The day was dragging, the kind of heavy, gray Tuesday where everyone seemed just a little more irritable. Lunch had just ended, and the hallway was a wall-to-wall mess of bodies moving between periods. Gabriel was a few paces ahead of me, weaving through the crowd. I could tell by his posture — shoulders just a little too stiff, jaw clenched — that something was eating at him.
Then I saw why. One of the regular bullies, a wiry kid with a permanent sneer, cut across the flow of traffic to shoulder into him. Hard.
Normally, Gabriel would have kept moving, let it slide. But this time, he froze.
I caught the shift immediately — the way his head tilted slightly, like a predator tracking prey. His spine straightened, and I saw the tension flood his frame. And then… his hands.
The tips of his fingers had gone rigid, nails pushing longer and sharper in the space of a breath. Not enough for a clueless human to clock it right away — but enough for me to know exactly where this was going.
The bully smirked. “Watch where you’re—”
I was there before he could finish. One hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, a firm squeeze, my voice cutting in low and easy. “Hey. Come help me carry something to class.”
He didn’t move at first, still locked on the bully. For a moment, his lip twitched like he was about to snarl.
I tightened my grip, pushing just a little of my own calming weight into him. “Now.”
Finally, his eyes flicked to mine — and I could see the wolf right there behind them. Hungry. Ready.
We moved down the hall together, my hand still clamped to his shoulder like I was just guiding him along. The chatter behind us faded, and no one seemed to think twice about our exit.
Once we rounded a corner into an empty side hall, I let go. He immediately braced against the lockers, breathing sharp and heavy. The claws receded almost instantly.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, half a whisper, half a growl.
“That,” I said, keeping my voice low, “was you losing the leash in the middle of a hallway full of humans. You can’t do that.”
He looked at me, confusion mixing with leftover adrenaline. “I wasn’t going to—”
“Yes, you were,” I cut in. “And I’m telling you right now, if someone saw what I just saw, your life would be over. You think they’d let you walk out of here? They’d drag you somewhere you couldn’t walk out of at all. I know, Gabriel. I’ve been there.”
That shut him up. The defiance in his eyes softened into something else — something like understanding.
“I’m not saying don’t fight back,” I added, softer now. “I’m saying don’t get caught.”
He nodded slowly, running a hand over his face. “Guess I owe you for that one.”
“You’ll owe me for a lot more before this is over,” I said with a faint smirk, but inside I was still wound tight. If I hadn’t been there, that could have been the end of his freedom — before it even started.