𝗣𝗶𝗻𝗲-𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀

ᴘɪɴᴇ-ʜᴇᴀʀᴛꜱ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪᴠᴇ

-Gabriella, 16 years old-

I was back in my mother's old red car. 

The same car she'd dumped me at St Caspers in, all those years ago. But this time, we were going the wrong way. Away from the school. I looked around, confused, and tugged at my seat-belt as she hummed to pop music in the driving seat.

"Wha- Where are we-" I looked over my shoulder just as a melancholy howl echoed around the woodland, stirring birds from their branches, and making the tree trunks quiver.

My heart began to pound like a marching band had taken residence in my chest.

"Mum? We're going the wrong way." I told her, and unclipped my seat belt so I could get a better view of the road we were leaving behind.  Sure enough, there were two wolves: one sandy, the other black. The black one quickly overtook our car, and the sandy coloured one howled to the sky as he ran directly behind. 

"Mum! Pull over." I yelped.

She continued to hum to her pop music, as if she couldn't even hear me. 

Everything snapped to black, my breath caught in my throat, and suddenly I was acutely aware of the blanket tangled around my legs and the pillow my right cheek was pressed against. 

A dream. 

It was just a dream.

I woke up sprawled over Will's bed, and my tensed muscles sunk down into the mattress as any semblance of danger was swept away with my sleep. I breathed in deeply, and pulled my arm back onto the bed where it had been hanging off. Mmm. The pillow smelled of Will, and the room smelled of both the boys. Much better then the stinging chemical smell of Josie's perfume, and the stench of the mothballs I had to keep in my wardrobe.

But something was wrong. 

I flexed my fingers, and breathed in deep again. 

Luka and Will... Luka and Will... Luka and Will?! Why the hell was I smelling them? I should be back in my dorm room by now!

With a gasp of realization, I scrambled off the bed, and rubbed my eyes open, tucking my tangled hair behind my ears as I took in the scene before me.

Luka was snoring quietly on his bed, both arms curled under his pillow, his hair ruffled. Will seemed to have adapted to me hogging his bed for the night, and had ended up sleeping in a very uncomfortable hunched-over way against the wall, near where my feet had been. Even though I could tell he'd wake up with a sore neck, his features were still relaxed, and his arms that were propped up against his knees didn't look too numb. But still... I felt terrible.

This feeling, however, was promptly dwarfed by another, much more important one: all-consuming, ice-cold, heart-stopping fear.

Oh, we were so dead.

Josie my roommate was nice and all, and had been amicable from the minute I met her. But she seemed to have set her heart on becoming Mr Bream's favorite a year back, in the hopes that he would promote her to Prefect someday... And that meant she'd suddenly 'come to the realization' that me, Will, and Luka shouldn't be friends anymore. It was all suck-up behavior, and she was still lovely otherwise, so I'd just ignored it, but now I wasn't so sure if that was possible. 

With me neglecting to show up for bed last night, she'd have definitely pulled her hot-pink laptop open and sent an urgent email (likely with a jolt of unbridled joy and excitement) to the guy that hated us most: Mr goddamn Bream. I was surprised that he hadn't burst the door down and signed us up to the Army in a fit of rage yet.