MAT

He watched Jay out of the corner of his eye and saw him leaned against the lockers pretending not to be listening into his conversation with Sydney. Mat wasn't sure what Jay's problem was but it had him on high alert, especially with the stunt the girls pulled last night without Mat's knowledge or consent.

Sydney pulled out of his arms, "I'll tell you the rest later. Feel too out in the open right now." She turned her attention to her locker and spun in the combo with swift but delicate flicks of her fingers.

"After school?" Mat probbed, burying his hands in his pockets.

"Ugh, I am planning on popping into journalism and the editing lab later, if you want to come with..."

Frowning he shook his head, "I have club meeting from three to four thirty, I don't know how long you're going to be there cause I could join you after."

Almost repeating the same action he just did, "I don't plan on staying there too long, especially since I lost my phone and need to go looking in the lost and found for it, or with my luck it was out in the forest overnight."

"Sydney!" Emmery called out while trying to fix a pile of papers loaded on her pink and purple binder.

"Hey Em, you weren't waiting for us after class! How'd you're partnering go?" Sydney asked.

Mat took the time while the two girls were rehashing their class experiences to look back to Jay, only to find him gone, seemingly swept away in the crowd as if he had never been there.

After the two girls had told Mat this morning about the prank they pulled on the lacrosse guys last night, he felt fear expanding in his gut. He had no clue they were going to do that, while yes Mat had to admit that it was pretty damn funny especially after the videos that were spreading around school like wildfire, it also scared him out of his mind.

Mat would protect them at any cost because they were like his family to him when his family wasn't, but Mat knew that when the werewolves' from the lacrosse team found out that his friends had played the prank on them there would be hell to pay. Their egos mixed with their animalistic werewolf genes would likely make them stop at nothing to get their revenge on Sydney, Meg, and Emmery for humiliating them. Natural order was to never seem weak.

"Hey ladies, I gotta take a pee, be back in a few." Mat told the girls. The girls nodded barely acknowledging his leaving as they went on talking about some new Youtuber they were watching for photoshop tricks and tips.

Mat slipped through the crowd and into the men's restroom. He planted himself in front of the first clean looking urinal.

"-aven't found her yet." A familiar male voice spoke.

There was no answer to the man, but something struck Mat as familiar.

"I know, I know. Just give me a few days to find his mate."

Where have I heard that voice? He asked himself. He zipped up his jeans then bent over to see the person who was talking's shoe hiding in the stall. The scent of urine, stale water, and blech were blocking Mat's sense of smell.

"Watch it, brother, or have you forgotten your place?" A growl came from the stall.

He's werewolf, and apparently a high rank, but he wasn't Jaycen that's for sure. Mat couldn't pick up a hint of Jay's odor and it didn't resemble his alpha's deeper set voice anyways.

"I know I need to find her soon, everything will work out according to-."

More silence.

"Jaycen will learn the pa-" The voice was drowned out by a group of boys flooding the bathroom talking about some sports and other school related topics that Mat couldn't catch onto even as he was straining to focus on the mystery person's voice. Mat found himself pushed towards the door to make room for everyone else.

Mat paused outside the bathroom, hoping the wave of boy would smoke the caller out, so then Mat could identify the person, but Sydney and Em were waving at him and giving him quizzical looks.

'We need to alert the Alpha.' His wolf commanded.

'Yeah I know. Do you remember anyone with that voice?' Mat questioned heading towards the girls.

The warning bell rung, signaling their one minute to skatter to class. Mat glanced back and only saw unrecognizable people drifting back and forth.

"What happened in the bathroom? You make a new friend or something?" Sydney joked. "See you guys later!" She waved and ventured off in a separate direction leaving Em and Mat to walk towards their class.

'Nope, but we need to find out why that guy wants Alpha's mate and we better keep an eye on Sydney.' His wolf said sternly.

☽✣☾

SYDNEY

At the end of the day, after the final bell had rung, Sydney found herself walking against the grain of the slowly thinning hallways to the journalism class. She was intending to get a head start on laying out some of her ideas for the highlighting the English department, as well as wanting to look over this month's newspaper layout since it was going to be the first edition released for the school year.

While Em, Meg, and Mat all thought she was crazy for staying to do additional work, there was something about taking advantage of all the equipment and the fact she wanted to produce some amazing work to get her into college. She had waved them off and said she'd message them later, either after she found her phone, or via online.

Still, she couldn't help but find herself a little weary in the hallways as the last of the students left, leaving the building seemingly empty. She knew there would be teachers lingering around and clubs meeting in obscure rooms, but after the weirdness of the threat earlier in the hallway, along with the way she felt Jaycen seemed to be everywhere she was, Sydney was unsettled.

Subtly scratching the side of her head she tried to take inventory of her surroundings.

This is ridiculous, you're afraid to even look around properly. You're at school, earlier was a joke and for all you know Jaycen just got one of his buddies to try and scare you. This is what happens when you feel guilty about being a fool.

Sydney went to text Racheal letting her know she would be staying after but would text her when she was wrapping up to head home, when she paused in the hall forgetting that she had lost her phone last night.

Anxiety built up in her stomach.

Go get your work done Syd, then check the lost and found. If need be go back and look in the forest. If it is still outside it's probably damaged by the dew from this morning and being outside for 24 hours. You'll just Facebook message her.

Sydney made it to the art wing of the school and was pleased to find the door to the lab unlocked.

One victory for the day.

"Mr. Greg?" She called into the room even though the lights were already flipped off. She pushed the door all the way open and saw all the monitors for the desktops were sleeping and figured he might have left school early cause he didn't have a class during the last block.

Making herself comfortable, Sydney dropped her bag off by Mr. Greg's desk, grabbed a key from the second drawer and went back to the back of the classroom to a second door that lead into the senior editing room.

Turning on those lights she went to her preferred monitor and started chugging away at the keyboard, signing into her school account and accessing the shared InDesign file to see what progress had been made on the newspaper.

Eyes flickering across the page she saw they were still missing two stories, as their section was vacant on the spread, and that she needed to talk to the photographers in the class and see what the status was on the photo edits.

After about forty-five minutes of noting typo's and reminders to check up on the status of various things, the movement of the main classroom door opening and the light flipping on drew Sydney's attention from her screen through the glass window into the main room.

The guy who entered the room was tall, medium build, blonde hair, all around nothing terribly remarkable, but he was older. Maybe a student's older brother popping in to visit or checkout his old high school. Standing from her set she leaned into the doorway.

"Hey, you looking for Mr. Greg by chance?"

The guy looked spooked when Sydney called out to him.

"Hi, yeah, is this the journalism room?"

Sydney nodded and walked to close the space between them. "Mr. Greg isn't here right now, but I'm one of his senior students. I work on the yearbook and newspaper team, maybe there is something I can help you with...?"

"Logan, and you are...?"

"Sydney," she flashed her biggest smile and reached her hand out to greet him.

He smiled, his perfectly aligned teeth.

"So what can I help you with Logan?" Sydney leaned back on a long table, her legs crossed in front of her.

"Well actually, I graduated from here six years ago. My brother is transferring here now, and we were up at the front office, and he's finishing up some paperwork so I decided to look around the place and see if it's still the same.."

Sydney nodded, "Yeah, Mr. Greg doesn't have a class during the last block so he has a tendency to leave early. Did you have a class with him? I know he's been around for a while, but not entirely sure what year he started teaching here despite all the hours I spend in this room." Sydney ended with a light chuckle.

Logan smiled brightly at her, "No, I didn't but I noticed the door opened and couldn't resist peeking in."

Peeking in...that's kind of a creepy way of putting it.

"Oh, well is there anything you're looking for in particular? I can point you in the direction, but I need to get back to some of my class work," Sydney smiled sheepishly pointing to her computer in the back room, hoping to get away from this mysterious man.

He shook his head and flipped his hand at me, "Oh no no, I wouldn't want to bother you and you're studies. You must be very into whatever it is you're doing if it's keeping you late after school."

Sydney let out another hollow chuckle and was feeling increasingly concerned he wasn't going to leave, but thankfully he made his way to the door and started into the hallway, only leaning back into the doorway to say, "Nice meeting you Syd, keep up the good work."

She couldn't find any words so she just tried to politely wave, and once he left the doorway and she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, she rushed back to the computer she was working at and popped open a tab for Facebook then opened messenger.

She saw Mat was online with the green dot beside his name, and typed out, "Dude, apparently the school has no kind of security, this twenty something-year old man just came into the class because 'the door was opened and he couldn't resist peeking in.' Man gave me the creeps. Anyways, I'm spooked and have lost my creative juices. Gonna wrap up and check lost and found, and hit the woods if need be. But just in case I go missing," Sydney tacked on a grimace emoticon and a laughing one before pressing enter.

Collecting her colored pens and notebook into her bag she waited for Mat's reply.

"Seems like a lot of creeps around, I'll keep an eye out but please let me know when you're home," was his response.

Sydney signed, see nothing like her friend to anchor her down and not blow things out of proportion. She signed off Facebook and the computer, then left the classroom in search of her phone.