Strangers Meet Fate

Chapter : 2

Heh! I knew it. There are chauvinistic pigs at every corners of the world.

2 | Meeting a cocky pest |

       When Misha arrived at Ely, it was already half past eight at night. The small area was already plunged into quietness. Shekhar had gone to the airport to pick them up in his car and they drove in front of a small single-family house, much like the one they had at Goa. The roof was angular, the walls were either gray or white, there was also a trellis of a creeper of unknown species. Overall, the house looked pretty good from the outside.

" There are very few people at Ely, so the neighborhood is somewhat empty — ", Shekhar awkwardly chuckled while carrying two large suitcases.

Ramya too dragged down a trolley, " True. But I think it would be pretty unnerving to suddenly settle in such a quiet area after living in a tourist spot like Goa. "

" Ely too is a tourist spot ", Misha answered while carrying the miscellaneous bags, " I had googled it. There are lakes nearby. "

While speaking, they were already inside the house.

" There are. We can go for picnics there in the future ", Shekhar put down the suitcases and flipped on the switches.

After a small passage by the doorway, a living room was revealed. The wall at the left side led to the kitchen and the right side had a wooden staircase. The ground floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom.

" I and your mummy will take one room here, and the other room will be for guests. As for your room, let's go upstairs ", Misha followed her father upstairs to find a bedroom by which there was a large balcony.

" Luckily there is an attached bath here, so you won't have to come downstairs for your business. This balcony is currently empty. You can do whatever you like here. I'll prepare for it. "

" Wow, pa I love it. But it seems very expensive, you didn't have to buy a whole house you know. "

" Come on Mimi, I've been slowly preparing for this for almost one and a half years. Although I don't earn much, it's not very little too. We might be a bit tight on the budget, but with your mummy here, we will manage, okay? Tomorrow I'll take you to Ely Lycan High, your new school. It has a big campus, and they have a pretty good curriculum. I think you'll like it there. "

" Okay pa. I'll see to it. "

              The next day Misha went to Ely Lycan High with Shekhar. The school was at the outskirts of Ely, and true to Shekhar's statement, it had a huge campus. Over the entrance was an arch that held the letters ELY LYCAN HIGH. The entrance then parted at two sides to lead towards the parking areas at the both side in front of the main building. The school hours had already started perhaps, because the building appeared a bit solemn. Upon entering the main building, one could see the path that led straight towards the back of the school. Along the two sides of the path ran rows of other smaller passageways and rooms. They took a right turn to visit the office first. There was a beautiful middle-aged lady at the table. They explained Misha's situation to her in a nutshell and Shekhar reminded her that he had once contacted her regarding Misha's admission. She pondered for a moment, looked through Misha's certificates and marksheets from her previous school and finally gave out a form and asked them fill it up and visit the Principal's office.

    The principal was a roly-poly smiling man, a pair of golden framed glasses hanging on his nose. He enthusiastically looked through Misha's documents, nodded heavily at her hiking club certificates and asked her if she could appear for a small test the next day. To quote him, " ... I would like to have you here very much Miss Sehgal, but you have to remember that you are joining while we have already started the session. So, if it's not very much problematic for you, please consider the test. It'll also help us to evaluate if it would be good to let you in at this time of the year or we should wait for the next year's admission. "

Misha had no problem with the test.  During the last month, while she was preparing for the shifting, she also brushed up her studies, already anticipating today's outcome.

Next day she set out for the school way ahead of the fixed time. Her father forcefully dropped her there on the way to his work and she, after much efforts, coaxed him to agree on her return by foot. She was not afraid of walking for an hour or so. Her physique was pretty tough and she wanted to roam about the neighborhood by herself.

Upon arriving at school, she didn't roam around, but settled on a chair inside the office and concentrated on some online study materials to take a last look before the exam commenced.

At 10 am sharp, the principal asked her to visit his office and handed her a set of questions and a few blank papers. She had to fill in the correct answers in the box by every question within two hours. She was led to the office and and she started filling out the papers quietly as the lady in the office kept watch over her.

It was a few minutes from completing two hours when Misha stopped writing, gave the answers a quick recheck and submitted the papers and question set to the office lady, Mrs. Beevy. Mrs. Beevy looked them over quickly, gave her an encouraging smile, and informed her that she would be notified by tomorrow if she was accepted or not. Misha thanked her for the trouble and skipped out of the school.

On her walk home, she plugged in her earphones, put all the Bollywood dance numbers shuffling, and played them in full blast. Dressed in a white t-shirt with mandala design, faded blue ripped jeans and black high ankle laced boots, her bobbing head with dancing wavy hair drew the attention of many people who passed by. The day was gloomy, clouds loomed over her head, and she curiously looked around, taking in the quiet scenery filled with greens. When she entered her neighborhood, she even started taking pictures of the tall trees she had occasionally seen while she had gone for hiking.

               After she had been gone from the school, it was time for lunch. Damien MoonCross, one of the popular guys of Ely Lycan came out with his best friend Caden Bradford and his clique and walked through the passageways to reach the cafeteria of the school which looked over the basketball court and the running track. The other kids who came out at the same time, scooted towards the walls, making way for the gang. Damien was feared by the whole school as a tyrant, one look from his freezing eyes was enough to shake people's knees and go crumbling on the floor. He led the largest team of students in Ely Lycan High, he usually didn't bully unnecessarily, but if there was someone who wanted to show off in front of him, that person could forget showing off for the rest of their life. This earned Bryan his new identity, Demon MoonCross. After all, his father was also the owner of the MoonCross Corp. , which made him come off as a filthy rich boy in all senses and it didn't take a genius to know that he was the next in line as the heir.

But what the students and the majority of the teachers didn't know was, this clique of Damien didn't consist of what they exactly mean by humans. They, along with Damien himself, were a different kind, a kind humans had no idea that existed. Heck, even the citizens of Ely didn't know that behind the shield of MoonCross Corp. , this unknown kind practically ruled over their lives.

They were werewolves.

Damien and co. were at the senior year already. Although Misha was going to apply for junior year. It was hard for her too to suddenly drop out of her old school mid-session and take admission in Ely Lycan High.

But for the last three days, Damien's Clique had become the synonym to nightmare for the other students. After his eighteenth birthday bash was over, he had become more or less like a wounded beast, one wrong word out of your mouth and you could kiss your bones goodbye. The students in general were terrified, but his lackeys felt sorry for their leader. On his birthday, they had invited all the packs of werewolf operating in US, but he couldn't find the person he was anxiously looking for.

His mate.

He was angry, irritated and mostly disappointed. He had been frantically asking his wolf Xavier if he could feel anything about his mate, but all the roads stumbled upon the same dead end. He was now opting for going out to visit all the unmated omegas and rogue prisoners in other packs to look for his mate.

Till then, his only option was to bring an untimely winter upon Ely Lycan High, along with blizzards.

When they were walking by the office to reach the main passage at the middle of the building, Damien suddenly felt restless as a faded mixed scent of sea and a sweet smelling unknown flower entered his nose.

[ Xavier? Did you feel it? ]

[ I don't know Damien. I feel restless too, but that's the end of it. ]

Caden and others too sniffed the air around them,

" Hey Damien, did you smell that too? Nobody in this school has the scent of sea on them. Are we getting a new student? "

" Yes perhaps. I wish it'll be a handsome guy with smoky hot body and beach tanned skin — ", Maple, a beautiful blonde from their clique gushed.

Others simply rolled their eyes.

Damien however, felt a bit tense. But he hid his thoughts and maintained his standby snobbish expression without any ripple.

               Seven days later on a Monday, Misha got ready for the first day of her new school. It was very different than how she was used to attend school back in Goa. However, she hurriedly got ready and rushed to the nearest intersection where the school bus would stop.

Now, arriving at the school as one of  the students, felt different. She terribly missed her old buddies, and didn't really look forward to make new friends here. But, she was inwardly an extremely extrovert person, so it would be hard for her to put up the facade of a unapproachable loner. She sighed, thinking, I really hope at least a few of the kids here are nice, nice enough to hang out with me — even for the sake of the show.

She peeked at her watch. She was about thirty minutes earlier. She did the first thing she had to upon arriving, she went to the office to meet Mrs. Beevy and collected her schedule, key of her locker and the likes. After asking her about some doubts she had, she went out of the office and stood by a wall while looking over her schedule once again as to avoid bumping into others. The school did block scheduling, and the time for her lunch was pretty similar to her old school. She now straightened up, looked around, and followed the beeline of students to figure out where the lockers might be located. It didn't take her much time to find out her locker. A tall brunette was shoving her own books in her neighboring locker, and she gave Misha a glance up and down before leaving nonchalantly.

Misha too arranged her locker, and taking out the books for the first block, she readied herself to find out the correct classroom. But at that very moment, someone pinned her on the locker on her back. Looking up, she saw a boy with crystal blue eyes staring down an her. And by his stance alone, one could see that he wasn't there to exchange pleasantries.

" So it was you. You made me walk around the whole ground floor sniffing the air like a mad dog ", he bent down very close to her neck, taking a deep whiff while he said this.

Misha was completely baffled by the event. She could only mutter inwardly, Why is it my fault that he has to sniff the air? I didn't ask him to. Wait, sniffing? Is he a dog or something or do I have a bad odour?

The boy's eyes were turbulent and chaotic, as if he was fighting a battle within himself. He gritted his teeth, and said,

" I, Damien MoonCross, reject you as my mate. "

Misha was now cringing inside, Eww, mate? Who does he think he is to suddenly say something like this? Why is he acting like an animal? Who is this chauvinistic pig? What a waste of a nice appearance. If he hadn't said such rotten words I would have considered him because of the pretty face. But now, no thanks. Great. What a great way to start my new school life.

If possible, the boy, Damien's eyes were even more chaotic,as if he was suppressing something from breaking out. Now his muscles tensed and to the onlookers he appeared as a tall sculpture, shrouding Misha completely under him.

At this very moment, Misha took opportunity of his absent mindedness and attempted a kick right at his family jewel. She saw him backing off with a ferocious expression, but she didn't let him steady himself before she aimed a beautiful roundhouse kick straight at his cheek. The kick sent him across a row of lockers and she stormed off throwing a sentence, " Paws off, animal. "