Sydney

The blaring white lights illuminated the pristinely maintained turf of the multipurpose field.

It was harsh on her eyes and was beginning to make her headache. She cradled her camera close to her thick 'nearing-winter' coat as she dubbed it. Over her shoulder and pumping against her lower back, Sydney toted an extra camera bag full of different lenses.

Making laps around the field Sydney predicted what would make for interesting angles and good places to shoot from throughout the lacrosse game.

Their previous conversation during Jay's class had offered some hope for Sydney that they could get over their disagreement and continue to push forward for tomorrow's plans. A thought briefly crossed Sydney's mind though.

What would happen if I just dropped Jay from my life?

She felt physically sick at the mere implication of the void.

The moment had been broken between Jay and Sydney earlier in the day by the sounding of the bell. She hadn't realized how much time had passed between them before she had spoken up. Annoyance ate at her as the wasted time cost her whatever could've followed Jaycen's sweet words.

They had both packed up in silence and with a spare glance, she had left the room to go back to journalism and proceed throughout her class schedule.

The day went about pretty quietly as she mingled with Meg and Emery throughout the classes they were lucky enough to share. During lunch, the glaring absence of Mat was more prominent. Her fingers wanted to send him a text checking in on him, but she felt whatever their next conversation would be deserved to be in person.

It had almost been the end of her day when her phone dinged notifying Sydney of an email from Mr. Greg's, asking her to fill in for a lacrosse game after one of the students was reported to be out of school sick.

Reaffirming herself she wasn't gonna let some silly drama make her avoid doing what she loved and she quickly shot out and replied to her teacher saying that she would be there before the game to see about scoping out good places to take photos on the field then possibly getting some locker interviews.

Sydney was pleased to get a swift response from the teacher thanking her for stepping in, so that's how she found herself out in the cold field on a Friday night.

Going back to thinking about a life of avoiding or ignoring Jay and his werewolf friends, Sydney pushes aside those emotional feelings and seriously considers what the outcome would be.

Despite the sprinkling of college applications across the country for early acceptance, I have always been planning to stay within the state to stay close to family but far enough away where I could gain my own independence. Was it possible that I could just ignore this and ride out the rest of the year incident-free?

Something nagged at the back of her mind telling her that it would be too good to be true.

A pain stabbed at her head causing her to groan and her eyes slam shut. Pinching the bridge of her nose she hopped this headache would go away.

Squeezing her eyes closed harder, an image vividly flashed in her mind. A man with long black hair tumbling down his bareback shouting while in the distance in the tumbling of massive spiders crawled towards her.

Eyes opening, Sydney tried to focus in on the thoughts but it slipped away from her like being frustratedly awaken from an amazing dream and not being able to dive back into it.

Sighing in frustration, Sydney strode across the field.

Her journalistic instinct said she only had one instance of violence and terror to gather any information from. That coupled with the small abilities that Logan had shown her the day before felt like a push towards properly defending herself.

Mentally she groaned as she walked across the grassy patch of field berating herself or dropping karate after Aaron had joined her and showed her up. Her father was a little less than pleased to have Sydney drop the sport quickly after.

Movement off to the side of the field showed some of the teams assistants starting to prepare the benches for players and the speckling of parents and other teens in the stands started to fill the bleachers preparing for tonight's game.

Glancing down to her watch she saw there is still a good 45 minutes till the game started and that if she wanted to get any locker room interview as part of the game starting that she needed to go now.

Wading from the field through the parking lot of inexperienced student drivers and old grandparents squinting for parking spaces proved comical as she made her way towards the school where the locker rooms were based. A few couples were littered throughout the hallways, a gaggle or two of girls snickering and gushing over some of the players and their friends taking the field tonight for the first time also lined the hallways.

Sydney couldn't help but shoot a side-eye towards some of the people as it felt like their attention was on her making her wonder who would've been that day who pulled her aside and threatened her to stay away from Jay.

A familiar-looking girl with long black hair stood and appeared to be glaring at Sydney.

You're all in your thoughts.

Her eyes fell onto another familiar face, the one of Jay's beta, Terrence. She raised her hand, ready to call out to him when another familiar character standing petite at his side talking zealously stopped her.

Jaci's hands flickered and her thin arms shot about as she talked about something vehemently. Terrence looked saddened and appeared to be saying he was sorry, but that did nothing to calm Jay's younger sister down.

Jaci's head dropped and her hands balled into stiff fists at her side. Terrence's arm went out to rest on her shoulder but Jaci yanked away furiously and stormed off.

Sydney was about to carry-on down the hallway and pretend she didn't see what occurred when Terrence tore his gaze away from where Jaci had disappeared too and saw Sydney. He smiled grimly then gave her a small wave and she took that as an indication to talk to him.

"Hey." Sydney drew out the word. "Is she alright?" Sydney made a small head gesture and Jaci's direction.

Terrence exhaled harshly through his nose and stuffed his balled up hands In his hoodie.

"You saw that?"

She nodded.

"Yeah let's just say I haven't been on her good list for a while."

Sydney felt her eyebrow arch at this, "I figured it'd be difficult to get on her bad list."

He smacked his lips at this, "You're definitely right about that."

Sydney was hoping that Terrence would confide in her what was going on between the two but he turned his attention towards her more so. He nodded to her camera and bag, "What are you up to?"

"Just headed to the locker room for some pre-game interviews."

He jerked his head signaling for her to follow along.

"Mind if I ask some questions?" She asked, knowing there was a little longer down the hallway before they were at the locker room.

"No, Jaycen doesn't know about me and Jaci."

Sydney felt her eyes go wide.

Something in her step read the same way as Terrence turned and saw the shocked look on her face.

"Oh, you meant..."

"The game." Sydney finishes his sentence.

Red crept up his neck. "Yeah sorry I thought..."

"No it's fine, I won't say anything if you don't want me to."

"If you don't mind. I don't want to cause any more bad blood between you and Jay, but she and I are figuring things out."

"Figuring out how so? Is Jaci like Jay in her belief of falling in love on your own...?" She faded off as she saw a darkness fall across his face.

"No, no. She was all for the relationship, but I had my head in my ass and screwed things up."

"Was?" She was tentative prompting this.

"Yeah 'was.' Needless to say, I haven't really done right by her, and we both want to keep Jay out of our mess while everything is going on with you."

"Going on with me?"

More lightheartedly he scoffed, "Yeah you. Little magical pixie-werewolf mate who has all these people after her for some reason kinda takes the cake in Jay's to-do list."

Pleased that Terrence wasn't talking about the Jay-Mat debacle she nodded, "Yeah, it's a little chaotic right now."

"Anyways, here we are," He nodded to the locker room.

Sydney stared at the door.

What should I say to him?

The door opened, but instead of Sydney pulling it open to walk inside, someone else was walking out.

"Oh, hello." He said.

Swallowing I prepared to reply.