Chapter 35: Chapter 35

There was no way that the wolf could follow her to the spot she now hang on to. It could neither jump there if it chose to go to the outside of the building first. This was the only place that Sandra could think of that the wolf couldn’t get to her. Locking herself in a room wouldn’t have been enough since it would have broken down the door. In her fear, she had also forgotten that the locker she was trying to open contained weapons that could have helped her stand her ground, however, against an alpha, it was doubtful that they would have been any good use to her.

Thoughts ran through her head in an effort to calm her nerves over the decision she had made to evade the werewolf. Had she really made the right choice? Where she currently stood risked her life as well, for if she had fallen from that height, there was no telling just how much she would break in her body. However, thinking this way was only bound to stir up those fears and so she blocked the thoughts of falling to her doom from her mind as she had been trained by Katie to do so.

“You don’t look like the Jason I know,” she spoke up, her voice shaky as she tried to reach out to the human part of the creature that pursued her. The wolf stared back at her intensely, its eyes showing signs of thought running through its mind. It was no longer barring its teeth at her which she took to be a good sign, however, there was no telling if that would be the same case given the chance to take her down.

A second growl came from the room catching the wolf’s attention. The head of the alpha retreated into the room for a showdown with a new arrival. There was a sound of breaking bones which Sandra recognized to be shifting sounds before the first voice was heard, “Jason, what do you think you are doing?” Sandra recognized the voice as none other than Caden.

“I was checking to see if someone was going to come for the weapons. The killer would want to use them to kill his next victim or could I say her in this case,” he said.

“We were in the same classroom as Sandra when all this went down... or did that slip your mind somehow?” there was silence for a while, a sigh of relief escaping her when she realized she was in the clear, “Sandra, it’s okay to come back into the classroom now.”

Sandra retraced her steps to get back into the classroom, resting on a desk when she was finally on solid ground again with no risk of falling to her doom. Her breath came out in short gasps as she tried to calm her nerves. “I’m sorry for scaring you, Sandra. My wolf just lost it when I noticed you tampering with Katie’s locker and I lost control...”

.....

“I don’t fully understand what that means... Are you saying that your wolf gained the upper hand and took control of your body or something? I haven’t heard of such a thing...”

“It’s a rare occurrence which doesn’t usually happen in this era since the hunters have managed to keep the peace, but when someone is suspected of killing a pack member, it is next to impossible for that person to avoid being ripped to shreds by the members of the dead pack member. Our wolves are constantly in search of vengeance for their dead comrade. When I saw you tampering with the lock on Katie’s locker, I did not get the chance to reason with my wolf and lost control of him. For that, I am truly sorry...” he bowed his head slightly. His body was covered with sweat evident of a mental fight he’d gone through with his wolf.

Regardless of the near-death incident that Sandra had found herself in, she couldn’t find any malice within her towards Jason. “Never mind... I’m just glad to be alive after being chased down by an alpha,” she said, sighing in relief. Facing a normal werewolf was one thing, Sandra knew that she always had the upper hand or was at least evenly matched in skill, but for the first time, she knew she was in deep trouble and Katie was not around to get her out of it.

“I can’t believe you almost killed Katie’s best friend... Do you have any idea what trouble you were about to put us through?” Caden yelled at Jason when he realized just how much of a mistake his comrade had just made.

“I’m sorry... I tried to stop myself, but I was seeing red before I could do anything about it,” Jason tried from the receiving end of his reprimand.

“This is probably how Ash felt when he realized Katie wasn’t around to save him the second time. Could he then have tried sending her a last message when he was trying to write with his blood?” Sandra said half to herself plunging the room into silence.

“Let’s escort you to your house. Once again, I’m sorry for Jason’s behaviour towards you. You can feel free to think of a punishment that you can give him any time you feel like it. What he’s done is virtually unforgivable,” Caden tried. It was true that they couldn’t wipe clean what had just been done, so he was choosing the path of redemption in order to reduce the scar this was going to leave.

“What were you doing at the locker if it wasn’t to take the weapons from it?” Jason asked her.

“Are you nuts? After attacking her...” Caden began, disbelief in his voice as he turned to his friend for another round of reprimand.

“I was opening it to get the weapons...” this got them to keep quiet once more, “Katie doesn’t need them to fight werewolves so she ends up neglecting them a lot. This must have provided an opening for the killer to use them for their own purposes, so I wanted to take them out of her locker and keep them somewhere safer. I also wanted to make sure there wasn’t another blade missing except for the one that was used and the one that I have with me from yesterday’s attack,” she said.

After a short moment of thinking, Jason lowered his head once more, “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what I can do to earn your trust again and I know I don’t really deserve it, so I’ll do everything I can to earn it back.”

There it was, the feeling of butterflies she had for the werewolf. Something she was not used to at the moment. Spending time with Katie and learning how to suppress emotions did not allow a hunter the ability to learn how to interpret some of those emotions. The end result was her not being able to decipher what made this particular werewolf interesting to her.

For the first time since she’d climbed back in from the window, she noticed the two werewolves before her were shirtless. “What happened to your clothes?”

The two of them looked themselves over before answering, “That’s kind of a long story. Caden and I were sparring in the woods. We do that every evening so that we can try and catch up to Cole. So we decided to take a rest. Caden stayed behind while I took a run and that’s how I found you in the school about to open Katie’s locker. I didn’t mind where I ended up in my run so I think I unconsciously wound up here, though I am not sure why,” Jason voiced his part of the story.

“I felt Jason’s bloodlust through the mind link and came running here,” he said.

“Oh, I see... So we are similar in a way. I’m also trying to catch up to Katie, although she is a bit too far from me... and I’m pretty sure she’s about to leave an even bigger gap between the two of us. It feels pathetic actually. I can’t help her while I’m this weak,” she groaned.

“Might I make a proposal, then?” Jason asked, a smirk forming on his face while he said so.

“What are you thinking?”

“Well, we could help you train to catch up with Katie. Well, of course, there is the fact that we are weaker than her and...”

“That would be a good idea actually...” Sandra cut him off.

“How come...” Jason was taken aback by her quick and almost immediate acceptance.

“It would be easier for me to improve that way rather than training with Katie...” she said.

“I still don’t follow...” Caden was the one to ask this time.

Sandra sighed, “When I’m training with her, she pulls her punches and fights at a speed much lower than her current abilities so that I can get some practice in. This doesn’t allow me to improve. Her defence is tight and her offence is also something that she shows me from time to time to be clearly a threat. Whenever I’m facing off with her, she shows me numerous times that she would be able to kill me without much effort. It’s frustrating... I need to train with someone who isn’t as skilled so that I can improve probably along with them rather having to be constantly shadowed by Katie.”

The logic behind her explanation was one way to look at the situation, “In other words, you want to see if by training with us, you can catch up to her faster?” Caden tried to simplify.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Yes, that’s it. You get it at least...”

“But you were just fleeing from Jason here, what makes you confident that we are as weak as you think?”

“I know you aren’t weak, but you are definitely weaker than the monster of a master that I have training me, so I’m asking you for help. The next werewolf I see below you is Dexter and he is definitely below me in skill, so I really have only you,” she spoke up.

“What about other hunters that are not as skilled as Katie though?”

“All the other hunters are busy with something. The junior hunters have mentors while the professional hunters are all stationed doing something else. Katie is the only one that I can train with and her expertise is intimidating to follow. Besides, this was your idea, why are you coming up with all these alternatives?”

“I just wanted to make sure we weren’t intruding,” Caden explained.

“You know... this is the most I’ve ever seen you say in one conversation,” Sandra said, noticing Jason’s silence.

Jason smirked at the observation, “Caden only speaks freely to people he’s used to or approves of as friends.”

“Aww, I’m glad to know I’m friends with you then,” she smiled wildly at the now severely embarrassed alpha. This was the start of a wonderful collaboration. It was agreed among the three of them that this incident was not to be revealed to either Katie or Cole, but that the training sessions were to be planned out. After all, this was going to allow Katie and Cole to spend more time with each other, an occurrence the three of them agreed was necessary as it was clear those two wanted to get to know each other some more.