Chapter 4

Cam's alarm went off at five am but he rolled over and hit the snooze button. His Dad had to come in ten minutes later to drag him out of bed.

"Hey sleepyhead," his Dad joked, "wakey wakey eggs and bakey. Come on we have to go. I'll be late for my first meeting if we don't get in the water now."

Cam sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, wanting so much to just flop right back down again, but the itch was intense and persistent.

So he got up and threw on a pair of jeans and hoody not even bothering with a t-shirt. Grabbing his backpack he followed his father out the sliding door of his basement room.

He walked bleary eyed to the shore shuffling his feet the whole time. His hands crammed into his pockets for warmth. When he got there he wasted no time in stripping and wrapping the skin around his waist firmly.

He was still in human form when he dove in but was a seal before his head crested the wave. Feeling marginally better he dove and swam after his father further out from the break water to the deeper ocean floor.

They frolicked for almost an hour and came back to shore to hurriedly get dressed in the midwinter chill of early morning January.

He towel dried his hair as he walked home.

Usually the morning dip did wonders to rejuvenate him but today he just felt tired and weak. He skipped his usual breakfast routine with his father before he took off for work with the excuse he had some school work to do in his room.

Once in his room he flopped back on his bed, fell back into a deep slumber and didn't wake again until Maddy, the oldest of his sisters, popped her head around his bedroom door and yelled.

"Hey dweeb, your girlfriend's waiting for you in the driveway. "

Cam woke up with a jolt and sat straight up in bed. What was wrong with him? His eyes darted to his bedside clock to confirm his sister wasn't playing him. Aahhh MAAANN! It was Meg's usual picked up time. SHIT!

He staggered out of bed in his boxers much to the protest of his younger sister who threw her hand over her eyes and said, "Whoa warn a girl before you flash your junk," as she promptly left the room.

He dashed around the room grabbing clean clothes from his drawers and practically danced and hopped right into everything. He took a swig of mouthwash from his adjacent bathroom, which was one of the only perks of being the eldest and the only boy, and swished it around in his mouth for a minute before spitting it out.

He raced upstairs and grabbing his backpack , threw it over his shoulder, and was about to leave before he remembered.

Damn there's no friggin'way he's making it through morning classes without a coffee.

He switched directions, as he heard the annoyed beep of Meg's car horn, and took off for the kitchen. He slid across the floor in his sneakers grabbed a to-go mug and sent a mental thanks to his father for leaving at least one cup of joe for him in the press.

Then he filled the cup nearly full before reversing his direction and racing outside.

He threw his hood up before getting in the car. It was raining like someone had turned on a faucet in the sky and had decided that water wasn't a precious resource after all.

When he got into the car in a hurry he nearly spilled the brew in his haste.

"Hey," Megan complained," new car remember!"

He muttered, "Sorry," from beside her.

When she wouldn't let it go and said, "I thought we agreed no food and drink in Betsy?"

He barked back, "Well since this is the only breakfast I'm having today. How about you cut me some slack?"

Megan's eyebrows furrowed, "Whoa cranky much," she asked caustically?

"Shit sorry Meg I'm just tired," he pulled down his hood as he said it, and all of a sudden she wasn't angry any more, in fact she started laughing her ass off.

When he went to ask what? She pointed to his hair and threw down the mirror attached to the visor.

He saw it then; his hair had dried on one side of his head sticking straight up. Shit he thought now I not only have to walk into school late, but I have to walk into class with this monstrosity of a hairstyle.

He started madly trying to get it to flatten out as he let out a curse.

Meg came to his recue though when she handed him her hairbrush from her bag and bottle of hand cream.

"Here use this," she chuckled as she leaned in for a kiss, but promptly leaned back before she could make contact and added, "and this," as she handed him a travel toothbrush and toothpaste.

Thank heavens for girls and their bottomless purses he thought. He just might make it through this morning without completely humiliating himself.

He sat back and sipped his coffee as he applied the moisturizer to the mother of all bed-head and combed it down.

Cam spent his morning feeling cranky and hating the world. He kept his head down in class hoping to escape notice by the teachers. The last thing he wanted to have to do was pretend he gave a shit. By 10am his stomach was growling so loud that he was sure everyone could hear it, even if they didn't have preternatural hearing. It was confirmed in geography class when Steinman threw him an apple from her desk and said;

"Here eat this; I can't hear myself think over here."

Everyone had chuckled and he had gone bright red.

So much for escaping notice.

By lunch he was ready to gnaw his own arm off. He piled both specials on his plate before joining the crew and hadn't even sat down before he stared shoveling it in his mouth.

Megan laughed at him and ruffled his hair as she did it.

He could tell the atmosphere was much more relaxed today. Kelly was practically sitting in Xan's front pocket when he joined them. So he guessed they had worked things out.

When Xan leaned forward and asked for Lauren to do her 'Cone of Silence' magical thing everyone was all ears.

"Did you guys hear?" Xander began conspiratorially, "There was an attack on the Council Guard headquarters here in San Fran last night. Rumour has it that Liam and his crew have allied themselves with the Berserkers. And the council is shitting kittens."

Cam didn't know what to say, and he could see by the expressions on his friends' faces that they had no clue either. This was major. The berserkers are a legendary magical Norse elite fighting group that is renowned for their tenacity. Once they set their sights on a target they never give up until that target is destroyed. Who could blame the council for taking this seriously? He'd be running for the hills if they even looked in his direction.

Cam couldn't help wondering: How Liam convinced them to join his crazy cause? What did they have to gain by turning on the council?

"Guys do you know what this might mean?" Xander asked excitedly.

"Yeah," Zach spoke up, "we're going to get caught in the cross fire of even more serious shit?" he concluded caustically.

"But it could also mean that we might win." Brenna added from her corner of the table.

Zach turned a glare her way while Connor moved in close behind her protectively, stating in his rich Southie accent, "Now Zach, I know you think that Liam has some wicked ideas rattling around in his bat shit crazy noggin of his, but who's to say this won't work out for us?"

Not surprisingly Lauren jumped to Zach's defense, "look guys," she pleaded, "you've got to listen. I think I know what Zach is trying to say. "She locked eyes with everyone before concluding her statement. "He's saying the council is like a wild animal that's being backed into a corner and is more dangerous because of it."

"So it's not like we can even do anything about it." Quinn pointed out.

"Yeah, I vote we stay out of the fight unless they take the fight to us, "Ray interjected.

I agree," Liv added. "I mean I can understand us getting involved when they attacked the school. They were planning on hurting our friends . . ."

"And it's our school; we had to defend it." Marley finished for her.

"None of us even like the council, do we?" Ryan asked as he looked to everyone at the table.

Everyone nodded in agreement. There was no love lost there.

"Well that settles it then," Xander interjected, "we stay out of it unless they take the fight to us."

"Ya'll best be listen up, Xan's right. There's nothing we can do anyway. If I'm no match for the berserkers, you wimps don't even stand a chance, "Kelly purred as she licked Xander's lips suggestively.

Okay. . . Cam shuddered . . . that was gross. "Guys I think we need to listen to Zach," Cam sighed, "I hate to be all doom and gloom here, but I don't think this is good for anyone."

"Yeah," Meg said, "have you forgotten who makes up the council guards? Hafbloods just like us."

"Shit we haven't thought of that," CJ did a face palm, "what if this fight goes on for years. We'll be expected to fight the berserkers, won't we?"

Everyone shuddered at the thought and Cam pulled Meg a little closer to him.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Zach said with his usual cool head, "but if it does I'm sure we'll be more than trained for the task."

Needless to say no one but Trav and Kyle had their appetite after that.

Everyone cleared their trays when the bell rang and took off for their afternoon magic classes breaking into smaller groups according to the classes they would take.

Cam held Megan back from the gang for a tick he wanted a moment to hold her before they had to go their separate ways.

He took her long lithe body into his arms. Her hair smelled like the beach to him and her body felt like a summer day all warm and inviting and he just wanted to steal her away. If it meant she'd never be in danger, but that was their world.

They caught up with everyone standing around the entrance to the magic wing. They were all crowding around and complaining irritably.

Then it started making sense to him what the holdup was. The kids couldn't get into the magic wing. No one could. His theory was confirmed when the teachers came through from the other side looking like someone had shit in their cornflakes.

Principal Tuma addressed the noisy students and announced, "May I have your attention. You must be wondering what is going on and as you may have also heard from a very reliable grape vine," he turned to look at Xander who had the good sense to look sheepish, "That there was an attack on the Council Guard's headquarters here in San Francisco. Our esteemed council has decided that it would be best to increase security her at the school as well. "

"So until further notice the Enlightened will cross the magical barrier with their mentors. Please line up behind your mentors and we will begin to take you through one group at a time."

Everyone started shuffling around noisily trying to get to their mentor through the crowd, but eventually everyone was standing in neat little rows behind some very annoyed looking magical beings. None of which looked very happy about having to perform this task.

Cam's was the second group to go through. He couldn't help hoping that this was short lived because it was going to be a pain in the ass everyday they had to do this.

For the rest of the afternoon the magical classes went as usual; it wasn't until the end of the day that things got weird – like really, really weird.

Cam came to the door of the gym ready to get a good work out in. He'd spent an afternoon trying to pay attention to the lectures, but failed miserably. He was a jumbled knot of nerves by the end of the day and just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.

There was another cluster of kids at the door looking in with shocked looks on their faces when he thought what now?

"Hey guys," he said to the mixed group of first to fifth year students, "What's the deal?"

But that's all he got out before he was sucked into the wonder of it. Around the door way he could see the arena. That's the only word he could find to describe it. Obstacles, tracks, targets, weights, hoops hung in mid air 20-30 feet up so small they were barely noticeable. There were even lakes in the distance. And when he meant distance he meant miles away he had had to use his preternatural sight to see them.

That's a first he thought as he crested the doorway. WTF was going on.

The last of the stragglers joined the huddled students as Helsing stepped up in front of them to make an announcement.

"Good afternoon children. Please step forward and gather round."

Helsing took a deep breath before continuing. He didn't look at all happy to be addressing them, but he continued anyway, "the council thought given the stress of the last little while that it would be a nice break for you to forego your usual training day for a day of fun."

He cleared his throat and looked to Tuma who just nodded back and gestured for him to continue.

"They've asked us to set up some challenges to access your speed, strength and, agility. The council thought it might be fun to include a little friendly competition for today."

The kids erupted then and started jumping up and down, whooping and hollering.

Wow Cam thought that does sound like fun and he began to beam from ear to ear. He looked over to see a lot of the kids giving their arch rivals the stink eye jokingly as they started smack talking each other with "you're goin' down, to be returned with a 'bring it pretty boy'.

Today's training really wasn't going to suck. Cam couldn't wait to get in the water. He clutched his trusty red back pack excitedly as he turned to look at Meg.

He was shocked to find her not even looking at their instructors. When his eyes followed her gaze they landed on a group of official looking men and women sitting in folding lawn chairs with note books tucked neatly on their laps.

He narrowed his eyes and looked back at his crew they were all looking at the same thing. A tight chill danced up Cam's spine as his tense muscles spasmed.

Nope . . . he had no idea what was going on here, but he would bet his last dollar it had nothing to do with fun and games.

****************** THANKS FOR READING********************

I hope you all liked this chapter -- What could be happening?. Do you think Cam is just being paranoid or do you think he should trust his instincts?

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