{1.03Â | We're Being Punked, Pedro | part 1}
The Salvatore Memorial Library had become one of Elara's favorite places in the school. It wasn't because she liked reading -- she actually wasn't a big fan of reading-- but because it was easy to isolate yourself in there. There were several corners of it in which Elara could easily hide in and immerse herself in her own world.
And she didn't have to worry about bumping into Hope.
That morning had been incredibly awkward, neither girl willing to speak first. They got ready for their day in silence, and as soon as Hope finished, she was out the door faster than Elara had ever seen her move. She hadn't apologized to Elara yet for accusing her of lying. Elara wasn't even sure if she ever would.
With one hand, she flipped the page of her book and with the other she placed the cap of her pen between her teeth. It was her free period and there wasn't much for her to do. Her lip had healed overnight (thanks to her werewolf genes). The only injury she had left from the game was a bruise to her pride. She didn't like to lose.
Suddenly, she heard several sets of footsteps approaching her.
"Ah, you're already here," Alaric said, turning around the corner. Behind him followed Josie, Lizzie, and the one person she didn't want to see. "That makes this easier. Follow me."
Elara let out a sigh as she closed her textbook and stood from her chair, jumping into the line behind Hope.
"This makes no sense, dad. Why are we being punished?" Lizzie questioned.
Alaric picked up a book from one of the shelves. "Because you started a brawl at a charity football game that risked exposing what we really do here."
"And finished it," Elara uttered, tugging at the hem of her black t-shirt.
"Well, you weren't mad last night," Lizzie tried to reason, ignoring Elara's comment.
"I was mad last night. My undying love for my daughters just happened to trump my rage." He set his book down on a table as everyone except Lizzie descended into the lowered area of the library. "I volunteered everyone in the game, so stop complaining."
Elara stopped next to Josie, planting herself on top of the table.
"You're lucky that it's just community service and not actual jail time."
"Can I at least offer a rebuttal in my defense, if it pleases the court?" Lizzie asked.
"First of all, technically, Elara threw the first punch, so I was just following her lead." She gestured towards the blonde on the table, who gave her a thumbs up and thin-lipped smile. "Secondly, I was provoked. My response was totally proportional considering the levels of abuse that I was forced to endure. And thirdly..."
She inhaled deeply. "If anyone should take the blame it's Josie."
Josie's eyes widened. "What?"
"I'm sorry. I totally cracked under cross, but if you had just let Kaleb catch the ball, maybe Elara wouldn't have been mad about losing and--"
Elara interrupted, tossing her hands into the air. "I still would've punched Connor, either way. Why don't we blame the girl with anger issues instead of your sister?"
"No matter who is to blame, you'd still be in trouble," Alaric said, keeping his eyes on the werewolf.
"But nice job trying to throw your sister under the bus," Hope said.
Elara's brows furrowed slightly. Wait, why was she there?
Josie crossed her arms over her chest and her hip nudged into Elara's knee. "Thank you."
"Speaking of, the bus leaves in ten minutes, and I expect all four of you, to be on it, working together today. Harmoniously and without drama. End of debate," Alaric continued.
"I wasn't even at the game," Hope said, lifting an eyebrow. "Why am I being punished?"
Great question.
Alaric didn't satisfy Elara's curiosity, answering vaguely. "You know what you did."
At that, Lizzie shot Hope a look as if to taunt her. She didn't need an exact answer as to why Hope was getting in trouble. She was satisfied as long as Hope was punished.
"All right, now, go, all of you."
Lizzie was the first to leave, sprinting from the library. Elara hopped off of the table as Josie gently wrapped her hand around Elara's forearm.
"Except for you, Elara," Alaric said abruptly. "I need to have a word with you."
Josie sent her friend a small smile before she left the library. Lizzie quickly followed, but Hope hesitated, lingering at a nearby table and pretending to look at what Elara had been reading.
"What is it, Dr. Saltzman?" Elara questioned, placing her hands behind her back.
"Have you been skipping your sessions with Emma?"
Elara saw no reason to lie. Alaric already knew the truth. "Yup."
"Elara." He sighed. "Sessions are mandatory for all students."
"I understand that."
"Really? If you truly understood that I don't think you would've lost your temper and reacted like that on the field."
"I don't need the sessions to control my temper."
Alaric rubbed his temples, dropping his voice. "It has everything to do with it. If you attended your sessions and learned how to control your anger, you wouldn't have nearly exposed all of us by nearly mauling Connor to death."
The room fell to silence, quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
"I wasn't going to kill him. I was in control the whole time," Elara grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest. "You don't think I was actually going to kill him."
Alaric stared at her with an unreadable expression.
"You didn't think I would actually kill him, right?"
"I don't know what to think, Elara." Alaric placed his hands on the table. "You've been here a month and haven't made much progress. Refusing to be in the pack, skipping sessions with Emma."
"I'm dealing with it by myself--"
"That's not good enough. You're going to get someone else killed. What will you do when it's someone else close to you?"
Her breath hitched in her throat, suddenly at a loss for words. She knew he had a point, that there was absolute reason to what he was saying, but she was stubborn. She spent years working through her problems herself.
Alaric continued, taking advantage of her abrupt silence. "Yesterday is strike one. You're going to the volunteer day, and if you hit three strikes, I will have no choice but to remove you from this school. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," she breathed out.
She spun on her heel, swiftly making her exit from the library. Hope watched her, and she noticed Elara's mask slipping. For the first time in a month, since Hope had seen her sitting in the woods after her first transition, she saw fear in her eyes.
~-~-~
The bus ride to Mystic Falls town center was rough. Elara sat by Josie, staring out the window. She had steeled her expression long before she got on the bus. Josie had tried to get a conversation out of the werewolf, but she shut it down quickly.
When the bus arrived at the park, the students climbed out the bus. Elara could hear Lizzie asking Hope about something, but she wasn't paying attention.
Werewolves had naturally short tempers, Elara knew that. Connor had pushed her to her limits, even if it was quicker than the average person. Alaric was being too harsh on her. Other wolves had to have lost their tempers before.
Elara stood on the other side of Lizzie as Dorian gave instructions. Across from her, she felt a pair of eyes on her, the same eyes that had witnessed her conversation with the headmaster. Elara wasn't sure if Hope had heard the entire conversation or not, and she honestly didn't know how to feel about it.
She felt conflicted. Angry, but conflicted.
"Uh, I don't do trash either," Lizzie declared, pulling Elara from her thoughts.
Hope walked up and snatched the poker from Kaleb's hand. "I love trash, as of this moment."
"Perf. It suits you." Lizzie turned to Josie. "Looks like we're scrubbing paint today."
Josie looked between Lizzie and the others. "Dad told us to work together, okay, harmoniously."
"Yeah, and he also said without drama, and I'm feeling a rage attack coming on, so I will be remaining drama-free over by that wall of graffiti. Are you coming or not?"
"I don't know, Lizzie," Josie began, stepping towards the other side of the group. "Is there another bus you want to throw me under?"
Lizzie scoffed softly. "Fine, Daddy's girls. What about you, Lara?"
Elara blinked, looking between the two sides. Lizzie hardly used the nickname unless she wanted something from the golden-haired girl. Elara weighed her options. She could either work with Hope and Josie and deal with their bickering, or deal with Lizzie.
"Without drama," Elara echoed, making sure to make eye contact with Hope. She bent down and picked up a bucket and a sponge.
"Anyone else?"
After the two sides were drawn clearly, the groups separated and began to work on their tasks. As much as she didn't like cleaning up after other people, the task was nice. She didn't have to strain her brain with how to do it, but it took enough of her brain power to focus on what she was doing.
She stood in the center of the window with MG to her left. The two were the only ones trying to clean the window.
"C'mon, MG," Lizzie fussed. "Any slower and you'd be going in reverse."
MG sighed softly. "Look, I'm doing the best I can without vamping in public."
To their right sat Kaleb, who decided he wasn't going to clean. "That's plain pitiful, bruh."
"At least he's trying. I don't see you pitching in," Lizzie defended hypocritically.
Elara reached up, taking MG's sponge and swapping hers with his.
"'Cause this whole thing's whack," Kaleb justified. "What, we get punished for wanting to win a game fair and square?"
"Well, that's not the entire reason for being punished," Elara commented under her breath.
"It wasn't fair," MG clarified from the ladder. "We're supernatural, they're human."
Kaleb looked up at him. "And Lebron is the best player ever. Should he quit scoring? 'Cause no one on the court can check him."
Elara shook her head. "That's different."
"We're faster," he continued. "We're stronger. We're better. And we ain't got nothing to apologize for."
The four looked between each other. Kaleb did have a point.
A group of teenagers approached. Quickly, Elara recognized them as some of the kids from the football game. Connor was the easiest to pick out, wearing a black eye as a gift from the blonde werewolf. Elara shifted from where she stood to stand next to Lizzie, glaring at the tall boy.
His grinding voice pierced her ears as he grinned. "Hypothetical question. How bad would it suck if whoever did this graffiti just came back tonight and put it right back up again?" She noticed a smoothie in his hand.
Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Well, whoever it is, I hope he improves his spelling."
Elara glanced at the graffiti as the others around her snickered. "It's spelled wrong?" she whispered to MG.
"Yeah, you didn't notice?" he whispered back.
She gestured subtly towards her eyes. "Dyslexic."
MG nodded slightly, then they turned their attention back towards the group of thugs.
"Hey, MG," Dana said, a smile on her face. She sent Elara a small smile as well although less... flirty.
Gross.
"Dana. What's good?" MG asked. Elara scrunched her nose in confusion.
Lizzie chimed in. "Uh, he's busy, Dana."
"Um, he can speak for himself, Saltzman," Dana fired back.
MG, noticing the increasing tension, spoke, "you know what, I was just getting ready to grab a break."
Elara raised a brow curiously. When did this become a thing?
She opened her mouth to speak, an insult on the tip of her tongue, but then she heard Lizzie gasp.
Connor had thrown his smoothie on her.
"That's my bad," he said, a smirk on his face. Oh, she wanted to wipe it off so badly. "My bad."
Elara gritted her teeth, biting back a growl. She could've defended Lizzie, thrown Connor threw the window and finish what she started, but she couldn't. All she needed was two more strikes and that would've probably counted as five.
Lizzie stood there in shock, gasping, then she spun around and marched away from them. The normies laughed some more before leaving the Salvatore students alone.
The cleaning went by quickly afterwards. Fueled by some more anger and the desire to break the punching bag with her name on it, she scrubbed the window until it was spotless.
When she finished, she walked over to Dorian, who sat at a table at the Grille. The table was covered in leather-bound books.
"I'm done, now. Can I go?" she questioned.
Dorian looked up from the book he was reading. "And go where?"
Elara shrugged, standing across from him. "Anywhere but here. Some of the normies are getting on my last nerve."
"Well, maybe it's good for you to deal with it. Practice makes perfect."
"Yeah, I've had enough practice for the day," Elara snarked. "The window is spotless, and the graffiti is gone. I have nothing else left to do."
"I can't let you leave," Dorian said, shaking his head.
Elara leaned forward, glancing at what he was reading. She tilted her head to the side.
The gargoyle was a protector of man, a guardian of humans, destined to protect the piece of the key.
She paused at the feeling of someone approaching. On either side of her, Josie and Hope stopped, looking down at Dorian. The unnamed tension in the air could've been cut with a knife.
"We need to leave," Josie said.
Dorian shook his head, again. "I'm sorry. Like I told Elara, I can't let you leave."
Josie's arms were crossed. "No, I need to go home to see my sister."
"Your dad's with your sister," he explained. "And I'm under strict orders to keep you here."
"What?"
"Why?"
Elara and Josie asked the one-word questions at the same time.
Hope leaned past Elara to look at the open book on the table-- the same book that Elara had just read from-- brushing against her. "And why are you researching that?" she questioned.
Elara raised a hand slightly as if to ask a question in class. "Why would you need to know anything about a gargoyle? Aren't they fictional?"
She looked between Hope and Dorian, both of them wearing the same expression.
Worry.
Her brows shot up. "Aren't they?"
[a.n. Exams are kicking my ass.]