“Not only do we have to go to school, but we have to get here early?” Sarah whined for the twentieth time.
“Oh, woe is you. I have never heard of such abuse.”
Sarah scowled at her. “I know you’re being sarcastic, but you’re actually telling the truth. Have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person?”
“Only a million times. Let’s go.” Dakota pointed at the doorway.
They balked.
“Why does Naomi get to sleep in?” Sarah demanded.
“She’s going to clean the house and help Hazel in the pack’s garden today. And she’s already graduated high school, so she doesn’t need to go to class.”
“Why do I have to learn to read?” John grumbled.
“You like it when Naomi reads you bedtime stories, right?” Dakota asked.
John sniffed indifferently. “Yeah. So? She can just keep reading them to me.”
“I thought you were all going to run away.”
“Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.” He shrugged.
Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Is she going to read to you when you’re twenty?”
John shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s not for a million years.”
“And that’s why you need school. Because your math doesn’t add up. Forward march. Go on, in there.” She shooed them through the door.
After Anthea showed them around, Dakota settled down in her new classroom. The students would rotate in throughout the day, and she would teach them English and history. She got the older kids first – the thirteen through seventeen-year-olds. There were eight of them including Sarah, and they sat there and looked at her sullenly. One of them was Fargo’s son, Purcell, and he seemed particularly hostile, playing with a pen knife and shooting menacing looks at Dakota.
Dakota introduced herself to the class, trying to sound bright and confident.
“Any questions?” she asked, settling into her chair.
Purcell snorted. “Yeah, why should we listen to you?”
He picked up his textbook and threw it on the floor, then jumped up on his chair and started howling.
Three of the other boys joined him, and the girls in the class sat there snickering quietly, except for Sarah, whose expression never changed.
Anthea burst into the room, and everyone immediately scrambled to get back in their chairs. She glared at Dakota. “Do I need to get a new teacher?” she demanded, and walked out of the room. Everyone waited until she’d left to start laughing, and Dakota struggled to hold back tears.
At that, Sarah shot up out of her chair with a snarl.
“I’ll tell you why you should listen to her,” she said, and her eyes glowed with a feral, crazy light. She picked up a pencil and jammed it completely through her hand, with barely a flinch, then yanked it back out. Blood poured from her hand, but the wound sealed itself up before their eyes.
Dakota stifled a gasp, and all the kids gaped at her.
“I heal super fast. My daddy used to do that to me all the time just to watch it heal. He thought it was funny listening to me scream,” Sarah said with a grin that exposed fangs. “But I barely even feel it anymore. And then one night he tried to do it to my little brother and I pushed him down a flight of stairs and he died.”
The entire room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Dakota blinked hard and tried not to cry.
“So if I’ll do this to myself, ask yourself what I’ll do to you if you make me mad. Any questions?”
Everybody in the room shook their heads, wide-eyed.
“Now,” Dakota said firmly, refusing to let her voice shake, “let’s get started on the lesson plan for today.”
After that, the kids settled down, although she noticed that they kept looking out the window.
Finally she said in exasperation, “Okay, guys, what do you expect to see out there?”
“We’re looking to see when the bus gets here. There’s going to be a fight,” one of the boys told her. “My dad told me. There’s ten guys coming today who are going to kill the Alpha Prime.”
“Miles or Creel?” another kid asked.
“Miles. And I heard there’s fifty guys on the bus,” one of the other boys said.
“I heard there’s a hundred!” Purcell said eagerly. “And when Miles is dead, my dad’s going to take over the Fenris Pack.”
“There can’t even be a hundred people on a bus. There’s no bus that big. And the Fenris Pack would eat your dad for lunch. Dumbass,” one of the other boys sneered.
Dakota jumped in to stop the brewing fight, but she felt worry twist deep inside her. Miles had given them a ride to the schoolhouse that morning and hadn’t mentioned a thing. She was sure the kids were exaggerating about ten people coming to challenge him, but Miles had a death challenge today.