Feel Free to be a Freak like Me - Part One
The car casts a reddish shadow on the road, as it is driven up the mountain, surrounded by woods and under a sunset light on the horizon.
Hannah might be enjoying the view as she drives, if she weren't more concerned about ignoring her friends' bickering in the backseat.
“I never wanted to be like anyone!” Her singing voice adds to the loud noise in the car.
They've been yelling and pestering each other for hours already. Hannah is used to their craziness and she kind of has her ways of dealing with it.
Singing is one of the best of them, in fact.
“All I ever wanted was to sound like a song!”
The brunette in the black dress, simple and stylish, as always; with her shaggy haircut and cool vibes in her voice; keeps singing her song at the top of her lungs.
Her powerful voice overcomes her friends' screams and Hannah happily adds even more chaos inside the vehicle.
“Hannah! Help me!" Fernilia, a cute black-skinned omega girl with big curls and a warm personality (perfect for picking on at, at least that's what Luc thinks), outcries to her best friend, as the boy grabs her and tries to fill her with wet kisses of his protruding lips.
“Pale soldiers all around, soul sold and won”
Hannah clearly ignores the two, singing even louder.
“But for all of you who never had an idol”
Well, she told them it wasn't Uber.
They shouldn't go both in the back seat!
Whenever they get too lovey-doves, it ends up in a fight...
“For everyone who just wants to be themselves and no one else”
Hannah knows them very well.
Luc is her mate, but the three of them have been friends forever. He is a dark blonde gamma with a large pompadour and a slender omega-like body.
He's really cute, though. Despite his arrogant gamma tone he-knows-it-all, sometimes.
“Luc, stop! I'm not like that! I don’t even like Alphas like that!”
“Oh yes, you are, I saw you practicing in the mirror, you were all: come here Alpha, muah muah muah!”
“Hannah! Look at him! Won't you help me?"
“We are wild animals, tired of pretending we are not!
We pissed off wolves who like to be caged!”
Hannah just keeps singing her own song and enjoying herself as she drums against the steering wheel.
“If you never wanted to be like anyone,
If all you ever wanted was to be free…”
Now the singer girl could almost enjoy the view by herself, her vibes changing with the beat, her body moving, she looks out the window with the faint orange rays streaming in and smiles:
"It's the chorus part, folks!" Hannah calls them to follow.
“And if you ever felt out of place!!!”
The two friends of hers laugh at how she shakes her head and screams the lyrics, just a second before they are so infected by this too that they join in the catchy chorus, singing loudly too.
“I tell you, I will show you the way!!!
For you to feel free to be…
Free like me!!!
Feel free to be a freak like me!”
“Freak like me!! Yea! This song is awesome!” Luc bellows and Hannah continues the vibes, repeating the last part in different tones and melodies, freestyling melismas and scales.
But then she suddenly stops and points out the window.
“Guys! See this!"
“This is so scary!” Fer cringes.
"It looks like a haunted house..." Luc imagines.
“It's probably just an abandoned cabin. But it looks amazing, standing there all alone, in the middle of nowhere, under the trees, with this sunset light on top… I would say it’s more like a magical place!”
"Creepy!" Fer and Luc chant at the same time, and Hannah rolls her eyes, unable to stop laughing at how they are, seriously, so much alike, and yet they still manage to fight so hard!
Not long after that, she parks her car in a makeshift parking lot on the side of a cliff.
The trees of the forest still surround them, but there are many other cars stopped there too and they can already hear the noises of the party in the distance.
Summer is almost over and it's starting to get cold again, especially on a mountain slope like this.
Hannah would be a typical girl of her pack… In another life. Because in this one she has already given up trying to fit in. Now she just considers herself the black-haired baddie she really is, or thinks she is.
Her stylish dark hair is draped straight over her bare, tattooed shoulders, and she steps out of the car in her usual big military boots and black clothes.
She's confident about it all.
The girl doesn't know why, but she feels a promise in the air today since she woke up.
Today it would be THE DAY.
She's not sure of what, but in all her pretty boring 16 years of life, anything like playing at the Alphas’ party is a big deal!
“Wow, Luc! We are truly at an Alpha’s party!!!” Fer gets excited and clings to Luc's arms as they go around Hannah’s car and try to observe more of the party from a distance.
Hannah sees them walking away, hesitantly, but quite fascinated with the place and she shakes her head with a smile as she hears her friend's excited voice about it.
A true baddie has this vibe of those deep girls. Something about the sense of older ages in such young and feminine features that attracts attention while, at the same time, repels it. Like the dead flowers with thorns drawn on her pale shoulders...
In fact, she seems distant, untouchable, or maybe just unconventional, less predictable, like a Pandora’s box.
Things Hannah loves and hates about herself.
“Thank you Hannah for that!” Luc gratifies his girl, yelling excitedly over his shoulder but barely turning around.
"Well... you are welcomed…” The baddie says sarcastically, doubting they could hear her at this point.
The two, with hesitant steps, continued approaching the large rocks that allowed a little better view of the groups of excited young werewolves gathered around a clearing, between the huge rocks on the mountainside.
There were bonfires scattered around and, in fact, no cold weather was really a deterrent for these high-ranking wolves to enjoy their last days of summer, clearly. The place was packed.
"I'll get the musical instruments from the trunk… Luc, can you give me a hand?" Hannah yells at them and without waiting for an answer turns to go get her guitar.
She kind of didn't expect not to be able to compete for her boy's attention...
Then Hannah barely noticed when they were already a long way from the car, pulling each other closer to the party venue, looking like they were in a trance, just playing excitedly, with squeals and teasing, between them.
"Look at that! So many of them! Do you believe it? All ALPHAS! Oh, Fer, are you feeling this? Their auras are so sick!”
“I'm afraid, Luc! Are you sure we can get closer? I mean…we should wait for Hannah…” The dark-skinned girl hesitates as she turns to look for her friend, but Luc pulls her back.
“It's okay, Fer. We were invited, remember? This is going to be so awesome!!!”
“Um… technically… Hannah was invited…”
They try to get a better look through the rocks at the high-ranking wolves groups and at the place where the party was taking place...
All they know is that the Alphas’ parties are always full of drinking, fighting and, of course, crazy young s*x. After all, they are wild wolves and too young to care about anything else.
Absolutely sick!!! As Luc would say.
They are really very curious about all this; and that's when they hear behind their backs:
"What the hell are these freak omegas doing here?"
They turned around immediately, not expecting such a deep voice from behind.
Definitely not Hannah.
Both lower-ranking wolves freeze when they realize they're surrounded by a group of four huge, buff guys, shirtless and holding some beer bottles and red cups in their hands.
They look as intimidating as seeing an Alpha, alone in a faraway place like this, can seem.
“O-oh… boy-hi-… Alphas… uh… actually, with all due respect, Alphas, but I'm not an omega… I'm a Gamma! Luc! From the Silver Moon Pack! Nice to meet you bros, hehe!” Luc smiles and tries to shake hands with them as politely as he can, while Fer just backs away hiding behind him.
Krenak, a large, darker-skinned, bearded Alpha, the biggest of the 4 others there, crosses his arms and growls at the boy's attempt to get closer to him.
"Really? What are these freaks doing here?" Brad; a smaller Alpha compared to the central black one, but still a big Alpha with a fit six-pack; asks rhetorically, his eyes dark.
“Silver Moon Pack? Should we ask Jared? He is their Alpha, he must know.” A third one, Zyone, says as they talk amongst themselves, ignoring the two crashers.
"At least he should be able to punish those freaks of his pack for breaking into other people's parties." Brad concludes. “The parties from their Alphas…” He lets out a menacing growl, which the still annoyed Krenak also does with him.
"We're not trespassing, we're invited!"
“Such a liar…” Brad muses to himself and Krenak, with his arms crossed and brooding steps, approaches Luc, who backs away with the omega girl behind him.
“You want me to break those teeth of yours for lying to an Alpha, omega?”
"Alpha, I'm not an o-…” Luc proudly tries to correct an Alpha a second time, a mistake.
Krenak pulls him to his height in a simple, controlled grip of his collar.
Luc widens his eyes, gasping for breath, he shakes his head in despair.
“Come on, talk back to me another word, omega.”
"Sorry... oh...!" Luc shakes his head and covers his mouth with his hands. His big eyes widened at the terrifying Alpha Wolf in front of him, holding him closer by the shirt.
That's when Hannah sees them from afar, she can't understand what's going on at first, she was more concerned with carrying a big boom-box and her guitar by herself, trying not to be too clumsy with the wires and keeping them safe.
But once she realizes that there were really 4 Alphas surrounding her friends, she puts everything down. And it is at the same moment that some of them turn to her also, with their angry looks.
'Go ahead, Hannah. I got your back.’ Her Wolf tells her with her familiar confidence and she can't help but smile.
Even though her friend seems to be in a really bad spot, she just unplugs her guitar amp and trusts what she knows: her voice and her acoustic sounds.
Then everyone hears the rhythmic thump of a shoe hitting the rocky ground and some strings vibrating, as she begins to play and sing:
“You think I'm a freak? I'll let you be it too.
I'll make it sound so cool, you'll die to be a little bit of me."
Her super-tuned acoustic voice fills the open space in an unbelievable way, vibrating everyone around her.
“We are wild animals, tired of pretending we are not!
We pissed off wolves who like to be caged.”
Long hair of hers flies away with her playing moves and the blow of the sunset breeze. Her brown eyes glow and focus on her guitar and, apparently, some vague, transcendent matter around them.
The girl becomes a sightseeing to compete with the colorful skies on the horizon.
“If you never wanted to be like anyone,
If all you ever wanted was to be free…”
It wasn't as if Hannah's aura was big, but more than big, it was captivating… and with each new word she drew like flies all the wolves around to see where it was coming from.
“I tell you, I will show you the way,
For you to feel free to be…
Free like me!
Feel free to be a freak like me!”
Things at twilight turn to gold. But she wasn't actually glowing; yet, at the same time, she was, like a warm light to the hearts of those big wolves.
The black Alpha, Krenak, lets go of her boyfriend's collar. Luc straightens up and awkwardly watches the effect his mate has on the high-ranking wolves around him, letting a silly, proud smile grow on his face as he shakes his head in the music’s tempo.
“Then feel free to be a freak like me!”
She sets off the vibes of the chorus and the audience reacts with applause.
When Hannah finishes her performance, there are nearly half of the party wolves in the parking lot, now gathered around her to watch.
Her confident finale is followed by a new smile on the girl's cool expression and screams of admiration as they applaud her, enthusiastically.
At this point Hannah looks around and her smile becomes even wider.
It's the first time she's performed in a crowd of people her age.
And she's not nervous at all.
She is, in fact, very happy and certain that this is what she is destined to do.
Good thing more people seem to be able to see this now, so the girl happily says:
"Thank you! Thank you! I came here to rock this party!"
New screams follow her excited bold comment and she laughs.
The artsy girl in the black dress and tattooed pale skin, lit by the last faded orange rays of the afternoon, is a painting to behold.
Some of the Wolves approach her to understand what's going on, but basically they only make room for an Alpha with broad shoulders and short fair hair with a small stubble.
He's shirtless, like most in there, and sports a large scar across his muscular chest. With interested eyes, he doesn't hesitate to approach Hannah.
"Are you from my pack?" Simple and straightforward as an Alpha.
He may not know her, but Hannah knows exactly who he is: Jared, the 20-year-old heir to her pack.
“Yeah… uh, your father asked me to come…” she's kind of nervous right now, man, who knew she would feel this way, but she's never spoken directly to her pack's Alpha’s son before!
"Nice." He cracks a smile. “By the way, what is this song called? It's awesome.” His small clear eyes don't leave her for a second.
The other Alphas around, boys and girls, make sounds of agreeance and a wave of questions erupts from everywhere.
"What's your name?"
“Is this the girl your father spoke of, Jared?”
"So what's the name of the song?"
“Wait, wait, I'll answer everything, I can even sign autographs if you guys want…” Hannah states and smugly winks at a few Alpha boys around as they approach her.
They basically just laugh at her unexpected boldness.
“The song is called Resistance and it was made by… an amazing new artist. As you can see… Me! And I'm going to play you 3 more songs of mine in a pocket show, because... his father asked me to..." In the last sentence, her confidence dies a little seeing how close and real it was to be in front of the Alpha's son of her Pack! But quickly she smiles and tries to pretend it wasn't really affecting her.
"Oh wait, so you're that girl my dad was talking about…?"
“You said she sucked, Jared!? No way!" Noah, one of his best friends, scoffs and pats the blond heir Alpha on the shoulder.
"I thought she just played waiting room music for the old men in the Pack at my dad's formal meetings." Jared tries to explain himself to everyone around him.
Hannah puts on a fake offended expression and everyone laughs at Jared's clumsy reaction to it.
"Alright, alright, sorry ok... But this aura of yours is intriguing…” He is cautious now. “Are you a gamma?”
"What do you think I am?" Hannah teases, feeling much more confident in the spotlight than she ever thought she would...
Jared opens his mouth wordlessly for a second, not waiting for that question to come back to him.
She wasn't sure how she was being able to talk to the Alpha's son of her pack like that.
Maybe holding her guitar with her really helps a lot.
Still, Hannah barely wanted to acknowledge that they really were a bunch of powerful young Alphas... So she's tried her best, so far, not to have to call any of them by a single title until then... because she knows that if she starts to recognize them for what they are, that would make it all that much more tense and frightening. Hannah, as a good omega, is far more afraid of Alphas than she would like to admit.
They're scary as hell.
But she can't do much about it, she's grown up around everyone scared to death of them.
Which is very annoying, but it also makes it inevitable that she feels that way too. Sometimes…
At least, that's what she tells herself.
Normally, Hannah can cool off by ignoring their existences. But not now.
Even if she decides not to call them by a single title, their huge imposing auras around her make it pretty clear what they are.
Aside from the fact that her pack heir is another matter, not only intimidating but also deeply troubling, it's as if he upholds the power over her life in his hands.
"Well…for those insane skills, I-I’d guess…" Jared stutters, surprisingly to the girl. Do Alphas stutter? He still looks baffled and Hannah feels bad for a second for putting this all-important boy in this position.
In fact, deciphering her aura is not the easiest task, she knows.
So she decides to end his t*****e once she realizes she couldn't be doing this to her Pack’s Alpha's son!
"It's okay! I am indeed an omega... But..." And she's going to need his favor, so the girl hurries to mutter in his direction. "I have some omega and gamma friends here with me, I hope you don't mind if they stay while I perform, right?”
“No, clearly not! You are all our guests tonight, right guys?” Jared turns to his Alpha friends and they support him with some playful cheers.
"Cool! So, by any chance, would you have somewhere to connect these things?" Hannah points out her electrical equipment, not sure if it was a good idea to bring it.
“Robin?!” Jared calls out to his Beta from the crowd.
“Yeah, sure, we were expecting for a concert, we just didn't know if it would be a good one. Anyway, come here, I'll show you." An almost gamma-looking Beta, with intellectual glasses and a bare chest slimmer than Jared's, approaches her and easily grabs the large amp box in his hands with the cables, not hesitating to quickly back away from the middle of the Alphas to pick up and prepare everything for the show.
"Alright then, guys, give me a second." Hannah follows Robin through the crowd.
“Go on girl, we need to see more of this!” Someone screams and is followed by some more exclamations and applauses.
“She's not bad at all… Jared, now that I think about it, I think I saw her at an event at the Silver Moon Packhouse. Seriously, one of these nights I was waiting for you to go to practice and I think I saw her singing in the lounge… I almost certainly thought it was Dua Lipa lip-synching or something…” Tyler says, as he and Noah approach their heir Alpha friend.
"i***t!" Noah laughs at Tyler's joke.
“Seriously, I'm not kidding, it was kind of boring songs, but it was good.”
“Um, really?” Jared who speaks this time, he's gripped by her.
“Yeah, I even asked your dad about it… I told him he had a very talented gamma in the pack, but he said she’s not a gamma, more like she has some mixed ranking syndrome I think… That's what the Alpha said at least... something like that..."
“She has an omega aura.” says Noah.
“But not when she's singing, it gets really weird then…” Tyler continues.
“Freak, right?” Jared asks with a smile, still looking at her from afar, working with Robin on the makeshift stage. "But yeah, maybe she's right about being a cool freak, huh?"
When Hannah then plugs in the microphone, an interfering noise interrupts the gossips and Noah has to cover his sensitive ears.
Jared scowls at the high pitched sound.
Hannah laughs at how the Alphas' hypersensitive ears make everyone flinch at that, but then she apologizes into the mic when it, finally, plugs right in.
The girl still tests the sound a few more times and the crowd calling her name becomes huge.
“Alright, let's get this started!"