Wild and Free

(Auden’s POV)

It was Saturday and the urge to claw Amelia’s face to shreds still had not passed.

I’d been subtly avoiding their entire swarm of hornets for the past week, not wanting to risk losing my temper in public.

Mel had let me go home the other night a little early, after I lied and told him I wasn’t feeling well. I totally could’ve stayed and beat her to a pulp in that insult waar but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me sweat.

And then there was Mason. Oh the idiot just stood there and watched the entire exchange with an amused smile on his face. Ugh! The nerve of some people. It made me seriously question if there was a single nice bone in his body and also whether he and Kenzie were actually related.

Kenzie was such a nice person, caring about the slightest things that might offend someone. And despite that kindness she seemed to know how to take care of herself to. She came from the kind of family that, to me, seemed like one that everyone to come from if they were to turn out as good as her. Which was completely surprising because Mason came from the same family.

Mason was almost the total opposite of his sister. From what I’d observed of him, he didn’t seem to care about school or anything else. He hung around with his two friends all the time. They seemed alright, though I’d never spoken to them, also making me wonder why they’d hang around someone as vile as Mason. And then there was the fact that he had the worst taste in females, seeing as he and Amelia were basically a thing in the second week he’d been there.

“Sounds like an asshole,” Holden said, dodging a punch I threw to his face.

I laughed in agreement, “You’ve never even met him.”

“Haven’t really gotten the opportunity. It’s not my fault that Mr. Warburton has put me in detention for the past two weeks,” he excused as I punched him in the collarbone.

“I’m pretty sure it is your fault.”

We’d been sparring for like ten whole minutes and neither of us made any big attempts to take the other down. He, deciding it was time to make a move, charged toward me capturing me around my waist and knocking me against the stonewall of the gym. The air was knocked from me with a grunt and I could tell Holden was smirking.

I shook my head and reacted quickly, using his hunched position to my advantage to ram my knee in his stomach. He crumpled to the ground, coughing in pain. Immediately, I got on top of him, holding his throat tightly with one hand and the other to keep his hands away.

“Yield?” I asked threateningly as his face began to turn blue. He nodded and sneaked out something that vaguely resembled a word that I assumed was yes before I let him go.

He greedily gulped the air back into his lungs and rolled onto his side.

“You- a-are ruthless,” he coughed.

I smirked and held out a hand to help him up, which he took gladly.

The two of us walked over the the bench that Cassie sat on while mindlessly scrolling through her phone.

“Nice take down A,” she high fived me. “Holden, that was pitiful.”

We both laughed as our friend grabbed his water bottle, gulped it down and threw it at us.

“Can we call it a day? It’s getting dark and if Auden beats me up any more i’m going to have permanent damage to my brain. Or lungs. Or any other bodily organ. Either way, I can’t handle it,” he exasperated.

Cassie and I rolled our eyes, grabbing our bags and pushing Holden out of the doors of his dad’s gym.

In comparison to both mine and Cassie’s lives, Holden’s was completely different.

Holden’s dad had been in the military and once he’d left, their family opened up the gym in White Chapel. His mother worked at the town hospital as a nurse. Currently she was pregnant with a little girl who was soon due to be Holden’s new little sister. As of that point he was the oldest of three, the other two being in middle school. The age difference between him and his new sister is what most would refer to be as strange but Holden’s parents were very young and in love when they had him so it wasn’t completely unusual that they wanted another kid.

If Holden wasn’t such an immature goofball he’d probably have a girlfriend. His dark brown spiky-ish hair and mischievous brown eyes would be very attractive to Cassie and I if we’d not witnessed him do a plethora of extremely unattractive things.

He was really smart and also has what I would consider a perfect life. But then again, I guess at that point I had very low standards.

I guess I would be lying if I claimed I didn’t miss being in a pack. Who wouldn’t? A pack is a combination of friends and relatives, all grouped into one family. Everyone is supposed to have your back, no matter what, and while that was not always the case for me, it was better than being alone.

Again I’ll say in the beginning it was amazing but after a while the loneliness sort of consumes you, even with great friends like Holden and Cassie. There were certain things you just couldn’t talk about to them, not because they were bad people but because they just wouldn’t understand. Kenzie is the only one who would and she didn’t even know.

Sometimes I would consider telling her. It would be amazing to have a werewolf friend after so long being on my own. But I knew that telling her would lead to so much that I just couldn’t handle. Packs had rules. Telling Kenzie about what I really was and asking her to keep quiet, would be breaking those rules. It’d be especially bad because, as I’d kept forgetting, she was an Alpha. Maybe not the future head of her pack but still from an Alpha family with Alpha blood running through her. That kind of power and position was not one to be taken lightly.

“Auden?” Cassie’s voice asked, snapping me out of my trance of thought.

“Yeah?”

She raised an eyebrow at me, “You okay?”

I nodded.

“I thought Holden was supposed to be the one with the brain damage here,” she joked, nudging him in the ribs, “Why are you spacing out?”

“Just thinking…” I trailed off, opening the door of Cassie’s car.

Holden got in his own car and drove away after he’d gotten a call from his dad to come home and babysit for the rest of the night.

I was about to hop into Cassie’s car when I noticed Kenzie walking down the sidewalk, her eyes glued to her phone. Again I could’ve sworn they looked like they were white instead of their natural brown. Perhaps it was part of her Alpha ability. Who knows.

“Kenzie?” I asked. Her head shot up and she looked around for a second before meeting my gaze.

“Hey guys,” she greeted, her voice quivering a little bit, like she was nervous. “What were you up to?”

“We were just hanging out for a little. I was thinking about going for a walk in the forest, it’s really nice at night and I know the best trails,” I told her. “Did you want to come?”

“Um, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she stammered, looking over her shoulder.

“Come on, it’s so much fun. The trail I run on a lot leads to a really pretty waterfall-”

“No I mean I don’t think it’s safe,” she cut me off, her nervousness showing through her seemingly brave act.

“Why wouldn’t it be safe? I told you, I go all the time.”

“I don’t know, I just don’t feel very right about it,” she bit her lip, looking behind her again.

I traded a confused look with Cassie.

“Okay well that’s fine, we won’t make you go,” Cassie said. “I guess we’ll catch up with you on Monday then?”

“No!” she said surprising Cassie and I, “I mean, I’ll go with you because I don’t want anything to happen to you guys, but I’m kind of out with my brother and his friends so I have to wait a minute.”

“If he’s with Amelia then I’m sorry but I’m leaving. Being in the same building as her at school all week is bad enough, I’m not going to take a night stroll with her if I can avoid it.” I said.

“No, no, no, he’s just with Greyson and Riley. We came out to get some dinner because our father wanted us out of the house for the night,” she explained, looking again, “it’s just us, no Amelia or anyone else.”

“Fine, we’ll wait,” I said, going back to the car and grabbing my phone from my bag in the back.

Less than five minutes later, the trio exited the restaurant that we stood outside of, one of the other restaurants in town other than Mel’s.

When Mason saw me, his face was written in confusion. Although quickly wiped away, it was not quickly enough for me not to notice.

“What’s going on?” He asked, coming up beside his sister.

Kenzie turned and looked him straight in the eye, “Auden and Cassie are going on a walk, in the forest, now.”

Mason shifted uncomfortably and he looked from his sister to me a couple times before settling on my eyes for a moment, “It’s not safe out there.”

“Please. I’ve been here longer than you, and Cassie even longer. I hardly think you’re in a position to tell us whether the place you’ve been in for two weeks is safe or not,” I scoffed, folding my arms over my chest. I turned to Kenzie, “It’s okay if you don’t want to come but Cassie and I are going to go, for fun. If anything goes wrong, which is pretty unlikely, we’ll let you know. We’ll be fine.”

Cassie nodded in agreement and the two of us, together, walked past their little pack and in the direction of the forest trail.

“Come on guys wait please?” Kenzie called from behind us. “I’m coming!”

We stopped for her, waiting while she exchanged some words with Mason.

“You know what Father warned us about, and what I told you. Going out there is suicide,” I heard him tell her, though their conversation was meant to be private.

“Yeah but they don’t know that!” Kenzie replied, “Someone has to be out there with them in case something happens.”

“What are you going to do if something does happen? Morph? In front of them, that’s breaking a huge rule.”

“Not if no one knows about it!” Kenzie argued. “But what other choice do I have? Let them risk their lives and have no chance?”

Mason looked like he wanted to argue but held back. The twins stared at each other for a good minute before talking again, probably mind linking each other, for reasons unknown.

“Fine, but be careful,” he said.

Kenzie nodded and the jogged over to join us before we all went into the woods.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend