The Struggle: Hollow Crest Wolf Pack Book 2

by C. C. Masters

  A girl next to me screamed when the decapitated head of a raccoon dropped out of the locker and blood dripped on the floor. I backed away in horror when I saw the note written in blood and taped to the locker door.

  You’re next.

  Screams and excited shouts filled the hallway as more students saw the spectacle. It wasn’t long before my gym teacher shouldered his way through the students and stopped next to me. His mouth dropped in shock before he set his lips in a straight line and marched me right to the principal’s office.

  I was told to sit in a chair in the empty office and wait until the teachers could calm everyone down and get them to their next class. I fumed. This was ridiculous. They were treating me like a criminal when someone had decapitated a helpless animal just to threaten me. It was one thing to kill to eat, a whole other thing to needlessly kill just to torment another person. Whoever did this was sick in the head.

  Finally, Principal Woods came into the office and shut the door behind him. He sat at the desk in front of me and we both stared at each other for almost a minute. He sighed and then spoke. “Under normal circumstances, I would immediately call your parents. But I think we can both agree that this is anything but normal.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, I’m threatened and harassed and your first move is to send me to the office as if I were a criminal?”

  His face turned red. “I don’t appreciate your snark. I’ll have you know that this school takes bullying very seriously.”

  I snorted. On paper maybe. Bullying happened here every day on a regular basis and most of the teachers looked the other way when it was the popular kids doing the bullying. There was a clear line in this town between people who were ‘important’ and people who were trash. Anyone with money or position of power was given respect. I had none of those things and I didn’t have parents who could stand behind me with theirs.

  I raised my chin. Time to call his bluff. “I’d like to press charges against whoever did this. I’m guessing they’ll be expelled at the minimum?”

  Principal Woods blustered for a moment and I didn’t give him time to put together an answer.

  “I’ll also need replacements for all of the books in my locker that were ruined. Would you like a list of the people who bully me the most?”

  Principal Woods gritted his teeth. “There aren’t cameras in the hallway, it would be impossible to prove-”

  “So you know?” I interrupted. “You know who’s behind this but you’re not willing to do anything about it? You have to admit that this has gone way beyond the normal high school bullying.”

  I could tell that the principal probably wanted to wrap his hands around my neck and strangle me in frustration, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. I was angry and I was tired of being treated this way. Just because I was a poor, parentless orphan living a scandalized life with a group of men didn’t mean that people could treat me like I was nothing more than the dirt beneath their feet.

  I was going to push this until he was forced to do something. “What’s the usual mediation process that you follow when students have difficulty with one another?”

  “What’s their names?” Principal Woods leaned back in his chair in defeat. “I can bring in their parents to discuss this, but I can’t promise it will go farther than that.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. I hadn’t expected that it would, but at least he was giving up on trying to pin this on me. I gave Mr. Woods the names of the three most popular girls in school and he didn’t look surprised, just resigned. “I believe they were excused from morning classes to work on banners for the cheerleading squad.”

  I rolled my eyes and he pretended he didn’t see that. “I’ll call the girls in the office to discuss things, but think it would be best if you went home for the rest of the day.”

  I stared defiantly at him. “If I go home then I won’t be allowed to go to cross country practice.”

  Principal Woods put a hand over his face. “Why don’t you sit in the library and work on your homework?”

  I stood up, gathered my things, and marched out of the office proudly. I hadn’t won the battle at all, but I wasn’t going to let something like this crush me. If these girls thought something like that would make me cry and run home then they were in for a rude awakening.

  I sat in the library for the next couple of periods and was surprised when a bunch of students stopped by to talk to me. Some just wanted gossip, but others genuinely commiserated with me. I hadn’t been the only victim of the mean girls, just the latest.

  It did seem like a particularly gruesome prank for a bunch of high school girls to pull, though. I guess I shouldn’t be sexist, but picturing those girls getting their hands dirty or perfectly manicured nails chipped seemed very out of character. I wondered if they had someone else do the dirty work. A stray thought of Baracus drifted through my mind but I pushed it away. There was no way that a powerful pack master was lurking in the halls of my high school and leaving dead animals in my locker.

  Kannon found me at lunchtime. “Hey,” he said softly as he slid into a chair beside me. “I didn’t realize that the hot girl who found a dead rat in her locker was you until just now. No one mentioned you by name until a guy named Noah asked me how you were.”

  I blushed. “It was a raccoon, and you never expected that I would be described as a hot girl?”

  Kannon looked embarrassed. “Well, I’m just used to everyone calling you the new girl. Of course, I think you’re very attractive.”

  I smiled at Kannon and let him off the hook. “I’m just teasing you. I feel like I have to keep a sense of humor in a situation like this so that I don’t go crazy, you know?”

  Kannon nodded. “Do you want to go home? I’m sure that the teachers won’t object given the circumstances. Most teenage girls would be pretty traumatized.”

  “I’m not most teenage girls,” I pointed out. “Something like this is just child’s play compared to what I’ve been through. And if I go home I let them know that they succeeded in intimidating me. The only reason that I’m in the library right now is because Principal Woods wants me out of sight so he can brush this under the rug.”

  Kannon grimaced. “Do you know who did it?”

  “I can’t be sure,” I admitted. “The hallway is full of so many scents that I wouldn’t be able to pick out who was at my locker specifically. But I do know three girls who are prime suspects.” I explained my previous interactions with the mean girls and explained that the principal had admitted that they hadn’t been in class. “Principal Woods said he would talk to the girls and bring in their parents, but I’m sure they’ll deny everything.”

  “You don’t think Taylor was a part of it?” Kannon asked softly.

  I shook my head. “I got to know her over the summer and she isn’t a bad person.” I hesitated. “I think she’s just torn between two different ideas of what ‘doing the right thing’ means. She wants to protect her family and I understand loyalty, but what Mr. Reaven did to me was wrong.”

  Kannon nodded in understanding. “Corey has picked fights before.” He paused to watch my face. “He hasn’t always been on the right side of the fight, but I still have his back when someone comes for him.”

  “I haven’t really seen that side of him,” I confessed. “I’ve seen him angry, but not completely out of control.”

  “He’s getting better,” Kannon said with a bright smile. “I think a part of it is having you here. You make all of us better.”

  I blushed and ducked my head. “Except when I’m making things worse for us.”

  Kannon reached across the table to grab my hand. “Things always get worse before they get better, just hold on.”

  “I’m ready to fast forward to the better part now,” I laughed.

  The school day was almost over before Principal Woods sent someone to the library to get me. I did my best to calm my nerves as I walked towards his office. I hadn’t done anything wrong, I
was the victim here.

  The secretary stopped me and told me that the group was too large for Principal Woods’ office so they had taken over the conference room. It sucked that I was going to have to face three sets of parents, a bunch of mean girls, and a principal completely alone. This was a time when I really wished humans understood pack dynamics so that I could call Grayson in as my pack master. I took a deep breath and steadied my shaking hands before I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Only nine glares were waiting for me in the room, it turned out that only Lacey’s mom could make it into school on short notice since her dad was out of town. Not that one missing person really made much of a difference.

  I kept my chin up and back stiff as I sat in one of the chairs. “I was told you wanted to see me?” I asked the principal.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, we’ve interviewed quite a few students-”

  “Who are lying!” Tiffany interrupted vehemently. Her father shushed her and motioned for the principal to keep going.

  “All of us agree that the three girls were in the bathroom across from your locker during the time the, um, animal was left.”

  “And the note,” I added. The parents stared at me blankly. “There was a note saying that I was next. I’m guessing to insinuate that I was going to be beheaded also?”

  Lacey’s mom gasped and Tiffany’s father looked furious.

  “Ah, yes,” Principal Wood said awkwardly. “And the note.” He cleared his throat. “Lori, we’ve discussed it as a group and we’d like to resolve this without going to the police.”

  I kept my face blank. I knew that he was going to try and make this disappear. He didn’t disappoint me when he listed the punishments that he suggested. He wanted to give the girls after-school detention instead of a suspension so that it didn’t show on their records when they applied to colleges. He also wanted us in separate classes and suggested that I transfer out of the gym class that I shared with all three of them.

  “No,” I said defiantly. “You’re already letting them off the hook pretty easily, I shouldn’t be the one that has to rearrange my life to accommodate them just because they decided it would be fun to terrorize me one day.”

  “I hardly think-” Principal Woods started to say.

  Lacey’s father interrupted him. “She’s right.” I looked at him in surprise. “My daughter needs to learn an important lesson. I’m not going to let her get away with this and then think she can get away with doing something even worse next time. This ends now.”

  “Except we didn’t do anything,” Tiffany insisted.

  “She’s going to take the deal,” Tiffany’s father said with a hard glare at his daughter.

  “Dad, I swear-.”

  “Enough!” Her father shouted. Tiffany cowered and stayed silent.

  Doubt started to fill me at how adamantly she was denying this. I had not once seen the slightest glimmer of triumph or a smirk on any of their faces. Were they actually innocent? Could it have been Baracus? He wouldn’t have hesitated to slaughter an animal to make a point, and the hallways were full of hundreds of different scents… I might not have been able to pick his out. Or what if he sent someone else to do his dirty work?

  I looked at the three girls in front of me. From what I’d seen and heard from them, they spend all their time mimicking makeup tutorials on YouTube and taking Instagram pics. I couldn’t picture any of them being able to capture even a mouse, let alone a wild raccoon. And they seemed like the type that would be too squeamish about handling blood.

  I shook my head. But Baracus being here in Hollow Crest? No. The girls were the more straightforward answer.

  I waited until all the parents had agreed to the conditions the principal had laid out. “What about all the things in my locker that were ruined?” I asked the principal sweetly. “We’ll replace the textbooks,” he grumbled. “Free of charge.”

  I settled back in my seat. This wasn’t fair, but it was the best that I was going to get. I just hoped that this would scare the girls into backing off me.

  I got out of the stupid meeting just in time to make it down to the locker room to change for cross country practice. “Heard you’re trying to get cheerleaders in trouble now,” Brianna sneered at me.

  “Back off,” Carolyn told her as she stood in front of me protectively. “Lori’s had a rough day and she doesn’t need to hear your shit.”

  Brianna stared at her with an open mouth, frozen in shock. A couple other girls changing chuckled and Brianna realized that she wasn’t going to have anyone in here on her side. She slammed her locker shut and stomped out of the room.

  I couldn’t hide the big smile that stretched across my face. Maybe this school wasn’t all bad.

  Chapter 11

  Lori

  The next few weeks passed by uneventfully. I was on edge, still halfway waiting for Baracus to pop out of the shadows and attack, and halfway thinking that I was being ridiculous in thinking he was still alive. I was exhausted from not being able to sleep much during the nights. The guys and I had settled into a routine of school and working that shouldn’t have left me so much time to worry about what might be coming our way. And yet I still found plenty of time to stress out about the unknown.

  School had gotten better. Students were friendlier towards me and the mean girls left me alone. Occasionally I would pass one of them in a hallway and they would give me hateful or sullen looks, but none of them said anything. I was discovering that I could channel a lot of my emotion into cross country and was becoming better than I thought I would.

  At first, my main goal was just to beat Brianna. Then I started to realize that I could keep up with the guys if I really tried. I started to look forward to practice so I could let out all of my anger and frustration with this town there and still keep my cool during the day. Maybe that was why Grayson worked out so religiously?

  Today was Saturday and we had closed the shop early since the first home football game of the season and pep rally was tonight. Mrs. Walker had been right that we shouldn’t have expected many customers today. We had one elderly gentleman come in the morning, but the rest of the town had been busy preparing for the celebrations. Personally, I wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

  We were having an early lunch before Grayson and I had to go up to the college for a couple hours. We were going to meet the rest of the guys over at the high school when we were done. Kannon and I were required to sit with the cross country team during the celebration in the name of team comradery and school spirit. All of the athletic teams were going to be there, even though it was really only the football team and cheerleaders that the town really cared about. Gray and the twins were going to the game since that was a normal expectation for all of the adults that lived in town.

  Corey and Grayson were just as miserable about our planned outing as I was, which was the only thing that made me feel better about it. Misery loves company, right? Wyatt had brought out a huge stack of business cards that he planned to hand out at the event with a discount code on the back for ten percent off the first oil change. Corey and Gray had shot him death glares when he suggested they each take a third of the stack and he had backed off without complaint.

  "You didn't get any green beans, Gray," I pointed out with my fork.

  "Umm.." I think this was the first time I'd ever seen him look unsure.

  "Lori made them herself," Kannon pointed out.

  Gray gave a long-suffering sigh. "I would love some green beans that you made, Lori."

  "Don't look so glum," I said with a grin. "They have bacon."

  Wyatt raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't bacon negate the healthiness of the

  vegetables?"

  "Not for young, active wolves like you. You probably need the calories."

  I watched Grayson as he took a bite. "These are pretty good, Lori," he said

  with surprise in his voice.

  I couldn't help but preen a little. I liked the idea of taking ca
re of my guys. I stopped mid-bite and thought about that. When had they become 'my guys?' When I had first arrived here I was suspicious and determined to keep my distance from any male wolves. I think Kannon was the first to win me over with his bright smiles and giving nature. Grayson had a tough exterior and his size was a little intimidating, but deep down he was caring and protective. I think he was the second one I fell for.

  The twins had been a little harder to get to know. Wyatt kept his distance from me purposefully, but there had been a few moments where he let down his guard. I would have thought that Corey would be the most difficult for me to bond with, but

  there had been a few times when we were alone that he allowed me to see the vulnerability he hid from everyone else.

  Grayson caught my eyes and a knowing look flashed across his face before he

  hid it from the others. Gray was surprisingly perceptive about a lot of things. "Do you have any homework to do before we go up to the college?" he asked. I shook my head no. He sighed. "We might as well get it over with then."

  "How's it been going?" Wyatt asked softly after glancing at me.

  Gray shrugged. "They haven't done anything other than talk since Lori

  started going with me."

  I frowned. "What were they doing before?"

  The guys exchanged glances. "Sometimes they had us fight the lamia in

  training," Corey said hesitantly. "As practice."

  "Or the witches would use us for..." Kannon glanced over at Grayson, who

  shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Stuff?" Kannon finished.

  "Uh, huh." It was obvious that the guys were trying to hide something from me.

  "Listen, I know you guys want to protect me. But I'd rather hear it now from

  you than be surprised by one of them later." I crossed my arms and huffed in irritation when it became obvious that they were using the pack bond to communicate without including me.