SYDNEY

"So what were you doing hanging out with Mr. Lacrosse and his buddies?" Meg inquired while looping her arm through Sydney's. Her, Meg, Mat, and Emmery were walking through the crowded hallways aimlessly, similar to what Jay and her had comfortably been doing beforehand.

"I came in early for the newspaper and yearbook, and he happened to be here too, and we just ran into each other in the halls, and he remembers us from class yesterday, and wanted to know about the coverage of the lacrosse team." Sydney internally cringed at that word vomit and just hoped they would be fine with the reasoning of it.

She glanced over to Mat to see what his reaction to her fib was, but his hands were buried in his pockets and he was looking off to the side.

Meg's laughter brought Sydney back to their conversation, "If you say so, can't have little Syd spilling out secrets. Especially since the school wants to do an investigation into the whole fucking thing. Mean honestly, if that happened to any other group other than the sports people, no one would give a damn." Meg was scowling now.

"Is that what provoked the change in hair?" Sydney gestured to Meg's newly bleached hair.

This caused her to scoff, "No", she dragged out, "just wanted a change, and had to bleach it first before bringing in the new color."

Sydney and Emmery shared a smile. Despite what their friend said, they knew Meg didn't want to get caught in fear of her parents' rath, and if it would at all jeopardize her chance at moving to New York to go to college to study theater.

"What changes did you make to the newspaper?" Emmery perked up looking at Sydney.

With that Sydney eased into the truthful conversation of the edits she did last night, and tried to block out everything that had happened in between then and now. The three girls chatted, with Mat following behind until the warning bell finally sounded and they went their own ways.

Mat, Emmery, and Sydney all had journalism together and once in the classroom, Emmery dropped off her items in a set beside Mat, then quickly excused herself to run to the restroom before the final bell rung.

Mat had an earbud in one of his ears and with his arms crossed as watched out the window. Anxiety welled up in Sydney. They had never really gotten a chance to talk last night after he caught her from running away. Jay had ushered her upstairs, and guilt ate at Sydney realizing she never texted him despite what she threatened Jay with, and she wasn't sure what the real bad blood was between the two of them.

"Er Mat?" Sydney crocked out.

He glanced at her waiting for her to continue, but he didn't prompt her with anything.

"About last night..." She wasn't sure where to go with that. So much had happened, and while she felt guilty, she also was annoyed by this silence, especially since he had secrets too.

He pulled his earbud from his ear and his brown eyes pierced her, "What Sydney? What about last night?"

She felt defensive, "I don't understand why you're giving me the silent treatment, I'm sorry I left with Jay last night, but in my defense it was one hell of a night, learning your best friend is a werewolf, and being attacked by one!" She was trying to keep her voice low in the class, but all too soon the raw emotions were building back up.

All she could think about were the scars on her throat, and then blood coating the floor.

Mat frowned and pulled her chair closer to him, letting his arm rest around the back of her chair, "Syd," he sighed, "I'm not mad at you, I'm sorry about everything that happened last night. I'm not sure how the hell you're his mate, but he should be able to protect you better. I should've been able to protect you better."

Despite the comfortable realization he wasn't upset with her, something almost like an itch tickled her to get away from his close proximity and to evaluate the meaning of his words. She shoed away those soft whispers and nodded.

"We're not like dating or anything. We both talked and agreed just because Nature wants us together doesn't mean it can't be on our own terms."

Mat scoffed and pulled his arm away, "He's such a jackass."

Sydney frowned and crossed her arms, "I honestly didn't realize there was that much bad blood between you two. I never even knew that you two talked."

He started logging into his computer and pulling up the DropBox to work on some shared files. "Just leave it alone Syd. You just found out about everything last night, but pack politics are a whole other level."

Frustrated by his lackluster response, "I'd like to think my best friend would think highly enough of me to follow along, but would also be kind enough to help me through it, but apparently I thought wrong." Sydney collected her things, and started towards the editors' smaller space in the back.

"Sydney!" Mat sighed, but Sydney was already walking away.

"Mat? What are you two-" Sydney didn't hear the rest of Emmery's worried question before sitting in her seat in the divided class, and turned on her own music.

☽✣☾

The end of the day came along quickly, but looking back Sydney felt tired and realized how much work she had gotten done ignoring Mat, and when she was with Meg, Emmery and other friends, just by listening to their conversation and not really chiming in since she was stuck in her own head.

She stood outside of the front doors of the building. When she had seen her friends off, she told them she had to speak to a teacher and was lingering after school again, they nodded but expressed their concern with how much she had been at school this week, and Meg begged her to make time to come over and hang out with them at some point. Mat had lingered behind the two girls silently. Sydney told them everything was fine, just trying to get some senior year stuff in order and would make plans with them as soon as she could.

With her friends taken care of, she had also messaged Rachael that she wasn't going to be home till later, but promised to be there for dinner.

Sighing, Sydney leaned against the wall of the school and felt exhaustion sweep over her. While she wanted to say screw Mat, ignore Jay and his weird two sided self, and pretend the whole werewolf community didn't even exist, a fear pulsed in her blood and even the mere thought of crossing the parking lot alone, towards her car, repeating any symbolism of what had caused her so much pain yesterday had her feet planted on the sidewalk, refusing to walk alone to her car.

Concern started to rise in her when the crowd of students leaving the school had begun to fade, and Sydney briefly wondered if Jay had already forgotten her.

"Aye," a male voice called out.

Turning her attention she did see Jay or Mat, but another tall, well built guy.

"You're-"

"Terrence, Jay's friend and beta."

Sydney eyed the dark blonde, "And what are you doing here, Jay's fri-," he wasn't looking at her but scrolling on his phone, then he was holding the phone in her face.

Escort Sydney to her journalism room, or keep her company while I finish up.

The contact was listed as Jay, with a goofy picture of him captured at the top.

"So, where are we off to?" Terrence stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Don't you guys have practice?"

"Nope, Jay is talking to the coach about something."

"And you just don't have anything better to be doing then babysitting me?"

Sydney watched Terrence roll his eyes at her. "Jay asked me to do this as a favor, now quit trying to annoy me and tell me what we're doing in the meantime while we wait for him?"

With all her quietness today, she had actually gotten a lot of work done, and felt no need to beat a dead horse with the journalism stuff. She told him so, "I don't really have anything I need to do, I actually got a lot done today."

Terrence seemed to consider this and nodded, "Fine if you don't have anything you need to do, then we're going to the library, I have some class work to catch up on."

With that the two walked back into the school and headed towards the library. Upon entering the library, Sydney saw a few clusters of students around tables, and a few students on the computers. She followed Terrence towards a quieter section of the library, close to the check out desk.

Terrence staked claim at a table, and Sydney followed in suit, sitting diagonally across from him. She propped her feet up in the chair across from her and beside him.

He raised an eyebrow at the action, but pulled out a Statistics textbook.

"Wow, all you lacrosse guys are secretly smart it seems."

This earned Sydney a glare and she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, that was rude."

He pursed his lips as though to say you think?

Sydney pulled a book from her bag and flipped through the slightly worn cozy mystery novel that she had been reading in her free time at school, which now looking at the progress of the book, she realized like her friends had shaid, she hadn't had a lot of free time recently.

She turned to her reading point in the murder mystery that was taking place in a cozy town, and the protagonist was the owner of a mystery book store. Only reading about three pages, she heard a giggle from behind her, and out of the corner of her eye caught Terrence's pencil freeze from his scrawling of mathematics.

A glance over her shoulder to the librarian's desk, and she saw Jay's sister, Jacinda lightly laughing at what seemed to be something the older employed librarian had said.

Sydney's eyes went back to Terrence, to see him trying to refocus on his work.

Another light laugh caused him to stop again, and this in turn had Sydney slide a receipt acting like a bookmark back into place before letting the book rest in her lap.

"Are you keeping an eye on her too?"

Terrence's eyes widened, "What would give you that idea?"

Sydney frowned a little confused by the rushed response, "I don't know just that she's your friend's sister, and whatever crazy lunatic is running around attacking people in the woods?"

He composed the surprise on his face and went back to looking at his work, "Oh yeah, yes, I am just keeping an eye out for a fellow packmate is all."

Sydney frowned but went back to open her novel again.

"Sydney?" Her name interrupted her action and turned around to see the short brown haired girl coming towards them with a cart of books.

Flashing the girl a small smile and head nod, the girl gave a small wave in return as Jaci came alongside their table.

"What are you two doing here?" Jaci looking between Terrence and Sydney.

"Terrence's just keeping me company till your brother finishes up with something."

This brightened Jaci's smile. "Oh that's nice of you." She was talking to Terrence.

Terrence grunted in response, his focus seemingly solely his school work. Jaci frowned, and Sydney watched the odd interaction not sure what to make of it.

"So you work here at the library?" Sydney asked redirecting the dead end of their interaction.

Quickly putting up a smile again, Jaci laughed, "No, I volunteer here, it's just something I enjoy doing. Especially working with the staff and meeting new students."

Terrence let out a huff, that had both girls glancing at him.

"Does that mean you'd be able to head out with us when Jay's done? You know just because of everything going on..." Sydney faded off.

Jaci's softly put a hand out and squeezed Sydney's shoulder so not to recreate the panic like that last time Jaci grabbed her.

"Don't worry Sydney Jay and Terrence won't let anything bad happen to you again. My dad is reorganizing the shifts to patrol the area better, and my parents are now being sticklers for setting the alarm to the house. I guess yesterday with everyone running in and out to figure out what was going on, nobody set the alarm after we all came in and..." Sadness and anger flooded the girl's face.

Sydney patted the younger girl's hand reassuredly. "It's not your fault, or anyone's really. I know how scattered everything was yesterday, and we just need to find this lunatic before he does anything else."

This seemed to raise the girl's spirits and she nodded, "Exactly right! You're going to be a good match for Jay, I can already tell."

Sydney returned the smile and didn't want to correct the girl, instead returning to her previous concern, "But is anyone staying around to take you home, or will someone be picking you up?"

Between her concern for the much smaller and younger girl, and the guilt of realizing her brother was probably her usual ride to school, but that Jay and her had left early because of Sydney's restlessness, she didn't know what the girl's plans were.

With a laugh and wave of her hand, "I'll be fine, a friend of mine offered to give me a lift home. But thank you for your concern Sydney!" After that Jaci walked off to some shelves in the library and left Sydney and Terrence alone. A loud snap pulled Sydney's attention back to Terrence, and she saw his pencil was snapped in half.

"Wh-are you okay? Do you need another pencil?" Sydney was already reaching into her bag to look for one.

He held his hand out to her indicating for her to pause her actions and he shook his head no. "I'm fine, thanks."

Unconvinced Sydney just flipped her book open again and tried to ease her mind from the strangeness between Jay's sister and best friend and ended up marking it up to all werewolves just must be strange.