Underneath the Moonlight

Tick...tick...tick...tick

I swear the more I look at the clock, the slower each time it gets. It's like it's trying to taunt me on purpose. I had to resit the urge of tapping my nails on the desk as I waited for the bell to ring, ending first period.

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 'Come on, you're almost there.' I thought to myself. 5... 4... 3... 2...

RING !!!!!!!!

I left out of the Chemistry room through the back door so quickly, it only took me a matter of seconds to be halfway down the hall. I'm so light on my feet that I don't even make a sound... that is until I turn the corner and run right into someone. The impact caused only me to fall on my butt while the bystander stood there in shock. Little did I know who I actually ran into until I heard his voice.

"Ugh, watch where you're going, will you!" Jackson's voice sounded annoyed as I looked up and he rubbed his face.

"Of all the people here, I would run into you." I huffed as I began to gather all my stuff from the ground. I could tell Jackson's state of mind totally changed when he saw that it was ME that he bumped into.

"Alaycia?" His voice sounded confused.

"Hi to you too.." I sighed as I picked up the rest of my stuff and stood up straight, looking directly at him. Jackson's face was still in a bit of shock about seeing me. It's as if he didn't just notice me earlier in class before he ran out.
Even though there are other kids walking in the hallway, the awkward silence between us is noticeable. I was about to break it when someone else did for me.

"There you are, Laci. I tried calling out to you, but you ran out the room before I could even speak." Danny came behind us. He saw me and then he saw Jackson. "Hey Jackson, are you feeling any better?"

"Yeah Danny, I'm fine now." Jackson said as he wiped his nose with his sleeve. I looked at the clock down the hall as a distraction.

"I'm sorry but I do have to get to class." I tried to walk away, but Danny stopped me.

"Whoa Laci, what's the rush?" he said to me. "Class doesn't start for the next 10 minutes."

"I know, it's just...." I tried thinking of something quick to say. "I'm still trying to get used to this place, that's all."

"Well, what's your next class? Jackson and I can take you there." Danny offered.

"No!" I said too quickly, "I mean, I don't want to get you guys late to your next period because of me."

"Oh it's not a big deal at all, our teacher will understand." Danny insisted as he put his arm around my shoulders, "Jackson and I will be glad enough to take you, plus it'll give us some time to catch up."

Once Danny has his mind on something, he will not let it go so I had no choice but to let him escort me. As we walked down the hallway, Jackson stayed trailing behind us. It felt relieving but weird at the same time, because even though he didn't speak to me, he would give me this weird look as if something really bad is bothering him about me. I tried to not pay attention as Danny and I conversated.
He told me how much a lot of people (including him and Jackson) were worried about me and how they missed me while I was gone. It feels nice to know that people actually genuinely cared me after my 'accident'.

It only took a few minutes for the boys to show me my next class, which happened to be Geometry. At the door, Danny promised that we should hang out like old times again and said that I could sit at their table during lunch if I wanted to. I told him that I would think about the offer. He hugged me by which he then kissed the side of my forehead and called me by my old nickname "Princess".
I hit him in the arm, knowing that I despise that nickname. He laughed as he and Jackson left to go to their own classes. I went inside the classroom and handed my information to the teacher, Mrs. Coleman. She looked over my papers and just told me to sit down in one of the empty desks somewhere in the room, so I did. It only took few minutes for the rest of the students to show up, and after that Mrs. Coleman began teaching. Even though I've been out of the school system for almost an entire year, everything that I'm seeing today does not look challenging at all. This all seems too easy to me, but it was my decision to come back to school, so here I am.

Math is one of my worst subjects but I got through the entire class period just in time for the next bell to ring. My next class is History which thankfully happens to be close by. I grabbed my stuff and made my way there when I felt my phone move in my pocket. I pulled it out to see that Chris is calling me, which seems strange but I answered it regardless.

"You do realize that I'm still in school, right?" I automatically say.

"Hi to you, little sister." I can hear his laugh. "Yes I'm aware that you're on campus, but I also know that this is one of your class changes and I just wanted to check up on you, that's all."

"Well it's nice of you to do that, even though I just saw you like, oh I don't know, 3 hours ago?" I leaned against the corner of the wall, next to the window letting out a smirk.

"Yeah yeah yeah, miss smart alack. Speaking of which, how is your first day back? Have you seen any of your old friends yet?"

"A few, including Pretty Boy. He's in my Chem class so far." I sighed heavily into the phone.

"I bet that sounds like a lot of fun."I can instantly sense his sarcasm. "Well the other reason I called is because mom and dad wanted to know how you were doing. I know your pretty little self has to get to class so I'll let you go for now."

"I'll see you when you have to get me." I was about to end the conversation, but then I thought of something. "Chris, one more thing. Have you heard anything yet about... you know."

"Nope, nothing so far, sorry." He got serious. "Don't worry too much. We will find Lydia as soon as possible. It's our job anyway. If there is anything about her whereabouts, I will let you know. Alright, I got to let you go. Love you, baby sis."

Just like that, the phone conversation ended and I had to hurry up to my History class before I'm late. When I arrived, the teacher exempted me for being late since I'm a new student. She introduced me to the class (which I wished she didn't) and then placed me in one of the empty desks in the middle of the room. During the middle of class, we began watching a video that we had to take notes on. In the middle of doing so, even with the video being loud and all, I could hear people around the class in quiet convo's. I could overhear a few in particular, but I wished I hadn't.

"...Is that the new girl that everyone's taking about?"

"Yeah, that's her. She just enrolled back today..."

"She's the girl who they said disappeared last year.."

"I heard she got kidnapped.."

"....Maybe she just ran away.."

"...I hear that weird stuff happens when anyone is around her..."

"...Do you think that she could be a witch or something? She has those eyes..."

I had to stop taking notes and lay my head in my arms on the desk. I need to clear my mind and block all of the unnecessary noises that was coming all around me. A few minutes passed by as the comments stopped and I couldn't hear them anymore. I raised up my head just in time for the video to stop. I rubbed my eyes just in case they didn't start glowing out of nowhere during class.

"Videos like this always knock me out too." A voice from my left caught my attention. I looked over to see a boy with a familiar face looking to the front of the class, but spoke towards me.

I moved my hair out of my face a bit. "I had to put my head down for a bit." I told the guy.

"Headache?"

"I guess you can say that." I shrugged as class kept going on. "But it should be going away anytime now."

"That's good. I would get a headache too if I had to listen to all of the annoying gossip that goes around this school." He said to me. It caught me off guard for a minute when I realised he found out the real reason why I put my head down. I have to admit that this dude is observant, so I'll give him that.

"It seems like they're everywhere." I whispered to him, making sure that no one else could hear as the teacher went on his lesson.

"All you can do is ignore them. I know I do." He looked at me this time and gave me a half smile as I did the same to him. The last few minutes of class went on peacefully and I was itching for that last bell to ring. Once it rang, I sprung out of my seat and was about to leave the class when he caught my attention.

"Alaycia." As soon as I turned around, a camera light flashed in front of me. When I got my vision back, I could see the expensive camera that he held in his hands. "It's a good thing you came back. We've missed you around here."

"Thanks, Matt." I smiled at him as I left the room. As I walked down the hall, I realised that it was lunchtime as I see everyone rushing to go to the cafeteria. I watched as all of them got their food and started conversating with all of the friends, but I just stood at the lockers and witnessed them. I guess my anxiety got the best of me again as I started backing away, but I stopped when I feel something touch my hand. I look down to see someone's hand wrapped in mine, and I heard his voice before I saw his face.

"I heard you were here, flower." The excitement in me rose up when I heard his voice, that I almost started crying when I turned around and saw him. The emotion was replaced with worry when I saw the bruising on his face.

"Isaac, what happened to your face?" I placed my hand gently on his black eye so that I wouldn't cause him pain.

"Don't worry about it, Laci. I'm fine." He assured me as he took my hand away from his injury, but still held it in his grasp. He quickly avoided the subject by asking me if I was hungry and wanting to get lunch. My stomach answered before I could even get a word out, and immediately out of nowhere I blushed. He let out a small laugh in response and escorted me into the lunch room. When we got in there, there were a lot more people than what I thought it would be. Of all of the delicious food options that there were in the cafeteria, I only grabbed a sub sandwich, two apples and a water. While in the middle of paying for the food, I could hear out of the corner of my ear the same gossiping that was going on in my last period but it was more intense this time. It really got to me as Isaac noticed my hands shaking and me biting my lip.
I saw him look towards everyone and then asked me if I wanted to go eat somewhere more 'quiet-like'. I nodded as he took my arm and led me out the cafeteria. I tried to avoid making eye contact with people as I looked to the floor, but just ending up closing my eyes as I tried to calm myself.

Isaac's idea of quiet-like was back into the hallway where it was indeed more pleasant than being in there with all of the commotion. My eyes were still closed as we sat down so that I could keep my emotions together.

"I swear, mindless gossip spreads around this school like a disease." I heard him say, displaying his thoughts about the other students. "Why can't they just keep their thoughts to themselves and leave people alone?"

He read my mind exactly. My nerves were calm enough to that my body wasn't tensing anymore, and I laid my head right on Isaac's chest. I felt him tense up for a second and then eased himself as he wrapped his arm around me.

"Almost a whole year has past since I've been gone," I spoke to him, "and people still talk shit like we are in fucking middle school."

Isaac propped his chin on top of my head and rubbed my arm. "It's going to alright, flower. Just ignore it, they have nothing worth saying anything bad about you."

'Oh, Isaac. If only you knew about what I can do, you would think otherwise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"I hope she's okay." I heard Scott mutter as we left the cafeteria and on the way to Coach's Econ class.

"After being kidnapped by a bunch of alpha werewolves for almost a whole year, and then having to come back to a school where they gossip about from the moment you step onto campus, I'm surprised that she hasn't had a panic attack yet." I say to him.

"How are you so sure that those were alphas that took her?"

"Scott, I know what I saw, okay?" I said as we entered the classroom and took our seats. "Those were red eyes I saw; All of them had it."

"I still don't see how you could have seen that." Scott questioned me. "I mean, how is it that you were able to see into her nightmare by her just touching your arm?"

"I honestly don't know that part, Scott. It's all a huge mystery..." My mind wandered as I saw the same girl that we are talking about, just walked into the classroom. Scott noticed my reaction and followed my gaze to look at her. We weren't the only ones who noticed as well since Jackson, Danny and even Allison raised their heads too. Alaycia seemed to noticed our staring because as soon as she looked in our direction, she tried to hide her face behind her bangs and beanie. She has so much anxiety inside of her that when Coach approached her, she almost jumped out of her skin. Alaycia handed him her papers and according from what we heard, she's in this class too. Coach gave her a seat behind Danny on our side of the room, and she still looked like she wanted to avoid eye contact with everyone.

'And honestly, who could blame her? From all of the gossiping that I've heard throughout the day, not all of them sound very pleasant.' I thought to myself as class began to start. 'Still, a lot of things don't make sense. What would a bunch of werewolves want with her? Were the ones who kidnapped her really all Alphas? How did she manage to escape them? What really happened the night she disappeared? Did she really make those tree branches fall and burst into flames when Scott and I tried to go after her? How was it that I was able to see into her nightmare that time in the hospital? And then there's the most important question of all:

Is this girl really Human?'

For the rest of the class while Coach kept trying to teach without insulting anybody, me and Scott were also trying to figures out on clues on to what is really the deal with Alaycia. Both of us were about to up to her when Coach left the room for a few minutes, but Danny caught her attention until Coach came back with a stack of papers for all of us to have for homework. He chose a person out of the class to pass them out to us, and in this case, He chose Alaycia to do. She looked hesitant at first, but she agreed to do the task. For each person that she gave a packet to, they all stared at her but she never made eye contact with them...
that is until she came to us.
She gave both me and Scott a shy smile when she handed us our papers and we returned the favor. When she past us, my phone started buzzing indicating that I got a text. It was from an unknown number, but I read the message anyway.

"Stiles, what's up?" Scott asked. I showed him the message, which said: Thank you both for saving me that night.We immediately look at Alaycia who sat back down in her seat, with her phone in hand.

"Did she send that?" Scott thought aloud and then his phone buzzed too. He looked at his screen and his eyes went wide. He showed me his message which both had us convinced that It was Alaycia who messaged us.

I know what you are, Scott.