Fire in the Heir

9.

“Who’s a wolf?” I was trying to figure out which of the three guys she was talking about, but just then the lady turned to hand me the paperwork.

She asked a few questions, but I could barely pay attention because I was too busy looking around to try to see where they had gone.

Just as I thanked her for the paperwork and threw it into my bag, I heard, “Taylor, what the hell are you doing here?”

I froze instantly as I saw Jace walking towards me. Cr*p, not only had I been caught, I was caught by the patrol from our group and what’s worse is that he works directly with my dad.

“Hey Jace, I just wanted to get some information before I sat down for lunch.” I smiled widely at him but he did not look amused.

“Taylor, you know that you are supposed to stay with the group. Come on, let’s go back and get some food and join up with your friends,” he said sternly.

I followed him out of the building and we walked through the courtyard together. The feeling of someone watching me hit me again, and I heard Kana tell me to keep walking.

Glancing up, I saw the same three guys sitting at a bench laughing and I couldn’t help but feel like it was directed right at me.

When we were back at the food court I instantly zero’d in on where Monika and the others were sitting huddled around each other.

It would have been hard for anyone to miss them, they had pushed some tables together, and had so much food on them that you would have thought they were starving children.

Jace asked me what I would like to eat and went with me to get some pizza and a salad, then walked with me to our group.

As I was about to sit down in the empty chair next to Monika, she looked past me to Jace then back to me before stopping mid bite, “what happened, where were you?”

“I’ll tell you later, let me try some of your food.” She looked at me with a mixture of hurt and disappointment but did not push any harder.

Pushing the chair out with her foot, I put my tray on the table and slung my bag over the back of the chair. I sat down with my friends and it took no time at all for me to fall right in with their conversations.

Once done eating, we went over to the court house and the city hall buildings. After that, we had another break that led us to a park that had food trucks.

We agreed to grab some snacks and meet at the pic-nik tables by the pond. Monika had been by my side from the moment we left the food court.

She decided that we were gonna get some ice cream and we went over to this cute little yellow truck that had colored decals of melting ice cream blobs on the side of it.

There was a little bit of a line in front of it, so I was hopeful that it meant that it was gonna taste really good.

A large menu was glued on the back of the truck, so I told Monika to stand in the line while I went to look to see what kind of options they had.

The menu was much bigger than I thought and I got really excited when I saw that they had mint chocolate chip and cherry flavored ice cream.

I read through all of the ways you could get your ice cream and the different topping options and could feel Kana laughing at the joy that just reading the menu brought me.

Without realizing what I was doing, I had apparently started bouncing on the tips of my toes and I got to the end of the menu.

Quickly, I turned in the direction of the line on the side of the truck to go and tell Monika that I wanted like five different things when I bumped into someone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I quickly got out, but before I could continue with my apology I heard, “What is your damn problem, don’t you know how to f*cking walk?”

I took a step back quickly as I looked up into the same face from earlier. This time he looked pissed.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” I said again as I tried to walk around him to go to Monika.

But instead of moving the opposite way, he scooted to the right and got in my way instead of letting me pass.

“What is wrong with you, are you following me around, or are you just this damn annoying all the time,” he spit the words at me with so much venom I flinched.

Kana was snarling and urging me to get away from him.

“I said I’m sorry, it was an accident, and of course I am not following you. I don’t know who you are, nor do I want to know.”

He looked at me and he c****d his head to the side slightly. His hair fell onto his face and slightly covered his eyes, but I could see his dark stare just gazing at me with obvious questions.

I wasn’t sure if he was a wolf too, but Kana was going so crazy that I couldn’t stand still. I tried to walk around him again, but again he blocked my path.

He stood there for a few seconds just looking at me, and then scoffed and ran his hand through his hair.

I didn’t say anything but tried again to take a step around him and this time, instead of blocking my path, he bumped right into Jace.

“What is your problem?” Jace stood there just staring at this guy but didn’t respond to him and Monika had ended up right in front of me, “Taylor is everything okay, who is this a**hole?’

“A**hole? She ran into me.” The guy said to Monika while still staring Jace down as if they were going to fight each other right here.

“If all she did was bump into you, then accept her apology and leave her be,” Jace told him coldly.

“Unless there is another reason that you are trying to keep her here?” That got all of our attention and now the three of us were looking at Jace.

The guy stood there for a few seconds longer, looked towards me, and then smiled smoothly at Jace before he replied.

“I have no interest in little girls, I was just curious about why we have met like this twice in one day.” And I have never wanted to hit a stranger as much as I did at that moment.

“He smells wrong little one, we need to get away from him,” Kana urged, so strongly that I had to physically keep myself from backing away.

“What is he talking about, Taylor,” Monika asked, looking worried.

“It was an accident both times. I accidentally bumped into him early at the food court and again right now.”

I tried to grab for Monika and Jace so that we could just get away before this guy blabbed about me going to the college, but I caught his eye and his smirk, and I knew that he could tell that I wasn’t telling the full truth to them.

“You know what, it was all a misunderstanding, right Taylor?” I was so shocked to hear my name come out of his mouth that for a second I was scared, but then I realized that he had heard both Jace and Monika use my name already.

“Yes, it was just a misunderstanding. Again, I apologize for any trouble I caused you and I hope you have a great day,” I uttered stiffly.

“Thank you Taylor, I will,” the stranger said as he winked at me and then smiled at Jace as he oh so slowly walked around him and started for the other side of the food truck parking lot.

“Okay, so you wanna tell me what in the hell all that was about,” Monika yelled as her and Jace led me back to the line for the ice cream truck.

“It was nothing, I swear, it was really just an accident,” I sputtered as I anxiously spun my hair around my fingers and stared off at the ordering window.

Kana was so distraught that I was getting sick to my stomach and had little interest in the ice cream now.

A part of me knew if I told Monika we would just go back to meet up with our friends, but I didn’t want to spoil her fun. We all got our ice cream, but I noticed that Jace stuck with us like glue for the rest of the trip.

I was so glad that the day was finally over, I had gotten what I came for and, all in all, it had been a really fun trip with my friends and classmates.

By the time we all got back on the bus, we had completed the assignment, eaten enough food to put the pack house to shame, and were ready to get back home.

The bus ride home was much different than the ride to the city. I could feel Kana getting calmer the closer we got to the compound.

Unfocusing, for some reason, the thing that kept running through my mind was the wink that guy gave me before he walked away. I really hope I won’t see him any time soon.