Slaves of the Night

Chapter 3: No Kidding

  It was raining like cats and dogs—except that that couldn’t really be accurate, no, more like horses and carriages. Water poured from every surface it could get its greedy hands on, soaking everything to the core and leaving a sopping mess of lawn grass and only to be pelted further by sheets of it.

  And I had plenty of time to observe the way it fell; the density of it, whatever term I could think of to define it because practically all I was doing was leaning against the wall in the corner watching it, wishing I knew more words to say about it to keep my mind occupied. I was sitting on top of my desk, like everyone else in the class participating in the game of Mum ball, or in other words, silent dodge ball. What a very productive thing to give seniors to do on the third to last day of their high school careers. It’s not like there was much else left anyway; exams were over and teachers and students alike were eager to taste summer again. It was hot and muggy outside just like every other summer had been already, but it wouldn’t really sink in until school let out that we would finally be free.

  Being in the corner, I was overlooked by most of the class as multitudes of them slowly trickled out of the game as they were tagged out by the ball tossed precariously across the room. It always went down like this, and I would end up being one of the final contestants if not the winner.

  But now as I was gazing out of the window; the easiest target in the whole room to get out, a crash sounded from the other side as a kid lunged off his desk to snatch the ball out of the air. His feeble attempt to catch it failed and he collided with the floor, causing the whole room to burst out of the silence into laughter. It snapped me out of my reverie and I took notice of who was left in the game.

  Well Quinn had already gotten out awhile ago, quietly looking over some papers on her desk not even bothering to look up when the commotion started. She would be one of the few people I would be worried about having good aim at pegging me on the head with the ball of bunched together duct tape. Unfortunately, Tristan, the other person I was worried about was still sitting on top of his own desk with a devilish glint in his eye as he was continually ignored too. He was looking straight at me, causing my cheeks to involuntarily heat up under his gaze, no matter the reason behind it. A story was playing out with the attitude he was radiating, he was planning on getting me out and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Screw the rain, I straightened up from my slouch and gave him a clear message through my now narrowed eyes. Challenge accepted, it was so on. That message must’ve hit some other people too as collateral, and the ball was immediately thrown in my direction now that my cover the corner was blown. Quickly I snatched it out of the air from the clumsy toss, and didn’t waste time before firing it directly in Tristan’s direction. Just as easily he snatched it before it collided with his face and was ready to throw back.

  Let’s just say it didn’t end well. And one of ended up falling off of our desk like the kid earlier, except with more flailing and noise. And that person wasn’t him.

  “I said I was sorry…” Tristan said from right behind me as we escaped from the classroom, his voice was anything but sincere as he couldn’t smother the laughter that hadn’t stopped since I had leaped for the ball and straight into a stack of graded papers yet to be handed out, sending them everywhere.

  “Yeah, whatever, I’m not that angry about it anyway.” I lied with a growl, making my way to the lunch room. My conniving boyfriend of mine was just determined to milk every ounce of humor from this as he could.

  “Sure, I know you are angry.” He dismissed me, but forced himself to stop laughing before stepping in front of me and stopping me near one of the banks of lockers, “But I really am sorry,”

  I stared at his chest instead of his eyes, because looking into his eyes is what got us into this mess. “I’m fine, no harm no foul.”

  He sighed, “I have to leave school for the rest of the day, probably won’t be here to pick you up afterwards…”

  This time I did look up, “Who will then?”

  He smiled from getting my eye contact, “That is a surprise that you will just have to wait to find out,” He moved closer to place a quick kiss on my forehead, “Now please try to stay out of trouble for this one afternoon, no more falling off desks?” I growled in response. “I’ll see you later today,”

  And with that he was gone, walking down the hall and out the door without even notifying any of the teachers that he was doing so. It’d be so much more badass if he didn’t know a good amount of the teachers in charge around here personally and could talk his way out of trouble. Sighing, I walked to the cafeteria alone, quickly rekindling with my small group of friends that had gotten recently smaller. “Where’s Rebecca?” I asked Kyle who was picking through his mountain of French fries on his tray. It was all he ate at this school, so I knew he would be missing them when graduation came.

  “Over there,” he said quietly, not looking up but gesturing across the room. I turned around to see her looking equally miserable sitting at another table with a group full of cheerleaders.

  “Break up again?” I guessed, looking back at him. He just sighed in response and glanced up at her for a moment before going back to before. This had to be the third—maybe fourth time that they had broken it off. It must’ve been another fight that someone was looking at another person; their relationship was strange and extremely possessive. But they would always be miserable whenever it came to terms and they would swore themselves off from each other; I had been Kyle’s friend for a long time, even best friend for a short period, so I knew that they were good for each other no matter how it looked. It made me glad that we had broken up two years ago, as wonderful as it had been to finally be in a relationship with him after all the crushing I had on him for so long, it was all wrong for the both of us. I guess it always took experience to learn, because after all if we didn’t make mistakes we wouldn’t be where we were now.

  I didn’t need to voice it to him that they should go make up, he knew that, and I could guarantee that by graduation they would be back in each other’s good graces. So I looked over to Quinn who had been uncharacteristically silent since I’d sat down, to see her head in a text book. “Exams are over, you’re in the clear,” I laughed.

  She looked up; setting down the pencil she had been taking notes with, “It’s not for exams.”

  “Well what is it for…”  I tried to ask, but before I could even finish a crash came from a table close behind us. Next thing we all knew plates were flying everywhere as a full-fledged food fight broke out before our eyes. Now I had known that senior pranks had always been crazy, but I’d never really been in the midst of it and it was clear the popular people of our grade were determined to make it even more dramatic than last year’s graduates. They didn’t fail to do so either, because by the time the food fight ended the whole lunch room looked like the kitchen and thrown up over the whole place and laughter, screeching, and a few stray cries were the only sounds anyone could here.

  The rest of the day flew buy in a blur, maybe it was because I was having fun as I finally got into the last prank of the day, something to do with the principal’s car. Not that I had that big of a roll in it at all, but it made me stop thinking about how Tristan wasn’t there or the surprise he had in plan.

  I was laughing along with some people I hardly knew as we walked towards the front doors out into the parking lot. They said their goodbyes and headed quickly to their cars to avoid getting too wet from the rain. It wasn’t raining nearly as hard as it had been earlier, but still enough to make cats avoid the outdoors. Glancing around the parking lot from the safety of the doors I didn’t see any cars that I recognized, or anything out of place that I would’ve considered a surprise.

  Maybe the surprise was that I wasn’t going to be picked up. I bet Tristan would be laughing so hard over that one, probably worth rolling on the floor over. Someone slammed their locker shut and I glanced back to see a freshman walk angrily the other was down the hallway. Looking back at the window I finally saw something. There was a tall blonde guy leaning against a black sleek car out in the rain, his arms were crossed over his chest and he was smiling in my direction.

  Grinning from ear to ear and without a second thought I ran out the doors, splashing through the puddles so excited I could burst. “Rayne!” I yelled, jumping into a hug from him. He was laughing despite the rain, his chest rumbling with it.

  “A little more ecstatic of a reaction that I predicted… but I’ll take it,” he chuckled, squeezing me tighter in his hug. I hadn’t seen him in three weeks ever since he had taken another group of the pack to go search for any Redwood stragglers. The whole pack had been put on high risk watch, and he had to head out the search, leaving Tristan in charge the whole time he was gone. Now he might not have been the brother I was in love with, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference with how glad I was to see him safe, unharmed and back home. “It’s so wet out here,” he finally said after an appropriate amount of time, “Can we please just get into the car?”

  “Yeah, yeah, absolutely,” I recoiled back, still grinning madly. He opened the car door for me and I quickly got in so he could do so too, which he did and was smiling too while doing it. Beads of rain dripped from his soaking hair, still a brilliant blonde that was out of place among his family, but made him unique. “How was the search?” I asked eagerly.

  “Wow, you waste no time to get to the serious stuff do you?” he smiled, turning the car on. “I guess it went alright, in the sense that we all stayed safe on the most part, we got in touch with a few smaller packs and they haven’t seen anything since January. But we found nothing either, Ian’s disappeared into the wind, maybe it’s the best.”

  “Yeah…” I said, relaxing into the seat, I hadn’t told Rayne about the continuing letters either, I wanted too last month but he had left before I got the courage to do it. Now in my slight bliss, I might as well turn it into concentrated will power before I lost it, “But I don’t think so. He’s out there and he wants me more than anything.”

  He raised an eyebrow to me, “Maybe he’s let it go by now? I mean his pack was damaged in the attack too, it’s quite possible he’s realized defeat…”

  I cut him off, “No. I know….” I looked awkwardly at my hands, “I still get letters from him saying so and much more; he is just waiting to strike,”

  He looked at me stonily, but probably already suspected I would keep something about Ian to myself, I just wasn’t the type of person to let everything out into the open, there was too much risk in that. I hadn’t even told Tristan… “Don’t tell Tristan, I don’t want him out there,” I said urgently, looking desperately at his older brother, who was already nodding in agreement.

  “I know, he’s not very patient… I don’t like lying to him, but it’s for the best, at least right now.” He sighed, putting the car in drive and pulling out of the parking lot.

  There was silence between the two of us as we drove down the road, the car hummed calmingly. I liked this car much better than the old pick up Rayne had used to drive, the one that had rattled every step of the way anywhere and had no back seat so me, him and Tristan had all had to cram into the front one. This one was their father’s that he had never used, but when the pickup had finally died out, Rayne was forced to take this one out of storage. Tristan wouldn’t even go near the car, not saying anything besides that he could drive himself in his own car. I knew it was because he missed his father so much, just like I missed my mom.

  I almost glanced at Rayne to see if he was mad at me or just indifferent, but got caught on the jewelry box hidden underneath a piece of paper in the cup holder. Picking it up, I instantly knew what it was, “You didn’t even tell me you had a girlfriend and now you’re getting married!” I cried, holding the engagement box in outrage. Rayne glanced over shocked and visibly embarrassed. Yeah, I was happy for him, he deserved a good girl by his side, but the least he could do was tell someone that he was seeing someone!

  “Actually…” he started and reached for the box to take away from me, but I held it out of his reach and popped open the lid to reveal a small silver ring with a row of tiny blue diamond’s encrusted around the band. “You’re not supposed to be seeing this,” he stressed, reaching for it again as I drew in a breath over its beauty. He managed to snatch it this time and tuck it in the pocket of his shirt before regaining control over the car.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked sadly, letting my hands fall back to my lap.

  He groaned, “You really weren’t supposed to see that…”

  “Well you weren’t all that good at hiding it, now were you?” I snapped.

  “Okay! I’m not seeing anyone, stop acting like I’ve let you down… the ring was supposed to be for you.” He gave up, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

  I paused before retaliating, much more confused now than before, “You were going to give me an engagement ring?”

  He smacked the heel of his palm to his forehead in frustration, “For someone so smart, you can be really dumb sometimes, Samantha. No. The ring is for you, from Tristan. You are engaged to him, are you not?”

  Engaged? Wait—when he had asked me the other night, he had meant it? I thought it was just him trying to get me to stop worrying and give me a little solace in my situation. But he had really asked me to marry me….? “Oh god…” I murmured.

  “You said yes, didn’t you?” Rayne asked now slightly worried, as we turned down the street towards the pack.

  “Yeah… I think? I mean I didn’t know it was an actual proposal, I just thought he was trying to get me off his back about him maybe leaving me…” I moaned, leaning back into the seat with my eyes shut tightly. This changed so much; he wasn’t just my boyfriend or even mate. No this was engaged, meaning that we would get married, therefore husband and wife. That seemed so much more concrete than right now was.

  “… You do want to marry him though?” he asked, rephrasing his question.

  The mere thought of marrying Tristan sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach pleasantly despite how nervous my mind was. “Yes,” I said mutely, blinking away realization.

  “Then you never saw this ring. Tristan will give it to you when he’s ready…” Rayne said with a smile, patting his chest pocket, “But I did tell him that I was bad at hiding things, so it’d be stupid to ask me to pick it up.” He muttered.

  I laughed nervously, looking at the obvious bulge of the box in his shirt. “Will Tristan be at the house when we get there?”

  “Yeah, he just wanted me to pick you up because he knew you’d be happy to see me again,” Rayne said, finally back to normal from all the confusion that had been packed into the last few minutes. And just in time to pull in right beside the Everdeen’s house, where I’m sure Mrs. Everdeen was cooking and Tristan was somewhere in his office working like always. Taking a deep breath I put on a calm face and allowed myself to be walked into the house, where I was greeted by exactly what I expected.

  Rayne’s and Tristan’s mom showered Rayne with kisses so glad he was alright, I guess a mother would never get over the fear of losing her son, not even when he’d been his position as Alpha for so long. Ushering him into the kitchen to overload him on a whole buffet of home cooked food, I was left in the hallway staring down towards the office door. Running a hand through my hair uneasily, I muttered under my breath how Rayne really needed to learn how to keep secrets better or he might be the bane of my existence.

  The next thing I knew I was opening the door to the office and quietly slipping inside, shutting the door quietly behind me. Tristan was reclined back in his chair, eyes closed and feet propped up on the desk as he slept. Without his constant fierce expression I could easily make out the dark lines underneath his eyes from lack of sleep; telling him more about Ian would do no good for his wellbeing. Just like Mrs. Everdeen was always worried about Rayne, I was worried about Tristan, he pushed himself too hard with everything and it was slowly wearing him down. I had a flash of want in my heart to have known him before his father had died, he had been a different person back then apparently. I would like so much to just see him not worried and happy, I wanted that for all of us were trapped in this situation with Redwood and Mooncreak.

  Sitting down on the couch, I decided to forgo my plans on talking to him about things and just let him sleep. Picking up a random book off a desk I attempted reading it, but the sound of his even breathing was so soothing that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, because I was just as tired and worn out as he was.

  In what seemed not a second later, someone was laying a blanket over me, and I woke up at the extra layer on myself. My opening eyes met Tristan’s in the dark as he paused realizing I hadn’t stayed asleep while he tried to make me more comfortable. “Sorry,” he murmured.

  With a yawn, I tried sitting up, but he just rested a hand on my shoulder to keep me in place, “No, just go back to sleep, it’s late already…”

  Shaking my head slowly I protested, “I… I need to talk to you first.”

  “I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow…” he said in the dark, his silver eyes glowing to me. The drapes must have been drawn over the window because there wasn’t even the dim light of the moon shining in to help me out with my sight.

  “You were serious?” I asked quickly.

  He stayed silent for a moment, before sitting down on the couch near my feet, “Serious about what?”

  “Marrying me…” I murmured.

  He shifted, kind of surprised, “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, confused.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed, taking the opportunity to sit up finally without him pushing me back down again. The blanket fell down onto our laps from my shoulders and I yawned again into the darkness, the only sound was the old clock ticking on one of the shelves. “Maybe you were just saying it to make me shut up, I tend to talk too much sometimes you know.”

  All he did was scoff, and cross his arms over his chest. His eyes weren’t even glowing in my direction, “Samantha, you should know me well enough by now that I don’t kid about the serious things.”

  For some reason my full name irritated me enough for me to mutter randomly, “Why is everyone calling me Samantha lately…?”

  He heard and laughed at my frustration, no matter what I could bet that if he was the cause of it, my irritation would always bring him some sort of joy. And I guess it brought me a little bit of happiness to make him happy; that was irritating in its own right.

  “Fine, Sam, you want something concrete to show you I’m totally serious, here it is,” he shifted on the couch and reached for his back pocket pulling out something small and black that I vaguely recognized as the jewelry box from the car. Then gallantly dropped from the couch onto one knee in front of me, and as clear as I could make it out to be, an overly dramatic show of romance flicked open the lid to reveal the ring. “Will you marry me?”

  His face was so out of character that I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud, “Oh god, you look like some actor from a cheesy chick flick”

  He winked up at me, “You know it,”

  “But this isn’t really helping me take you seriously…” I pointed out, smothering a smirk at his antics.

  “Fine,” he sobered up and looked up at me; no sarcastic glint, no mischief lurking in the depths of his eyes. Only the pure passion that I saw him put it anything that he would fight to keep his, “Sam, will you marry me?”

  My breath hitched, and I closed my eyes briefly, before looking back at him, “There’s never a doubt it my mind that I wouldn’t want to marry you, so yes.”

  I watched silently as he carefully unclasped the tiny silver ring from its case and grasp my hand gently before slipping it on my ring finger. His eyes were smiling and so was his lips, “I knew you’d say yes, I’m too irresistible to say no to,” he teased, before slipping his hand behind my neck to kiss me deeply.

  After breaking apart I rolled my eyes, “Why do I even put up with you?”

  “Same reason why I put up with you; because one crazy girl decided to meddle with fate and go into the woods in the middle of a fight. The rest of the story I think we already know, don’t we?”

  I smiled, “Maybe, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it again,”

  For the last two days before graduation I found myself happier than I had been in a long time and people noticed it too. I was cleaning out my locker after school had ended for the last time, it was the last day of school and everyone had bolted out the door the moment the last bell had sounded. But Quinn and I had forgotten that we had actually had valuable possessions in our lockers, so we were stuck with emptying out everything we still wanted out of them. Most of what was in mine was old papers that were meaningless now that exams were over: study guides, old tests and notes.

  More than a few times I had caught Quinn staring at me instead of cleaning out her locker, so I finally said something, “What? Is there something wrong?”

  She shook her head, “No… it’s just you seem really happy, that’s all.”

  To tell the truth I wanted to spill all about Tristan and me and share the excitement over the being able to use the word ‘engaged’ to define our relationship. But as always my mouth was sealed because of everything and all I could come up with was a measly lie about how it was because school was finally out.

  “Yeah, I’m excited about that too,” she grinned, throwing a whole stack of notebooks straight into the trash bin. I sighed internally, wishing she could see through my lies a little more often so that she’d guess something close in relativity, anything, just enough so that the answer to roll effortlessly off my tongue and I couldn’t be held responsible and I’d finally have someone to talk to about everything.

  But there was another reason to my happiness besides Tristan that I realized once I found no more red envelopes. Ian wouldn’t have a way to deliver letters to me anymore, not without someone else being able to infiltrate it when it was happening and lead to him being caught. That was a reason to jump up and down in glee in itself.

  The locker portion was down to nothing, the shelf bare and only a few pencils scattered around the bottom, so I started to peel off the photographs from the door. The first one was of me and Quinn the year before right after Christmas in the Bahamas for the yearly winter vacation. We had gotten her parents to give us spending cash and instead of going shopping like we usually did due to Quinn’s wishes she suggested that we go diving instead and we were both on the dock near the boat in our gear. She looked confident and boldly smiling at the camera while I was staring down at the water uneasily, but my arm was still wrapped around her waist as we were about to set off. It hadn’t been that bad in the end, the part that I had been worried about was the sharks and we hadn’t even seen one. I could still remember all the teasing lines she had used on me afterwards even switching up a Finding Nemo quote on me “People are friends, not food”.

  Below that picture was one of the rare shots I had managed to get of Tristan when he wasn’t looking. It had been clumsy because he was walking in front of me down the hall and people were bustling everywhere, but I had called out his name and he had turned around at just the right moment that the shutter of the film camera went off, capturing his face in the light perfectly. It had been the only good picture out of the whole roll of film that I had gotten, but had managed to get me a good grade in the class.

  I stared between the two of them, guilt sinking into the pit of my stomach as I realized meeting Tristan had made me have to choose between the two of them. I had already known this of course, but looking at the pictures settled it more. It didn’t seem fair, like I didn’t deserve to be as happy as I was so life decided to throw my guilt filled heart into the equation and leave me feeling like a hundred more pounds had been laid down onto my shoulders.

  I looked over at Quinn, who threw another pile out of her way as she dug herself out of the tomb of old papers her locker had been made into. I was thinking too much into things wasn’t I? I deserved to be happy just like anyone else and if Tristan was what made me happy, then so be it. I should’ve felt better after I told myself that, instead I just felt worse.