The Bullies of the Beta's Daughter

Chapter 2

I stared up at my parents who took me in when I was orphaned and probably didn’t realize what strife I would cause. My dad had a worried look on his face once he noticed how I looked – my shoes soaked from the water, my hair disheveled from me pulling my hood down when we got into the office, and my eyes sad from the knowledge that nobody would believe me if I told them the truth. My mom just looked disappointed in my, but I have grown used to that look on her face. She seems to think I have done all this damage to the school since coming here, and she constantly berates me about it. She constantly tells me that I need to do better. I didn’t say a word as the two looked down at me. Principal Jones, however, was saying a lot. He was standing behind my parents telling them how awful I am, since I have caused so many problems. He was telling them how I should probably just be homeschooled to stop any more issues from occurring. He was trying to tell them how maybe they shouldn’t have adopted me, but my father turned around immediately after he said that, and sucker punched the principal in the nose for that statement.

“THOMAS!” My mom yelled at my dad once the punch landed, and Principal Jones was pushed back into his bookshelf I had been staring at before. “What the H**l was that?!”

“He deserved it with how he was speaking about our daughter. For one, I don’t believe she has done all of these things she’s gotten in trouble for over these past two years. She has been with us for a couple of years before moving here, and we have NEVER had issues like this before. Something else is going on. And for two, I am the Beta of Winterpaw and our daughter should be treated accordingly. She shouldn’t be spoken about in the ways that man was. He should be a better principal and find out what is actually happening in his school,” My dad responded calmly and grabbed my hand.

He then pulled me up from my seat gently and started to walk me out of the room, leaving both my mom and the principal stunned in silence just staring at our backs. A few students littered the hallways as we walked through them, including one of the Alpha’s sons and one of his buddies. Elliot, the Alpha’s son, just followed my every move down the hall while his friend, Jackson, was whispering to him and looking worried. I watched the two for a moment, noticing that Elliot looked to be reassuring Jackson about something while staring at me. Anger surged through me as I turned away from their gazes and saw Ezra, the Alpha’s other son, and their other friend, Samuel, walk out of the boy’s bathroom only a few feet away from me. They both just looked at me as I continued to follow my dad out of the school. As we got outside the building, my father glanced down at my feet.

“Once we get in the truck, take off your shoes, okay? That way your feet will dry. I’m not sure how long you have had to be in those wet shoes, but I’m sure that’s not good for your feet,” my father said.

I nodded at him, and we both continued the walk to the truck. Once we made it to my dad’s vehicle, I slid into the back seat so we could wait for my mom to join us. It took a few minutes, but eventually my mom stormed to the truck as well and got inside. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife as she continued to just glare at my dad from the passenger seat. My dad ignored the looks from my mom that I knew he could feel going towards him as he drove away from the pack’s school and towards our house next to the packhouse. As soon as we got to our home, I jumped out of the truck and ran into the house. I wanted to get away from my parents as quickly as possible to avoid interrogation. I could hear my mother yelling in my direction, but I ignored her and ran upstairs. I entered my bedroom and slammed my door shut, just hoping they wouldn’t follow me. Then, I turned on the lamp that was on the dresser next to my door.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed when I looked away from my lamp and saw my best friend, Chelsea, sitting on my bed. “How’d you get up here in my room? School isn’t even over yet!”

Chelsea started to laugh at my confusion, her black and purple hair swaying as she moved around, “Yeah, but I heard some things went down today and didn’t feel like being there anymore, so I skipped the rest of the day. Nobody will care.”

“Only because you're the Alpha’s wittle baby girl,” I said baby-talking to her and walking up to pinch her cheeks in order to joke around with her. “Nobody wants to upset his wittle girl.”

Chelsea swatted my hand away and continued laughing. We both were in a fit of laughter, me rolling on the floor and her lying on my bed, when I heard my door being pushed open. The laughter ended and we both looked back at it, dreading who it might be to enter my bedroom. Of course, when I looked that way, I saw none other than my parents. Chelsea instantly stood up and helped me off the ground. I stood up and looked at them both before nodding to my friend to leave the room. I don't think it would've taken her much to get her to leave with the anger flowing from my mom.

"You need to come to the table with us. We need to talk about what happened today, Alyssa," my mom said to me in her no-nonsense voice, the voice that lets my brother or me know when we are in trouble and won't be able to talk ourselves out of it.

They then both turned around and walked down the stairs, not even waiting to see if I would follow. They know I would with how my mom looked at me before. I wouldn't dare make her angrier than she already is at this moment. As they suspected I would, I followed behind them down the stairs and to the dining room table that was attached to the kitchen. I saw my brother, Shaun, scurry out of the kitchen just as we got to the table. He pretended to be sick this morning, so he wouldn't have to go to school, and, of course, that worked on our parents.

"Coward," I mumbled under my breath, not thinking about the fact that my parents both have their own wolves and could hear me clear as day.

I only received an angry glare from my mother and a look from my dad that basically said for me to cut it out before I made things worse. I sighed and sat down, waiting for the dam to break. However, nothing was said as my parents sat down across from me. They just looked at me...seeming like they were trying to figure something out. I looked back at them, very confused about it. I had expected my mother to immediately start blaming me for the water situation in the school bathroom, but she stayed silent.

"Umm, what's going on?" I asked them when nobody spoke after about ten minutes of sitting at the table. "Aren't you guys gonna get onto me about what happened at school?"

"Well, Alyssa...your father thinks that there is something deeper happening at the school. Something we don't know is going on. Something that perhaps even the school faculty doesn't know is happening. I think that you are once more acting out as you have done since moving here and that you deserve a punishment," my mom stated before whispering at the end of her statement, "Maybe we should consider what the principal said about homeschooling."

My dad glanced at her and squinted his eyes angrily, but didn't reply to her. I just stared at them both, not sure how to answer them. I knew neither of them would believe me if I said I was being bullied...not after I told them who the culprits are anyway. We sat in silence once more.

"Do you have anything to say?" my mom asked, seeming angrier and angrier as time went by. "Anything you want to say to defend what happened today?"

I looked back and forth between my parents, wishing I could tell them the truth but knowing it wouldn't do any good, "Umm, I didn't mean to flood the bathroom. I had my headphones in when I went into the bathroom and washed my hands before going in the stall. I guess I forgot to turn off the faucet when I went in the stall and didn't realize it was still on cause I couldn't hear it over my music...so I overflowed the bathroom. I didn't want to be around the other students in the cafeteria, so I just planned on sitting in the bathroom till lunch period was over. That was until I saw the water coming in under the stall door and I knew I made a mistake then. I'm real sorry, guys."

I played the part of an ignorant teenager perfectly as I lied about what happened to them. My mom immediately seemed to believe the story I told, while my dad seemed a little more skeptical. He studied my face for a few seconds when I finished speaking. I knew he was looking to see if there were any tells that I was being dishonest to them. He didn't see any. That or he didn't voice that he saw any. Silence ensued for a few more minutes as it looked like my parents were mindlinking with each other. Their eyes were glazed over as they stared straight ahead. I just sat in silence and waited for their verdict, twiddling my thumbs under the table.

"Okay, Alyssa. It seems then that you need fewer distractions in your life. Go get us your phone and headphones. You are grounded from them until we say otherwise," my mother said, handing out one of the worst verdicts for a teenager that uses their music to drown out annoyances in her life.

I thought about getting mad at the two and yelling about how unfair that punishment was, but I knew that would just make it so much worse. I nodded and stood up. Then, I went to my backpack that was hanging on the banister post and took out my headphones from it. My mom was following behind me to make sure I didn't try to hide them and say I had lost them, so I turned around and handed my phone and headphones to her waiting open hand. She instantly walked away to go hide them in her room somewhere. I groaned after she got out of eyesight, and started to walk up the stairs back to my room. Halfway there, my father walked over to the bottom of the stairs and called me.

My father spoke with an assurance I wouldn't have expected with how well I thought I had lied, "I know something else is going on with you at school, Lyssa. I know you probably don't want to talk about it...which is why you lie about what happened, but I am here if you want to."

I smiled at my father, grateful that he was the one who ended up taking me in during one of the darkest points of my life, and walked down the stairs to give him a hug. I didn't respond other than that, and went back up to my room to do schoolwork. Missing half of the school day after getting in trouble is rough for me, since my worst subjects are in the latter part of the day, so I got to reading what I assumed we would be discussing in the textbooks.