to me, "Kari this is Laine."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you Laine." I smile at her. She glares for a quick second then puts on a full blown smile.

"Nice to meet you too. Now let me introduce you to the boys. This is Trent," she points to a very well build boy who has dark blond hair and tan skin, he's very attractive.

"Bryce," she points to another boys with almost the same build as Trent, but this one is tanner and has really dark brown hair, almost black. He's also a lot more attractive.

"Jamie," she points to a boy that doesn't have a huge build like the other two, but isn't small either, he has shaggy blond hair.

"Pauly," she points to the smallest of the bunch, but he isn't small he still has muscle. He has black hair.

"And Harry." The last boy has long hair that's red, kinda like carrot top. He's also built like Jamie.

"It's nice to meet you all." I say with a quick wave. Suddenly a loud whistle screeches and I hold my ears. Damn that hurt more than usual. Probably because, I'm starting to connect with my wolf since I'm turning seventeen soon. Female wolves change between the age of 16 and 18. Depending on your status in the pack determines when you change. The higher you are in rank, the earlier you change. Since we weren't that high up, but we weren't that low either, I should be changing soon.

"Class gather up." He herds us in with his hands. We gather around him.

"Today we are going to have an obstacle course game, get in co-ed partners and we will begin." I turn around so that I'm facing my new group of friends, good, there are five boys and five girls; so hopefully I will get a partner. I look up and see Bryce staring at me with confusion in his eyes. I gaze back into his eyes and we stay like that until Trent comes between us and stands in front me.

"Want to be partners?" He asks me. For some reason I want to be Bryce's partner.

I quickly look past Trent, but I see Laine is already in front of Bryce.

"Sure, that would be great!" We walk in front of the teacher and wait for the rest of the partners to show up. Mimi is with Jamie, Macy is with Harry, Gina is with Pauly, and Laine is with Bryce.

Once everyone gathers in their partners the teacher says,

"Okay so what's going to happen is one of your partners is going to run up through the first obstacle course, once they are done, the next partner will run around one lap and crawl under the ropes then run to the finish line. First to cross wins. And no, the only thing the winner gets is glory of beating everyone, there are no special prizes." The whole class groans. I smile, I'm really good at running so I hope Trent lets me do the second part of the course. I turn to him.

"Okay Kari, are you ready?" I smile and nod. "Alright so I was thinking I will do the first part and you will do the second part?"

"Perfect! I used to do track, so I'm pretty good at running," I smile, "lets win this!" He smirks at me then nods. Everyone walks to their designated spots.

The teacher blows his whistle and all the boys begin the first obstacle. Apparently everyone had the same idea as us so all the boys are running the first half and all the girls are doing the second part. Everyone is doing pretty good, but the race is basically between Trent and Bryce. Both are neck and neck and don't want to lose to the other. They finally make it over the wall and are headed toward the girls. Since it's a tag team thing, I get ready to run and hold my hand out. Both boys arrive at the same time and tag both Laine and I. We take off, neck and neck. Laine tries to push ahead of me but I manage to stay with her. We are getting closer to the end of the run and I let out a burst of energy, speeding up way ahead of Laine. I slow a little and duck under the ropes. I'm halfway through when I feel Laine right behind me. I go as fast as I can and run to the finish line. I pass through and not even two seconds later Laine passes.

"Kari's team wins." The teacher yells.

I let out fast breaths, damn that was so exciting! I turn to Laine and catch her glaring at me but I say,

"Good job Laine, that was great, we were neck and neck!" I say. She puts on a fake smile walks away. Hmm, I guess she doesn't like me. Suddenly I hear running come from behind me and someone picks me up and spins me around. I squeal and laugh.

"Great job Kari! I knew you could do it." Trent yells and puts me back onto the ground. I'm slightly dizzy but I smile back at him excitedly.

"I couldn't have done it without you!" I say back to him. Then Bryce comes over and to where Trent and I are standing.

"Good job Kari. You're pretty fast if you were able to beat Laine. She's like the most athletic girl in our school." He says. My heart beats really fast and my heart swells with joy in the fact that he complimented me.

"Thanks Bryce. I used to do track back at my old school." And my family is always running from werewolves. "But Laine is probably better at sports than I am. I hope she's not upset that she lost..." I say trailing off.

"Don't worry about it. She has just never had competition in this school, you're the first person to actually be able to go against her." I smile proudly. Then Mimi and Macy come running through the finish line with heavy breaths.

"Jesus Kari, you didn't tell us you were good at running. No one is able to keep up with Laine, never mind beat her!" Mimi shouts through short, heavy breaths. She walks over to us and leans on me. Macy comes over too, also breathing hard.

"Wow, I'm impressed Kari." I give her a shy smile.

"Oh it was just a short race, it doesn't mean anything." I say. The rest of the boys join us and we continue to talk. A few minutes later Gina comes walking over to us, no sweat on her and she is breathing fine. I look at her questioningly.

"Uh, Gina is there a reason why your not sweating?" I ask surprised. Everyone dies laughing and I look at them confused.

"What?" I ask.

"Gina never tries at these thing!" Mimi says through laughter.

"We have never seen her sweat in her life!" She continues to laugh and eventually I join in because she has the kind of laugh that is contagious. When we finish laughing the teacher calls us and tells us to go inside and change, so that we can go to lunch then fourth block. We get in and change while making small talk. I'm glad I decided to come back to school.