The next morning, I stepped off the bus into the chill Hyannis air and started toward the school entrance. The wolf was quiet now, buried deep, but the night before still lingered in my blood \u2014 sharp, hot, and thrumming under the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They didn\u2019t look<\/em> at me directly \u2014 not for long, anyway \u2014 but I caught the flickers of motion at the edges of my vision. Conversations faltered when I passed. Shoulders angled away. A couple of kids heading toward the doors suddenly found somewhere else to be, letting me walk in first without a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one could have explained why. But instinct runs deep, even in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time I reached my locker, the hallway was strangely open around me \u2014 like a bubble had formed, a space no one wanted to cross. I spun the dial, slid my books inside, and shut it with a soft clack<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid you grow two feet overnight or something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I turned to see Gabriel leaning against the locker beside mine, guitar case propped up next to him. His voice was casual, but his eyes were sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t think so,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He tipped his head toward the hallway. \u201cBecause it\u2019s like Moses just walked through here. Everyone\u2019s parting the sea for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, the crowd was moving around<\/em> my locker bank, the flow of students curving like water diverted by a rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGuess they\u2019re in a hurry,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel\u2019s mouth twitched into a half-smile, but there was something in his gaze \u2014 a mix of curiosity and caution. \u201cNah,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cIt\u2019s not that. It\u2019s you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t answer. Just shouldered my backpack and started toward homeroom. He fell into step beside me, and for a few seconds, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, almost too casually, he said, \u201cWhatever it is\u2026 you wear it like armor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I met his eyes for a fraction of a second. \u201cArmor\u2019s useful,\u201d I said, and kept walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn\u2019t push, but I knew he\u2019d filed it away \u2014 like every other thing about me that didn\u2019t fit the usual picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The next morning, I stepped off the bus into the chill Hyannis air and started toward the school entrance. The wolf was quiet now, buried deep, but the night before still lingered in my blood \u2014 sharp, hot, and thrumming under the surface. People noticed. They didn\u2019t look at me directly \u2014 not for long, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-school-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/firstsemester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}