I wanted so badly to go check on the archery notice board after school, but Zara had skipped—yes, skipped—straight to me after the bell to go home together.
I preferred Zara skipping to strutting or whatever Krystal and the cool girls did instead of walking.
"Are you still coming over to my place?" Zara asked.
"Yeah, why not?" I answered.
"My place is kind of small," she told me.
"Do you not want me to come?" I asked.
"No! I mean yes! I mean, I want you to come," Zara cried out immediately.
"Let's go then," I said.
"Come back after school. I'll send you home," Henry said.
Henry was going to try out for the debate club today.
"It's okay. Someone will pick me up from Zara's place," I told him.
Henry nodded, suddenly reassured. I remembered my mum saying that being driven about was normal daily security for future Alphas.
I left with Zara. We walked out the back entrance and down the steps.
"My house is just there." Zara pointed at the old buildings I'd often cut across to go home.
We walked together through them until we reached the train station, then we made a left to an old apartment block along a deserted street.
"This is my block," Zara said.
It was the middle of the afternoon. The building looked worn and tired. The paint was peeling and patchy. A shroud of fog seemed stuck to it.
"I've never been around here before," I told Zara.
"Yeah? Well, it's nice," she told me.
I followed her into a narrow passageway, narrowly avoiding a passing roach. Zara hadn't seemed to notice it. While we waited for the lifts, Zara told me, "I live on the fifth floor."
"My hamsters would be happy to meet a new friend." Zara looked happy. I smiled. We entered a green-colored lift. It smelled of a thousand unidentifiable things.
My wolf was on alert, but silent.
{Beta is near}
Well, mostly silent.
We got out on the fifth floor, passing a couple of doors. I started feeling creeped out at how quiet, empty, and dark each apartment was. But Wolfie seemed unperturbed, so I kept going.
Still, I had to admit I felt that everyone who had ever advised me against this was right.
Finally, we reached her door. There was a metal gate in front of it with a padlock, which she unlocked. Then there was a wooden door, its paint peeling. We went into a dark apartment. I sensed no other human around, but there were unfamiliar smells. It was quite exciting.
"Come in." Zara ushered me inside and turned on the lights. The apartment still looked shadowy and gray, though.
"Come see my babies." Zara beamed. I smiled at that.
At this point, as she opened the door to her room, I was expecting to see a bedroom and maybe a hamster cage on her desk or something.
But the moment the door opened, my mouth fell open with it. Lined wall to wall under her windows were cages stacked on top of cages, full of little critters.
"They just keep having babies," Zara told me.
I nodded wordlessly.
The other side of the room held a single bed with mismatched sheets and a small wooden wardrobe.
Zara picked out a pink cage. "Let's go outside and play with Brownie."
I nodded. "Okay."
{Beta is near}
Oh! I hadn't texted home!
"Sorry, I need to text my mum," I told Zara.
Zara looked disappointed. "Do you want to go?"
I shook my head. "No, I can stay for an hour or so. I just need to let my mum know."
Zara lit up. "You're going to stay?"
"Yeah, I've never held a hamster before," I told her.
"Yeah, okay. I'll let you hold a nice one," she promised.
I took out my phone and texted my mum: I'm at Zara's now. She has a lot of hamsters! I added a heart. Zara read the text over my shoulder and smiled.
"You love hamsters too, huh?"
"Not as much as you do," I shrugged. "But I think they're cute."
Zara then introduced me to Brownie, the mother of many hamsters.
"Brownie is nice," Zara told me. "She doesn't bite."
Zara showed me how to hold my hands cupped together. I did, and she placed the squirming ball of fur in my palms.
"It's so ticklish!" I nearly squealed—but I didn't, because that would be un-Alpha-like.
Zara laughed.
And then Brownie bit me.
Ouch.
I quickly passed her back to Zara.
"Funny," Zara frowned to herself. "Brownie loves humans."
Hahaha, Zara. You must know I'm not human. But she didn't seem to notice.
"I'll show you the others," she told me. "But you'd better not hold them. Most of them bite."
She showed me Blackie, the one who bit Krystal. Good job, Blackie. Hahahaha.
Then she showed me Brownie's different batches of children.
Ironically, Blackie would attack the babies, even the ones sired by him. He had to live on his own. The only one he was good to was Brownie, but Brownie, depending on her mood, would not always entertain his affections. Poor alpha hamster.
{Beta is near}
My phone buzzed—a text from an unknown number.
Waiting at car park, Princess. Take your time.
Great. The Princess plague had spread.
Princess was a nickname for girls like Maria… you know, a little spoiled, a little selfish, a little sheltered.
Not for girls like me.
When I was a kid, if we played knights and dragons, Lizzy would be the princess. Savy always chose dragon. And I was always the knight.
When I was a preschooler, I wasn't the pink-dresses-and-tiaras type of girl. My mum did put me in dresses, but my color was blue. I would run about bareheaded and barefoot until an adult hunted me down and caught me.
When I was a toddler, I wasn't the pretty thing that sat on my parents' laps at dinner parties. My mum told me I was the one who went from table to table drinking orange soda from anyone who offered to share their cup.
I wasn't the princess type, so I didn't know why I was suddenly getting called that so much.
"Want to see the smallest ones I have?" Zara pulled out a small cage with three baby hamsters. So cute.
We were back in her room again. I admired the babies while Zara told me their names: Sweet Pea, Sour Pea, Small Pea. They looked identical to me.
"Do you have to go now?" Zara asked.
I looked at the time. "Yeah, I'd better. My ride's waiting downstairs."
"Okay, someone's here to fetch you? I'll walk you downstairs." Zara put the cages away and walked me down.
"Thanks for showing me your hamsters, Zara."
"Who do you like best?" Zara asked.
"Blackie," I decided.
"Funny. Everyone likes Blackie, even though he's such a meanie and bites," Zara told me.
There was my hope, right there—that I'd always have friends who would like me.
We took the lift of a thousand unidentified smells down.
The car park was completely empty except for a black pickup truck. It was entirely black; even the windows and the parts of the wheels that were usually silver were black.
"Cool. Is that your ride?" Zara asked.
It looked familiar… but it was definitely not Beta Lucas's SUV.
We walked toward it, and the driver's side door opened.
Harvey got out, decked in a leather jacket and wearing a wry smile. "I'm here to pick up a princess."
Zara's mouth dropped.
I felt something inside me explode—and not in a good way. It was more like an I'm so mad I think one of my arteries just burst kind of explosion.
When we got close enough, I punched Harvey as hard as I could.
I landed the first punch, but Harvey caught my fist on the second.
"Och… that didn't hurt." He grinned.
I wanted to kick him where it would really hurt, but then I realized Zara was still staring.
"Uh, yeah, this is my ride," I told her, pulling my fist from the Beta's grasp to wave at Zara. "Bye!"
"Bye!" Zara said.
Harvey opened the door for me, and I climbed in. It was my first time in a pickup truck, and it felt weird to climb up into the seat rather than just sit down like in a normal car.
Weird in a good way.
"Nice ride, Beta," I told him as he pulled out of the parking lot. It smelled new inside.
"Thanks," Harvey said. "I just got it."
"What's with the 'I'm here to pick up a princess'?" I burst out once the niceties were done.
Harvey laughed softly. "I have a pickup truck, see? And I'm picking up a princess."
Hardy har har. Or should I say, Harvey har har?
"Don't call me princess," I said finally. "Just call me Sam, like everyone else."
"Wait, I thought everyone called you princess?" Harvey started to look panicked.
"No. Nobody calls me princess," I informed him. "I'm not even the princess type."
"But Nix and the guys said…" He trailed off, realization dawning in his eyes.
"Beta, did you really believe those three hyenas?" I asked.
"Oh s***…" Harvey hissed under his breath.
My good Beta was back with a vengeance. In an even, calm voice, Harvey said quietly, "I'm going to get them for this."
Go get them, Beta!
"I even called you princess in front of your mum!" Harvey bemoaned suddenly.
Now I laughed out loud.
"This is so embarrassing," Harvey said. But I appreciated that his eyes stayed on the road and both hands remained steady on the wheel.
All signs of a good, albeit embarrassed, Beta.
"It's fine. Just pretend it was a code name or something," I told him.
He raised a brow at me.
"As long as you act like it's no big deal and I act like it's no big deal, no one will act like it's a big deal," I said.
"I can't believe I'm taking advice from a fourteen-year-old girl," Harvey muttered as he drove. His navigation skills seemed more mainstream than Beta Lucas's.
"You'll be taking much more from me than that, Beta," I told him.
Harvey laughed. "Princess—that sounds bad… oh s***, I did it again."
I sighed. "How about replacing 'princess' with 'Alpha'?"
Harvey thought about it. "I could, but I prefer princess. It suits you."
At first, I didn't answer because I was so mad at him for refusing to acknowledge me as his Alpha. Was it because I was a girl? Or did he think I wouldn't be good enough?
But then I realized princess might be a good alias after all. Then no one would ever suspect me of being a threat.
I'd let them keep calling me princess. Then I'd make them understand that I was really the Alpha. I'd prove to them that I was the Alpha.
In the meantime, I thought I was going to get away with a lot more as the princess.
My mum was right. Sometimes being the Luna—or in my case, future Luna, aka princess—was better than being the Alpha.
Hahahaha. I'm so sneaky. Fear my hidden Alpha, disguised as a Luna!