Blackmailing A Werewolf

Chapter 2

Wandering into the schoolyard Tessa watched friendship groups congregate, bunches of blood blazers gathering soaking in every last second of freedom while they waited for the first bell. Walter and her head for the picnic benches in the corner, no one is there yet but it is usually where their little group gathers. If they were wolves she would call them packmates. If she were human she would deem them friends.

Flopping onto the bench, the smooth leather strap of her satchel slipping from her fingertips she stared at the school while Walter pulled out his phone. The school had been built for the Victorian children of the hills, the original sand stone rectangle with enormous windows winked at her like eyes. The brass school bell still sits above the oak door and at half eight it would clang until Tessa's sensitive ears fell off her head. Its aura of discipline reminded her of her mum's lecture this morning.

Tessa received this lecture exactly twelve times a year, her mum had it so perfectly rehearsed sometimes Tessa thought she must be reading off flashcards. It always started with how strong the pull of the moon is going to be today and how they have to be stronger. Pause for obligatory sip of milky tea. How every decision would affect the wolf, how everything that affects the wolf affects the pack. A mouthful of soggy Weetabix is consumed. How keeping the secret is paramount, that if anyone ever found out about them they would be in a government testing facility or hunted out of existence before they could even blink.

Now while all of this was true, Sally always said it in a way that made Tessa grit her teeth. As if Tessa didn't know someone finding out their secret would be deadly. Tessa was a lot of things, but she wasn't stupid. The secret dies with us ~ that's how her mum always finished the speech.

Sighing, Tessa glanced at Walter, at least him pulling faces across from her at the table made this morning's speech somewhat bearable. Noticing his nails she bit her lip.

"Why did you take your nail polish off?"

"Cause I'd rather not be laughed off the rugby field later." He looked at the now bare nails with a grimace, picking at the edges of them as if he could will the lilac they'd been the night before to return so only he can see it. "I'll put it back on Friday night."

"I'll do it for you if you like, you always mess up your right hand."

"Walter!" Tessa knew without looking that the shout came from Otto Boulevard, everyone in Layman's Way Secondary School knew the voice of Otto Boulevard because he never stopped talking. Glancing at Walter, she watched his face crease with a smile as Otto approached air molecules vibrating around him as he bounced across the schoolyard. Otto's short arms wrapped around their necks as he hugged them both, although it felt more like strangling to Tessa and they both heaved him off them wearing matching fake scowls. "I've missed you guys so much."

"You came round the night before last." Said Tessa. "Mum practically had to turn the hose pipe on you to get you to leave."

"Oh stop it," He waved a ring-covered hand in her face, with a dramatic sigh the kind only Otto can pull off without being laughed at. He threw his hemp bag onto the picnic table and slumped in between them. For Walter's sake, Tessa pretended not to notice how Otto pressed his entire leg into Walter like he was trying to merge them into one being. "Your Ma loves me."

"Only cause you tell her all the village gossip." Walter mutters fiddling with the leather bracelets stacked on his wrists. Another bracelet would be added on October 22nd to commemorate another year of friendship between Otto and Walter bringing the total number of bracelets on their arms to thirteen.

"Speaking of which," Lowering his voice Otto glanced over his shoulders with a smile promising the juiciest gossip in the village. The smile formed a dimple in his tawny cheek above the scar from where he fell off the handlebars of Walter's bike when they were all riding to school once. He beckoned them closer, they obliged, small villages like Layman's Way survived on gossip. "So you know the Clare's?"