Chapter 2

A/N: The image above is of Serena and Kyle. Also, I wanted to point that words like "special" (depending on the context) and "specist" have the root word "species" and are pronounced similarly, just like the words "racist" and "racial" are pronounced with the root word "race".

Species names:

-Volpe: Red fox; Vulpes vulpes fulvus

-Lupo: Gray wolf; Canis lupus occidentalis

-Carca: American wolverine; Gulo gulo luscus

-Pantera: North American cougar; Puma concolor couguar

-Orso: Grizzly bear; Ursus arctos horribilis

Disgust

noun

-a strong distaste; nausea; loathing

-repugnance caused by something offensive; strong aversion

Serena managed to get in a few good paw swipes at me, but without her claws unsheathed, she did little more than violently bat me around like a ball of yarn. Scrambling away from her paw so as not to get tumbled to the ground again, I maneuvered my body in a zig-zag motion to dodge her swipes as they came for me.

There wasn't anywhere for me to go except away from her. Had this been in the woods and not in a gymnasium, I would have found some place to duck for cover while I thought of a new strategy. My eyes flitted around and I quickly found a loophole to get myself out of her striking zone. Darting under her stomach, she immediately tried to reach under herself to get to me, but it was easy to avoid her strikes considering I could see each of them coming before she made contact.

When she backed up in an attempt to get me to where she could see me, I backed up with her and it became obvious I wasn't going anywhere unless she did something about it. Half-falling to the floor, she rolled her body over onto her side like an overgrown housecat to force me out from under her, but the instant she stood back up on all-fours, I hid right back under her ribcage. Unwilling to play this game, she growled and mind-linked me, "You do realize this isn't exactly sparring right?"

I took a moment to contemplate this, and, to prove her wrong, I snatched onto her leg with enough force to break the skin. Her blood leaking out around my teeth, I told her, "Now it is!" Letting go of her, I poked my head out from underneath her so she could see me and I grinned widely at her, her blood clinging to my otherwise white patches of fur. "Side note: you need to lay off the salt, dude."

Her demeanor suddenly shifted as she looked over her shoulder at me and her cougar-interpretation of a smile showed across her face once more as her whiskers stood on end. Uh-oh, I thought, sensing the imminent danger. I recognized that mischievous smirk all too well, and my own grin faltered before I even had the chance to dash out from beneath her mountain lion form.

She sat on me.

She laid her entire body down on top of mine, only leaving the end of my muzzle exposed. She didn't even try to hold herself up off me; her more than hundred pound body crushing my thirty pound fox body. It felt like she was compressing all of my organs into a single mass of cells and I couldn't help but whine and yelp out in pain. She, however, found this hilarious and rolled off me as her shoulders moved up and down in laughter; her cougar form not being able to physically make a laughing sound.

Serena and I came to the conclusion that she won, but only after I was threatened to be laid on again. Begrudgingly, I followed after her to the bleachers where a few other students had finished sparring and were waiting like us for the others to be finished.

I looked up at Serena with dangerous eyes, "I can't believe you frickin' sat on me!" Through the mind-link, I could hear the distant conversations of the shifters near us in my mind. The mind-link worked in a similar way that speaking out loud does: you could hear nearby conversations but they weren't as clear as if the person was speaking directly to you or was in front of you. With all of the additional, warped voices cramming inside my skull, I felt the beginnings of a migraine start to take hold.

Serena simply smirked and bent down to lick her own blood off my chin - her rough tongue as large as my entire muzzle - and she made a face once she did. "Damn, you were right! Ew, I eat way too much McDonald's..."

Having a thought enter my mind, my grin grew about three inches on either side as I looked back up to my friend with amused eyes, "No, you eat way too much di-"

She knew me well enough to know where I was going with that sentence, and her body jerked into action. Opening her mouth wide enough so her teeth were on display, she loudly hissed at me. The top of her nose scrunched up into wrinkles with the muscle contractions of her snarl and her whiskers stood on end as they stuck out from her cheeks. She eventually relaxed her features, but continued to glare at me, probably imagining my head suddenly combusting so she could go five minutes without being harassed.

Satisfied with myself, I licked my paw and moved it across my chin in an attempt to get some of her blood off of me. I really didn't feel like people asking me what happened in my next class if there was blood all over my face; I barely tolerated sharing the same air as these stuck-up bitches, let alone having to actually interact with them.

The smirk that hardly ever left my face in either form stayed in its same mold as I mind-linked her again, "Hey, man, I can't help that you'll do anything Kyle asks you." A part of me was glad that I had at least one person who could put up with my sarcasm and constant tormenting because most people couldn't. I was the platonic equivalent of an eight-year-old boy: if I teased you, it meant I liked you.

Serena rolled the light green eyes of her cougar form at me and then moved her massive paw to flick me off from the bleacher I was on in one effortless movement. I was lying on the floor of the bleachers without even knowing what hit me; compared to her strength, I was nothing more than an insect. I growled lowly at her when I realized what had happened and I stood up to shake my orange hide free from the dirt of the floor before I went to sit back next to her, albeit a bit farther away.

After a few more minutes of us sitting on the bleachers while I schemed of ways to get back at Serena, the coach suddenly blew her whistle, which, even though it was designed for our sensitive ears, still made me wince. The last few pairs of shifters left sparring got off each other and trotted over to the bleachers. When the coach finished announcing the winners and what we did wrong or what we could work on, we were allowed to go shift back into our human forms.

Personally, I preferred my fox form over my human form, despite the extra challenges that came with it. If we were allowed to be in our animal forms for more than just a single class period, I would more often than not be found as a fox, but as it was now, if you were found in your animal form anywhere except here, you'd be given a detention faster than you could even shift back. Some teachers would even go as far as to hand out a punishment if you so much as flashed your eyes at them or another student, though I found that excessive given the number of times I had seen Mr. Gamert flash his eyes at his students. It was therefore unsurprising why I could be found in detention at least once a week.

Closing my eyes and relaxing my muscles, I felt the tendrils of my fox form retract from my extremities as they retreated to the farthest corner of my body to remain hidden until I used them again. The air pressure changed around me and I reopened my eyes to find myself in my human form on all fours.

Knowing I only had a few more minutes to get ready before Serena would come in and drag me out by my claws, I stood up and got dressed quickly. I tugged up my boots and threw on my sweater, feeling cozy as it wrapped around me. I looked into the mirror and was pleased to find that Serena's blood had mostly worn off. After shifting back to human form, there was little I could do to save my curls from the ensuing frizz without half a jar of coconut oil, so I was left with no other option but to pull my hair up into a messy bun.

With my hair up, there was little I could do to hide my pointed, elvish ears from view, though I did my best; it wasn't like everyone didn't already know I was the "Volpe girl".

All the shifter species had some kind of "indicator" while in their human forms. For a Volpe, it was our petite stature combined with pointed ears. Carcas were by far the easiest to identify as they all sported two lighter-colored stripes in their hair and were fairly small themselves. Orsos on the other hand were large in every sense of the word, from their teeth to their height, and were fairly easy to spot. Panteras often had a leaner - sometimes bordering on lanky - build with perpetually enlarged canines. Lupos were the least conspicuous with medium heights and medium builds; the only feature that gave them away were their horribly large teeth that gave Orsos a run for their money.

Serena was leaning against the wall near the locker room door as I pulled on my backpack. Once she heard me approaching, she looked up and smirked, "Dang, Willow, I always forget how sharp your tiny ass teeth are! Look what you did to me!" She pulled up her pant leg to reveal two bite wounds dotted with my dental impression. I glanced up at her and grinned, knowing that I at least did some damage. "At least I won though." She reminded me with a proud smile on her soft, feminine features.

The imprints of my teeth went deeper in her leg than I had intended and when I saw a fresh drop of blood spill from one of the wounds, I felt a slight pang of guilt at seeing them. Shifters were rough with each other and Serena and I had wrestled more times than we could count, but it was rare we ever actually broke skin. For once, I was sincere when I said, "Sorry, I hope it doesn't hurt too much."

Her turquoise eyes darted down to me and she blew my apology off with a wave of her hand, "Nah, you're good. I'm surprised you even managed to do this much, to be honest." Sometimes she didn't realize it, but even Serena wasn't immune from underestimating me. As a human, she was more than familiar with my ability to fend for myself, but she still saw me as a tiny girl and an even tinier fox.

I decided to change the subject. "What kind of gum do you have?" I noticed her obnoxious smacking, but couldn't smell bubblegum or mint on her breath, so my curiosity was piqued.

She held out her pack of gum to me and I shook my head "No" before I did a double take: It was a catnip-flavored gum. Last century, some idiot thought it would be a good idea to cultivate a new strain of the plant so that it was attractive to Panteras. Most Panteras would just smoke it but companies have had a field day coming up with hundreds of uses for the plant including their take on pot brownies, oils, sprays, and now, apparently, gum. Catnip in general wasn't illegal to have - people still owned actual pet cats, after all - but this particular plant had been illegal since the beginning, only recently becoming legal for recreation in some states a year or two ago; Maine not being one of them.

It wasn't particularly dangerous and it didn't have much of a physiological effect except for a dilation of the cardiovascular system, but it was highly addictive to Panteras. If I or any other species were to eat it or smoke it, it wouldn't do anything to us, but for them, it drove them up the wall and was a serious stimulant. The last thing her hyperactive-self needed was a stimulant.

Slitting my eyes up at her, I slapped her hand back so no one else could see the contraband item. In a harsh whisper, I asked, "What the hell, Serena?! How did you even get that?!" I was ready to do a lot worse to her than a half-moon impression of my teeth.

She rolled her eyes at me, copying what I did earlier. "Do you remember my cousin, Miguel?" I blinked at her without responding, not seeing how this was relevant to my question. "Well, he knows a guy down in Boston and he hooked me up with some stuff." By "stuff", I could tell whatever she had received was plural and I felt myself begin to fume. I didn't care what people did in their free time, but I did care about my best friend and her propensity for making stupid decisions.

"What guy?" I questioned, knowing that whoever was selling drugs out of Boston had to have some connection back to a gang; there was no way the gangs there would let just an everyday person sell on their territory.

Her eyes moved to me and their corners lifted mischievously, "He's a Volpe, maybe you know him." Busting each other's balls was an integral part of our dynamic.

I flashed my eyes the color of my fox form and scolded, "Not all Volpes know each other, asshat." If anyone else had said something along those lines, their nose would be bleeding by that point, but because I knew she was screwing with me - and because it was her - I allowed it. I had enough of a sense of humor to enjoy certain special jokes; it was only when the person wasn't either my best friend or a stand-up comedian that I took offense to them.

She snickered to herself, satisfied with her comment and continued, "I've been wanting to try this gum for a while. It's really good, you should try some."

She once again held it out to me for me to take one, but I took the entire pack and slammed it against the wall and into the trashcan before she could blink. I turned around to face her, my finger waving in her face as my eyes flashed amber in warning. "No friend of mine is gonna get addicted to freaking catnip, now go find some real gum."

With a hiss that barely registered to my ears, she turned and scurried out of the locker room as the bell sounded to find her mate and my other best friend, Kyle. It had only been two periods since she had last seen him, and yet she was already halfway down the breezeway to reach him. I never understood the urgency in her step, but I let her be; she had been this way ever since she first met Kyle.

As I made my way out of the locker room and down the hallway towards the biology lab, I couldn't help but overhear a group of Lupos' conversation. They were obnoxiously loud and annoying to me as it was, but these Lupos insisted on walking right in stride with me. With my short legs, there was no way I could speed walk to escape them and I couldn't afford to be late to class again, so with a roll of my eyes, I tried my best to keep to myself.

"Yeah, I know, he's supposed to be really hot," one of them started, going off from whatever conversation they had been having before they chose to walk next to me. I had to restrain myself from bashing my head against the bricks in the wall.

Another girl added, "I heard he hasn't found his mate yet," to which all the Lupo girls around her responded with a resounding "Oooooh". I couldn't help but roll my eyes again, not caring if they noticed it or not.

I had never been able to stand Lupos. They hadn't all treated me horribly, but a large percentage sure had. They enjoyed the rises they would get out of me and I would enjoy the sound of them screaming when I broke their manicures. That was the problem with Lupos for the most part: They acted like brainless, needy, zombies. They all copied the newest trend from one another and were total chameleons to whatever or whoever was the most popular. They never seemed to have a mind of their own or care about anything other than their looks or social status. It was ironic to me that the wolves were the biggest sheep of all.

But I guess that Lupos weren't exactly the biggest fans of Volpes like myself, either. There was a prevailing stereotype that surrounded the Volpe species that we were extremely violent and cunning to the point that we could never be trusted. Even hundreds of years ago when shifters lived in relatively separate communities from humans, Volpes were ostracized from the other species. We were looked at like vermin that needed to be exterminated because all we did was leech off of others. Things had gotten marginally better for us since then, but the species relations were still tense.

In the eyes of those with so-called "antiquated" opinions of us - particularly Lupos - compared to the other species, we were less than; we were savage. To them, we were somehow both strengthened because of our species and feared because of it but also simultaneously weakened by it and mocked for our supposed frailty. It was contradictory and didn't make sense, but stereotypes rarely do.

The female Lupos continued swooning over - what I could gather between their high-pitched squeals - their new Alpha as we walked through the halls, more girls coming to join their group once we passed a row of lockers. Based off of what I could understand from my involuntary eavesdropping, he had been away at college and was just now returning home to take his father's place as the Tri-State Alpha because the current Alpha had fallen ill. They all thought it was noble for the kid to step up and take his father's place; I thought it was a torturous obligation for him to be forced to drop out of school to come and fulfill some ancient requirement expected from birth.

That was another major difference between our species: Lupos belonged to packs in every part of the world. In the United States, there was an Alpha for every county in each state, an Alpha for each state, an Alpha for the Tri-State area (depending on the size of the states), an Alpha for the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West, and finally a single Alpha for the entire country that ranked above all of those Alphas who worked alongside the President.

The concept of packs were the only thing that didn't hold to democracy in the entire country. Lupo packs consisted of the Alpha and their citizens and the Alpha was always the previous Alpha's firstborn child, unless they got challenged and overthrown, that is. It could be barbaric at times and seemed outdated as hell to me, but we had learned enough in our history classes to know that though the government had tried desperately to do away with the packs, the Lupos always revolted and would nearly start a war; in the 1700's, it did start a war. Lupos were a strange species in that they needed leadership. They needed packs for a sense of belonging the rest of us were fine without. A lone wolf, so to speak, was a miserable, depressed, and ultimately dead wolf.

Even now, a group of mostly Lupo females had gathered and were moving and talking as a single unit, afraid to be alone for a single second. I couldn't help but snicker at the overly exaggerated swooning these Lupo girls were doing all over someone that would be the death of me. Despite my brief moments of worry about a potential Lupo mate, it was rare that your mate was someone outside your own species and that comforted me.

I was eternally grateful that my best friends were both Panteras; another solitary species like Volpes, except when it came to their immediate family and friends. I walked through the threshold to my biology class and felt a sense of relief from finally escaping the group of Lupos. Kyle turned in his seat once he sensed my presence in the classroom and Serena mirrored him so they could talk to me before class started. His surfer appearance made him look youthful, but I knew better than to underestimate his fierceness, especially when he was in his cougar form. He lifted the side of his mouth up into a lazy grin, his sharp canines on display from the action, "She already ratted you out."

Rolling my eyes playfully, I put my backpack on the tabletop behind the Pantera couple to unpack my supplies. "Of course she did." I zipped up the bag and threw it to the floor carelessly, leaning forward on the desk, "But did she rat herself out?"

The space between his eyes creased and his smiled faltered while Serena sent me daggers. I didn't care what she thought of me; I didn't want her to be stupid and get herself into trouble with the catnip and I knew Kyle would back me up on this. The teacher walked down the aisle next to us as the bell rang. Shaking my head, I told him, "I'll tell ya' later."

The lesson immediately began on DNA and RNA replication, effectively making my brain go numb for the next forty-five minutes. The subject only served to confuse me and make my anxiety heighten more than it already was. In some classes, I could be the smartest kid in class and in others, I was the slowest. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, I supposed, but none of my strengths were consistent. College applications would be due in a few weeks time, but I had no idea what I wanted to go to school for. To have to decide your future and make plans that affect the rest of your life when you were eighteen was a horrible concept.

As I looked around at my class, zoning out from the rambling of my teacher, I took notice of the diversity of my classmates: There were the nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, and whatever other cliché high-school stereotype you could think of. Within those groups then came the separation of species, whether that be the human nerds that were competitive against the Carca nerds or the Lupo jocks were constantly fighting with the Orso jocks. There was a sort of power struggle between the species as each one tried to prove themselves to be someone or something other than what opposing species saw them as.

As I continued to do a three-sixty around me, I counted how many of each species were in my class. Lupos, being the horny attention seekers they were, were the most plentiful. It made sense, seeing as the center of the Tri-State pack was only minutes away from the school. Next were the Panteras who always had been and always would be star-athletes in almost any sport. Humans were plentiful as well but their overall population has slowly been dwindling ever since the shifters came out as what they truly are. Since then, the humans had been paired up as mates with the other species and because the other species' genes are much more dominant in offspring than human genes, their descendants were more than likely to be shifters.

Carcas were next in the population. They are some very powerful warriors; fierce and unforgiving. In many tribal societies, Carcas were regarded as warrior gods and were often worshiped for their prowess because of their inherent ferociousness. They were said to have been touched by the stars and infused with their power more so than the rest of us.

There was a prominent legend in the shifter community that said that in a time of need, stars - or angels as another religion might refer to them as - could come down and walk amongst us. The legend went something along the lines of once, when humans were in danger of being wiped out by their own pettiness, the stars came down to aid the innocent. So, the stars, as their purpose was, needed to keep the balance of life in balance and the only way of doing this was for the most powerful stars to come down and ravage the very humans that were causing so much destruction.

Because of their powerful forms and the fact that they might frighten the humans that were still uncorrupted and in danger, they had to come down in the form of one of the life forms they had already created. This legend originated in what is now North America, so the life forms and bodies they used to conceal themselves for what their true potential was were the gray wolf, red fox, brown bear, mountain lion, and wolverine.

The stars, of course, won and wiped out the humans that had been so bloodthirsty and cursed them to reside in the darkness of the night sky for all eternity. The balance was then restored, but the stars weren't able to return to their place in the sky because their bodies were Earth-bound. Not only that, they also began to inexplicably fall madly in love with the very humans they were protecting. Once this happened, they found that they could turn into humans themselves, now possessing both a human and animal form. They became more and more Earth-like with flaws, needs, and urges, instead of the perfect, satisfied gods they used to be. Soon, they had children with the very humans they sought to protect. Most of the children then grew up to become just like their mothers and fathers: shifters with two forms.

When the bodies that held the souls of the stars eventually died, they left behind only their children and their legacies. Having lived fulfilling lives, they now understood what it was like to be human. So, when their souls were supposed to return to where they originated, they instead decided that the best way to protect the humans and the ones they loved was to sacrifice themselves and divide their full power so that it could be put to use. With their sacrifices, the stars split their beings and pieces of their souls began to reside in the strongest and most trustworthy of people. These people, once fully human, were now able to shift into animals that could be on the other side of the world from them; into animals that were completely foreign to them.

The legend was just as unlikely as the Greek mythologies, especially considering the mounting evidence from anthropologists for a migration event into and out of North America multiple times as shifters spread across the Bering Land Bridge and into the West to populate the world. It was an interesting story, nonetheless, and many shifters still had some form of a polytheistic or pantheistic religion built around the stars. A shifter's vocabulary was often slightly different from a human's for this reason, replacing the widely used "Oh my god" with "Oh my stars". They were still sometimes used interchangeably, though, with most people going around still using "god" half the time and "stars" the other half. It just depended on the person's mood, I guess.

Returning to my body again, I tried to listen into what the teacher was going on about. There was a test coming up and I knew that if I kept letting my mind wander, I would fail. It was my senior year, I had to graduate. The teacher called on a human at the front of the classroom and he started going off on her, correcting what she had said and they started to bicker back and forth on the terminology she had used. As uninterested as ever, I slipped right back into the depths of my mind, counting the species again out of utter boredom.

The Orsos were next on the list. These guys were the gentle giants of the shifter world. Even in human form, they were colossal and could be extremely intimidating if you didn't otherwise know them. They were bulky and packed with muscle, but they were surprisingly gentle and intimate while also not being as smothering as Lupos. They too enjoyed their space like Volpes and Panteras, but still needed some form of interaction occasionally. Another interesting thing about Orsos was that because they can use all that muscle in the blink of an eye, many Orsos - male or female - were on the football team and often went pro.

And then, there was my species. We had somewhat become a rarity in this area as we were often either spread out across the country or centered in large cities. It didn't help our population that we often had small families, but we preferred it that way. There was less chaos and more focus on love and affection eith only a few children instead of trying to equal out attention and love to ten kids. When my older brother had attended this school, there were a couple of Volpes at varying class levels, but since I started going here, I was the only one, save for two sophomore year teachers. I suppose one could say that I was something of an oddity and a side-show circus act in my school, especially when I first moved here eleven years ago.

That first day of school still gave me nightmares; so many grabby little hands reaching out to touch me and surrounding me. They obviously didn't understand that a Volpe needs her space. I was only grateful that this was my senior year and I could finally ditch this hellhole for greener pastures next year; if I could pass this class.

A sudden outburst of extremely girly giggles snapped me out of the nightmare that was my first exposure to Maine. The entire class whipped their heads around to see a blonde Lupo and a black-haired Lupo sitting next to each other at one of the lab tables, each blushing while covering their mouths with their hands as their shoulders bounced up and down in silent laughter.

Mrs. Launchewood cleared her throat in annoyance at the two Lupo girls I recalled were named Rebecca and Luna. They stopped laughing but still had an overused smile on their face. One of the girls, Luna, apologized, "Sorry, sorry. It's just we're excited for-" Even I knew where that sentence was headed after the conversation I overheard on my way to class.

And apparently so did Mrs. Launchewood. "Yes, girls. I'm very much aware of our new Alpha's arrival, but could you at least try to focus on the lesson instead of daydreaming about your possible mate?" The class burst into laughter at the sass Mrs. Launchewood was infamous for. I had been on the receiving end of it too many times and I was glad it had been passed onto someone else for once.