Chapter 15 - God, this is so weird...

Lucy's POV

On Thursday morning I'm being woken up by none other than Amy Harbour quite literally jumping on my legs. My eyes immediately snap open as I look down at her with a slight frown, and then I look over at the open door and see Jess stood leaning against the doorframe.

"What?" I sigh, moving my arm to rest over my eyes.

"You're not going in today, are you?" Amy asks with a slight pout.

"Not today," I admit. In the end, I didn't manage to actually get off to sleep until just gone three last night, so I still have around about five hours of sleep to catch up on, and I'm not a morning person as it is.

"You're so lucky," Jess sighs, and I snort and move my arm to look at her.

"No I'm not. I had to spend about three hours alone with Justin last night. Oh, and get this, I have to take him with me to see Beck later," I inform them, watching as both their eyes widen.

They were both already asleep when I got home last night, so I obviously haven't been able to tell them about last night yet.

"What?!" they both practically shriek in synchronisation, causing me to wince and cover my eyes with my arm again.

"Jesus Christ guys, I think you've just deafened all cats within a ten mile radius," I groan, kicking my feet at Amy to get her to remove her bodyweight from off my legs. It doesn't work, and she just continues to sit on me with her fat lump of an ass. Okay, so she's not fat, in fact, she the complete opposite, but it's eight in the goddamn morning!

"When were you going to tell us this?" Jess asks.

"Whenever you woke up," I sigh. "No, actually, whenever we all woke up, and I'm not awake yet so go away and have fun at school."

"Too late," Amy says evilly, bouncing on my legs a few times to get me to open my eyes again. "You said whenever we woke up, and we're both awake, so spill."

"No, go away. I'll tell you later," I promise.

"Can't," Jess says, coming over and sitting next to me with her back leaning against the headboard of my bed. "We've got to leave for school in half an hour and, by the sounds of it, you've got plans later."

I groan and roll over, facing away from the both of them. God, these two can be so annoying sometimes.

"Lucy..." Amy starts to whine, effectively getting me to give in.

"Okay, okay, shut up!" I sigh, sitting up next to Jess whilst Amy watches from the end of my bed. "Basically, we had to run patrols last night - don't even bother asking why, I have absolutely no idea - and I got paired up with Justin," I explain with a shrug. "And David doesn't want me going off into the woods alone so he asked Justin to come with me to see Beck."

"Why Justin? I mean, someone else could go, right?" Jess asks, sounding just as confused as I feel.

"I have no idea," I reply, running a hand through my messy hair.

"And why pair Justin with you and not Dean?" she then asks.

"My thoughts exactly," I admit, the fact that Justin wasn't put on patrol with his future Beta still seems completely illogical to me.

"Guys!" Amy practically cries, and I roll my eyes. She's so bloody hyper in the mornings it's unreal. "That is so not what we need to be worrying about right now!"

"Then what is?" Jess asks with a raised eyebrow.

"The fact that Lucy and Justin were alone together last night!" Amy exclaims, and I immediately groan and lie back down, pulling the covers over my head. "What happened?" I then hear her ask.

"We played twenty-one questions," I mutter inaudibly, not really wanting them to hear.

"What?" Amy asks, whilst Jess rips the covers back from hiding my face.

"We played twenty-one questions," I repeat with I sigh, mentally preparing myself for what's about to happen.

"What?!" they both shriek again. Unfortunately, Jess is much closer this time, and thus nearly deafens me.

"Jeez, Jess, seriously?" I whine, flinching away from her and covering my ears.

"Sorry," she says, giving me a sheepish smile.

"What happened?" Amy asks.

I shrug. "Not a lot..." I answer, not really wanting to go into detail about the fact that he still seems to remember things about our childhood friendship, and definitely not wanting to get into the fact that we both ended up sharing what each other's scents were like (Way to go me!).

"Seriously, what sort of questions were they?" Amy asks, shoving my legs playfully. Yeah, there's no way I'm going to get away with avoiding this.

"Ugh, I don't know," I reply, thinking back to last night. "Just small things." I shrug, technically not completely lying.

"Such as...?" Amy prompts, and I can see that I'm not going to get any help from Jess, who looks equally as curious as her sister.

I sigh. "Such as favourite colours and favourite fruits... stuff like that," I mutter, unable to stop my cheeks from warming a little at that last one.

"You're blushing!" Amy accuses, pointing a finger at my treacherous cheeks before moving it to point back and forth between me and her sister. "Isn't she blushing?" she asks Jess.

I groan yet again and pull the covers back over my face just as I hear Jess say, "Well, you kind of are blushing," which only causes me to blush harder. It is way too early for this!

"I am not. Please just leave me alone," I mumble.

"You so are!" Amy exclaims as Jess, once again, removes me from the cover of my duvet.

"Ugh, you are both more annoying that Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dee," I mutter, covering my face with my hands.

"Okay, we'll drop it and leave you alone on one condition," Jess says at the same time as Amy argues, "no we won't!"

Removing my hands from my face so I can look at Jess, I'm immediately wary of the mischievous glint in her eye.

"What...?" I ask slowly.

"Let us pick out your outfit for when you go to see Beck later," she says.

Oh, fucking fantastic.

"Fine, whatever," I sigh, shaking my head slightly at the way Amy's face lights up like a child's on Christmas morning.

They both shoot up and head over to my wardrobe.

"You know, I'm really starting to hate the way that you guys seem to think of my life as some form of personal entertainment," I call out to them, rolling on my side to watch what they choose.

"Oh, stop whining," Jess calls back with a laugh.

Eventually, they settle on some black denim shorts and a white tank top.

"What about a checked shirt?" I ask, frowning.

"It's boiling outside, you don't need one," Jess replies, and Amy adds on, "Yeah and, besides, you're going to be in wolf form, right? So, the less to carry the better."

Okay, so as logical as that actually sounds, I can't help but glare at them both. "I'm not wearing that," I tell them.

"Yes you are," Jess replies, throwing the clothes straight at my head.

"And we'll probably be home before you so we can check to see if you haven't," Amy threatens, causing another sigh to escape my lips. Goddammit.

"Now, we've got to get to school, but we'll see you later," Jess says with a wink before they both head out of the room.

"I hate you both!" I yell after them, grabbing the clothes and throwing both the shorts and top at the already closing door, watching as they go splat and fall limply on the floor.

All that I can hear as I roll back over and close my eyes is the cackling laughter of my two supposed best friends as they head downstairs.

***

I finally drag myself out of bed at half two. Richard and Louisa are both in work today, meaning I officially have the house to myself to get ready.

My first order of business is finding something to eat, feeling starved after not having eaten all day. With a bowl of cornflakes in hand, I head over to the living room and eat whilst watching a rerun of 'Scrubs'. It's one from the old series, but I don't mind. In my opinion, J.D. is a freaking legend.

When it hits three o'clock, I decide that I should probably actually start getting ready, turning off the TV and leaving my bowl in the kitchen before traipsing back upstairs. I am really not looking forward to today at all. I can already tell that it's going to be an absolute nightmare.

After a quick shower, I wrap myself up in a fluffy blue towel and head back into my room, stepping over the evil shorts and top that still occupy my bedroom floor and heading over to my mirror, running a brush through my hair. Once I'm satisfied that I've gotten all the knots out, I decide to let it just dry naturally and quickly change into some plain black underwear and a black bra. Then, I sigh and give one last longing look towards my wardrobe before picking up the clothes from the floor and changing into them. And all I can say is this, if I felt practically naked in the last outfit that Ames and Jess picked out for me, then I feel as though I've been skinned alive wearing these. Okay, so maybe that's a slight overstatement, but you get what I mean. The shorts live up to their name and my arms feel way too bare without one of my trusty checked shirts.

Yep, today is going to be a complete nightmare.

I quickly put on a little bit of foundation and mascara before deciding that I'm done... and Amy and Jess had better be happy.

I mutter something unintelligible to myself before flopping back onto my bed and picking up my phone. It's ten to four, and so I decide that I might as well just text Justin now.

Scrolling through my contacts list (which, I admit, isn't very big) I find his name and quickly tap on 'send a message' before typing:

'Hey, it's Lucy, I'm ready to set off when you are.'

I quickly hit 'send' and decide not to think too much about how this little trip might go. A few seconds later, I get a reply.

'Just on way home now. Meet you there?'

I answer with a fast 'Okay' before I hop off the bed and pull my shoes on, heading out of the house.

The sooner we get this out of the way, the better.

***

When I reach the Alpha house I walk up the steps to the door and knock, my nerves skyrocketing as I think about what I'm about to do.

I'm currently stood in front of Justin's house in some shorts and a tank top, waiting for him to answer the door so we can go strolling through the woods together to go and meet up with Beck... now, who ever saw that coming?

A few seconds of complete silence pass before the door is opening to reveal Justin on the other side, and he seems to do a slight double-take when he sees me, which definitely does not help with my self-confidence. At all.

I cross my arms over my chest self-consciously as his eyes briefly travel down to my legs. Clearing my throat to regain his attention, I wait for his eyes to meet mine again before I talk. "You ready to go?" I ask, trying not to show how awkward I feel about this.

I am going to kill my friend's... that's a complete guarantee.

"Um... yeah," he replies, stepping out of the house and closing the door behind himself. He doesn't lock it, though, so I'm guessing his parents are home. Well, one of them, at least.

Without another word, we set off towards the forest.

"So, um, there's been more news on the rogues," Justin says suddenly, and I look over at him in surprise. The look on his face automatically tells me that it's nowhere near good news, though.

"Really?" I ask. "What?"

"Two rogues nearly breached the Eastern border around noon today," he informs, causing dread to immediately flood through me.

"How close did they get?" I ask quietly.

"Too close," he admits, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning slightly to look at me. "Sam and John followed their scent and met dad and Wayne halfway, the four of them managed to chase them off and no one got hurt."

"They got right up to the border?" I ask in horror.

"Yeah," he sighs. "Anyway, dad told me when I got home, and he says he doesn't want us splitting up at all, and to stay in each other's sights at all times." I nod at that, not feeling the need to argue. For some reason, these rogues seem to be targeting our Pack directly, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't scare me. "Oh, and we need to be as quick as we can."

It takes us another five minutes to finally hit the cover of the trees and, when we do, I immediately see the first problem with not being able to split up.

"Shit," Justin mutters, seemingly seeing the exact same problem as me. He turns to look at me and I immediately feel the blush crawling up into my cheeks. "You know... we could just stay in this form if you want?" he eventually offers, but I shake my head.

"No, that'll take us hours to get there. Just... turn around," I say, making shooing motions at him with my hands and not even caring if he finds it disrespectful. There's no way he's seeing me change.

He doesn't make any comment, though, and simply turns around to give me a bit more privacy.

Right, shit. Okay...

Feeling possibly more awkward than I ever have in my entire life, I quickly peel my clothes off and phase as fast as I can. I give a little yip when I'm done, letting him know it's safe to turn around, before closing my eyes and turning away from him.

God, this is so weird...

I hear the sound of rustling fabric and squeeze my eyes even tighter closed.

Yep, this is so damn weird!

A few seconds later though, I feel something nudge into my side and I quickly look over to see Justin's wolf giving me the okay to turn around. I do just that, picking up my clothes in my mouth as he does the same with his and, just like that, we're off.

At first, we're just trotting normally, taking in the sounds and scents of the forest around us. After a little while, though, Justin decides to speed up a bit, looking over at me with amusement sparkling brightly in his sapphire blue eyes. I give out a disgruntled snort-type nose and speed up as well, easily overtaking him. He speeds up again, as do I and, eventually, I'm pretty sure we're just full-blown racing.

Justin's muscle obviously works to his advantage, allowing him to have much stronger and powerful strides than I do but, in the end, my speed and agility allows me to keep up with him easily, and so we reach the finish line at exactly the same time, the both of us panting our asses off around our (now probably slightly damp) clothes. The finish line, of course, is the place that I always phase back at when I come to visit Beck, and so we're back to the same dilemma as before.

Justin's the first to turn around again, and I take this as the opportune moment to quickly phase back and shove my clothes on.

"Okay," I tell him, turning around as I do so to make sure I don't get a view of anything I don't want to see. Two minutes pass before he's telling me I can turn back around and, when I do, I see his lips pulled up into a grin.

"What?" I ask, still definitely not used to this new side of Justin.

"Admit it, that was fun," he replies, still grinning.

Okay, so if I said it wasn't then I'd definitely be lying, but I'm not going to tell him that, so I just shrug and start walking towards Beck's cave. It doesn't take long to reach it and, when we do, my nerves shoot back up. What's going to happen?

"Beck!" I call out, but I don't get a response. "Wait here," I tell Justin, before walking into the cave and doing a quick once over. There's absolutely no sign of Beck. Sighing, I walk back outside and say, "I guess he's still in town, or something."

This obviously isn't the first time that Beck's not been here when I've called round (I know that he does have a life without me, after all), but I also know that this could add a lot of extra time to our visit, and David said to be quick.

"What now?" Justin asks, watching me as I head over to the stream.

"We wait," I say simply with a shrug, plonking my butt down by the side of the stream. I hear a sigh from behind me before he joins me over by the water, sitting down next to me.

"Any idea how long he'll be?" he asks, looking over at me, and I shrug again.

"Depends on where he's gone. If he's in town then it could be anywhere up to an hour or two, but if he's gone for a run then it could be longer."

He nods at that, scowling slightly, and I don't really feel like trying to continue on the conversation so we just sit in silence for a few minutes.
After a while, though, boredom starts to set in and so I lean forward and run my fingers through the freezing cold water to try and distract myself.
That's when Justin decides to break the silence.

"So, how did you guys meet?" he asks, and I look over at him in confusion. Why does he even care?

"He saved my life," I admit after a few minutes.

"How?" he asks, and I inwardly sigh.

"Like you care," is all I reply, rolling my eyes before looking down at the stream. A few pebbles sit at the bottom, and so I reach in and grab one, studying it for a few seconds before dropping it back in the water with a splash.

"Can I ask another question?" he asks after another few minutes of silence.

"You're going to whatever my answer is so you might as well," I mutter, wishing he'd just drop the subject of Beck entirely. I mean, letting him in on my life with Beck kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a getaway life, doesn't it?

"You said he owed you a favour, why exactly was that?"

Now that question isn't exactly what I was expecting, and I look up at him in mild surprise, but I decide that I might as well answer it.

"There was this human girl trying to make a move on him at The Swing-in," I explain. "She was clingy as fuck and had absolutely no knowledge on werewolves whatsoever. Beck decided that he didn't want to go there but, like I said, she was clingy as fuck and so I had to step up and pretend to be his girlfriend until she backed off." I shrug and look at the water again, trying not to laugh.

It was a pretty hilarious night. The girl, Mindy I think her name was, literally threw her drink in Beck's face and told him to never go near her again. Not that Beck had had any arguments with that, he'd been trying to get rid of her for the past hour. We decided to head back to his pretty soon after that; it was definitely not one of our best nights.

I look back over to Justin and find that he's frowning, seemingly deep in thought as he also watches the water running past. Before either of us can say anything else though, I hear the sound of footsteps from behind and turn my head towards the sound.

"What's up, Shorty?" Beck asks, and I quickly stand up and turn to face him, relieved that he didn't take too long to show up.

He's wearing a pair of faded blue jeans today, along with his usual combat boots and a grey T-shirt. His hair's its usual scruffy mess, and I can't help but take note of the look that he sends Justin's way. It's definitely not friendly, let me tell you. Here we go...

"The sky," I reply, regaining his attention.

He snorts and rolls his eyes, walking over to me. "That's so old and you know it."

"It's so awesome and you know it," I fire back with a grin.

"Whatever," he laughs, shaking his head a little. "What are you doing here?" he then asks.

"I've got a... request, from David," I reply, choosing my words carefully. I know that Beck absolutely despises being told what to do (he always claims that no one will ever be able to order him around, I think it's one of the reasons why he's so against getting a job) and so I make sure that I don't make it sound like too much of a demand.

"What is it?" he asks slowly, glancing back at Justin briefly before returning his eyes to me.

"He's asked if you can ask around a bit about this Kailen guy, he wants to know what else you can find," I explain, which causes Beck to smirk.

"Already done it," he replies, before disappearing into the cave.

Ugh, trust Beck to just walk off after saying something like that... Moron.

I look over at Justin to see that his annoyed frown has now been replaced with a look that's as curious as mine, and I sigh and roll my eyes at Beck's lack of explanation.

"Come on," I say, following Beck inside.

As soon as we get inside, I see Beck sat on the floor with the map that he always keeps hidden under the mattress open in front of him, which immediately spikes my curiosity higher.

"Come and sit down," Beck mutters, his attention focussed wholly on the map.

I immediately go and sit down on the other side of the map, opposite Beck, and cross my legs like a pretzel whilst Justin goes and takes a seat on the sofa, his eyes also glued to the map.

"What are you doing?" I ask, hope starting to build up in my chest. Maybe he's actually managed to find something else that's useful...

"Kelly came back a day early," he says, not looking up from where he's studying the map. "I caught up with her earlier and eventually managed to get her to shed a little light."

I roll my eyes at that, not really wanting to know just how he managed to do that.

"What did she tell you?" I ask.

"A rumour of where we can find them," he says, finally looking up at me.

"Seriously?" I ask, my eyebrows rising in surprise.

After all that time we wasted trying to track them down... and Beck manages to find them within less than three days?

Glancing over at Justin, I don't miss the slightly impressed look he's giving Beck, although I'm positive he'd never admit it.

"Yep," Beck replies, pointing down to an area on the map.

It's a small section of the forest that I recognise on the map immediately... and a feeling of dread slowly starts to creep in.

"The forbidden land?" I ask, looking up from the map with a grimace.

"Yep," Beck says again.

"Wait, the what?" Justin asks, speaking up for the first time.

"The forbidden land," I repeat, looking over at him. "It's the only place in this forest that I'd never dare set foot. It's completely riddled with bear traps and Hunters." I turn back to Beck. "They can't be living there."

He shrugs. "Apparently they are," he says. "And, I don't know..." he studies the map again. "If they manage to avoid the hunters then it'd be a pretty good place to hide out. I mean, they're not picky about food, so they'd just hunt forest animals and such, there's plenty of water supply and probably numerous places for shelter... it's actually quite ingenious."

I look at him briefly before looking back at the map, another realisation causing the dread in me to rise even higher.

"They're not far from here, Beck," I say uneasily, tracing my finger from the forbidden land to Beck's cave. And I'm right, there's probably only a mere ten mile distance from there to here, whilst there's at least a twenty-five mile distance from our Pack borders to there... and they're still managing to get to us.

When Beck doesn't reply straight away I look up at him, and automatically frown in confusion... because he most definitely is not concentrating on the map. Following his gaze down to my bare legs, my cheeks immediately flare up again. What the fuck...?

"Beck," I say again, only slightly louder this time, and it effectively snaps him out of wherever the hell he just went for a few seconds there.

"What?" he asks, meeting my eyes, but it doesn't take a genius to notice his cheeks slightly tinged pink.

Hold up, is... is Beck blushing?

I glance over at Justin to see him shooting daggers at Beck, which only adds to my confusion.

What the hell just happened...?

Feeling more than slightly uncomfortable with the growing tension between the three of us, I decide to try and get back on track. I mean, it's probably not even a big deal. I don't wear shorts, ever, and so it's perfectly reasonable that Beck was just staring at my legs. It doesn't mean that he likes me (as Amy and Jess seem to think that he does), it just means he's surprised to see me wearing something different.

"You'll be careful, right?" I ask, tapping back on the map a few times.

He looks down at where I'm tapping, smack bang in the middle of his place and the forbidden land, and looks back up with his usual smirk. "Of course," he replies, acting as though the past few seconds didn't even happen. "You know me, my middle name is careful."

I roll my eyes at him. "Really? I was thinking it was something more like reckless," I say.

"Okay, maybe you're right," he admits with a laugh. "But I'll be fine, don't worry about me."

"Okay..." I say, not completely convinced but trusting him enough to not go and do anything stupid. "Well, I guess we'd better be getting home," I say, looking over at Justin.

"Yeah," he says, standing up quickly, apparently ecstatic to be leaving.

I glance back at Beck. "Try and see if you can find any more useful info?" I ask, and he nods. I smile and lean over to give him a quick hug, whispering, "Thanks for your help," in his ear before pulling away again and standing up.

"Visit again soon?" he asks, standing up as well and moving to sit on the sofa.

Before I can reply, though, Justin butts in.

"She's not going anywhere in these woods on her own," he says, his voice more than slightly defensive, and I inwardly cringe.

Crap, we were doing so well...

So far they've only been giving each other quick (fairly indiscreet) glares, but I have a feeling that that's about to change...

"You can't fucking tell her what to do," Beck shoots back, sending another glare Justin's way.

"The hell I can't," Justin snaps which (technically) is true considering he's my future Alpha and all...

"We should really-" I start, but am cut off by Beck before I can say the words 'get back'.

"You're on my turf dickhead, you can't pull that Alpha shit on me," he replies.

"She could get hurt, or worse!" Justin practically yells, and my eyes snap over to him in surprise. "There are fucking rogues on the loose!"

"Oh, what," Beck snaps, his voice rising to meet Justin's. "So now you actually give a crap about her? You talk about her getting hurt when you're the dick that rejected her?"

"Guys!" I yell, but they don't listen. Jesus Christ...

"You completely turned your back on her! What gives you the right to dictate her life?" Beck continues and, okay, he definitely has a point there... "You've been nothing but a complete ass to her!"

"You think I don't fucking know that?" Justin replies and, this time, he is yelling. "I fucking know that!"

Silence, that's all that follows. Both guys are glaring at each other still whilst I stare at Justin in complete shock.

The guy turned his back on me when I was grieving the death of my parents, when I needed him most, and then he went and rejected me as his predestined mate after years of being a complete dick, and now.... What? He's admitting that he was... wrong? Or am I just reading too much into it...?

Before I can contemplate it any further, however, my phone is going off in my pocket, alerting me that I have an incoming call and successfully distracting all of us.

"Hello?" I ask, not bothering to check the caller ID, just grateful for the interruption.

"Lucy..." a girl replies in a shaky half-whisper. I immediately place the voice, as well as realise that something is most definitely not right.

"Ames? What's wrong?" I ask quickly, allowing the worry to seep into my voice and completely ignoring the two guys in front of me. When she doesn't reply straight away, I begin to panic. "Amy?" I ask again.

"I - I don't know... something's happened," she replies, sounding on the verge of tears, and causing my panic to grow.

"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice rising slightly. "Amy, what's going on?"

"I - I don't know," she says again, and this time she definitely is crying. "I just went out on a run-...-heard screaming-...-she said-...-rumours-...-"

"Ames? Amy you're breaking up, I can't..." I reply desperately.

"What's going on?" Justin asks but I wave him off.

"Amy?" I ask again, slowly starting to fit a few things together.

She's gone for a run... and heard screaming... and the only rumour that I can think of that she might be talking about is... Oh, god. Oh, god, no!

"We need to get back to the others," I say to Justin, who looks just as panicked as I feel. "Beck, I need you to stay here and see what else you can find on these rogues," I add on quickly, already making my way to the entrance of the cave with my phone still at my ear. I can occasionally hear my friends breathing before the signal cuts off again.

Neither of the guys argue, they just follow me outside. Then, I hear a noise coming from the other end of the phone and, I can't be sure but it sounds just like... no.

"AMY GET OUT OF THERE! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!" I yell down the phone, making both Justin and Beck jump slightly.

The phone cuts off again, crackling slightly, before I hear the sound of Amy's terrified scream.

Then, the call ends, and all I'm left with is the monotone note of the dial tone.

(Hey guys!!! So... what do you think? I actually really enjoyed writing this chapter :D

Okay, so i know this is another early update, but i've come to realise that i am an extremely impatient person, meaning as soon as i've written a chapter i'm literally counting down the seconds until i can post it. So, i've decided that i'm not going to stick to Monday+Friday update days anymore, i'm just going to tell you guys when the next update will hopefully be in these A/N's.

Right, so, with that announcement now out of the way... i hope you like this chapter, and don't forget to Vote/Comment, i love hearing what you all think :) i know that i said that chapter 16 might be a Justin POV but i've changed my mind a bit, so the next Justin chapter might not be until 17/18, but i hope you don't mind.

Next update should hopefully be soon (depending on how long i take to write it). i'm starting writing it today so it might even be up for tomorrow... if not then i'll try and aim for Friday still :D And... yeah, that's pretty much all i really have to say right now except thank you for reading/Voting/Commenting :D byee!)