For some reason, even though every part of me (that is, both the alpha wolf part and my weird human girl part) wanted to go to school, I could not break free from my bed.
For all my alpha strength, I was tied down by a single tube attached with a transparent plaster.
Actually, it wasn't even that. It was the red liquid.
I blamed the weird human part of me, but the thought of pulling out the tube and having the red stuff spurt out everywhere—especially on my bed—sort of conjured up images of vampires spurting blood and a bloodied, torn-up bed after your little sister's first shift.
The moment the images came to mind, I quieted. Now I was sitting up on my bed, just looking at the bag of blood hanging above my head, wondering how to turn the thing off.
"I will stay with her," it was Harvey who spoke first.
"It's okay, I can stay home with her today," Mum said.
"She seems to have calmed down," Dad considered, "but it would be good to have Harvey around the house. I would certainly feel reassured."
"Let Harvey go to school," I said.
Go beta! Be free and go to school. I can only live vicariously through you!
"I will after Ki wakes up," Harvey promised.
But I wasn't so easily fooled this time. "Killion would probably sleep in till dinner!"
Harvey's phone chimed. He looked at it briefly. "I will be driving out to pick up your homework from Marc."
Who's Marc? Right—Marcus.
My polite beta had left out the cuss. Hahaha. Get it?
I sulked.
My hand hurt! It wanted to heal, but there was a stupid needle stuck in it.
Dad caught me examining the insertion.
"Yes, better have someone with her at all times," Dad decided.
"I don't need a babysitter," I protested.
I even tried to appeal to Dad's pet topic. "Harvey should have the right to receive his education!"
"Please don't worry, Princess. I have quite a lot of paperwork to catch up on anyway," Harvey assured us.
Dad nodded. "I'll be leaving for work after this."
OMG—they were just going to ignore me and do whatever they wanted. I could nuke the entire pack town with my alpha dominance (which I did) and still be treated like a pup in my own home!
To Mum he said, "Darling, she'll be fine. Try to rest."
"I can also drive out for errands later, if you need anything, Luna," Harvey offered.
He checked his phone. "What are 'important cupcake toppings,' Princess?"
Oh, was he looking at my calendar? I had put a reminder for it so I wouldn't forget.
Oh yes, that's right! Since my good beta liked running errands so much, he could help me deliver stuff to school!
"Harvey, can you collect my homework from school before my last lesson block? Then ask Marcus to pass Zara the cupcake toppings."
Yes! Now I could miss school in peace, knowing that I hadn't let my home-ec partner down.
"Yes, of course, Princess," Harvey said.
"Thanks. They are in that paper bag on my desk."
I don't understand why Mrs. Martinez hated me so much. I had to be her most enthusiastic student.
I had been planning this cupcake project with added chocolate chips, blue frosting, and a rainbow of M&Ms and gummy worms. I even packed them in advance.
Harvey looked into the paper bag. "Oh, they really are cupcake toppings."
Eh? What did he think they would be?
I texted Zara:
YOU
~ Marcus would pass you the cupcake toppings later.
ZARA
~ Oh, good! I only had gum and breath mints.
~ Btw, Marcus said you're sick. Is anyone taking care of you?
YOU
~ Yes. More than necessary.
And then I remembered how Zara went home to an empty apartment. (Cute hamsters didn't count.)
I looked at Mum, Dad, and Harvey still in my room. I was lucky. I was grateful.
I think, just for today, I should shut up and be thankful.
So I shut up and sat back on my pillow.
I watched as Harvey excused himself to collect his laptop from his truck. (I'm starting to believe the guy lived out of his truck.)
And then I watched as Mum straightened my sheets and Dad answered emails on his phone.
And then I watched as Harvey returned and set up his things on my desk.
Dad gave Mum a kiss, looked up at me, and said, "Let the Beta do his job, Sam."
What was that supposed to mean?
Dad gave Harvey a nod of approval and left for work.
Mum decided she had things she should be doing downstairs.
"Don't worry, Luna. I'll watch over the princess," Harvey assured her. "I'll leave the door open and let you know immediately if I need help."
Mum seemed super pleased with this.
She invited Harvey to join us for meals and told him to help himself to anything in the fridge, which Harvey accepted politely. There was Thursday training tonight, so Harvey would have dinner with us as well.
I had never been stuck in bed before.
To be honest, I was perfectly well enough to move around the house, but I was chained by a red plastic tube to a metal stand… which I now noticed had wheels, so technically, if I didn't mind walking with a bag of blood following me about, I could.
Technically, I could. In reality, Mum would be back in my room again the moment I tried.
Grrr… Wait, I'm being grateful right now and shouldn't be growling. I kept quiet.
It was really boring being grateful. My wolf wanted to run.
Sometimes, I suspected that when the moon goddess made me, she accidentally put in too much wolf.
Maybe she was like, "Oh look, what a weird girl! Oops, that's a tad too much wolf, but oh well, maybe something interesting would happen."
But nothing interesting was happening now.
I was sitting in my bed. Harvey was at my desk typing furiously on his laptop. So I did what any wolf in my shoes would do: I curled back in the blanket to sleep.
The more I slept, the faster I healed, and the higher the chance of Delta Simon freeing me.
I was bound by blood… Get it? Hahahahaha. No? Tough crowd.
Okay, I couldn't sleep.
I wanted to do something fun, or talk, but Dad said to let the Beta do his job. So I just rolled over to watch Harvey work on his laptop from my cocoon. He didn't even seem to remember there was an angry alpha curled up in the lump of quilts. He had put on earpieces that were playing something rock.
Suddenly, the rock music gave way to a ringing tone. Harvey took a quick glance at his phone, lit up silently next to the laptop, then he touched his earpiece. The phone screen darkened. "Harvey here, what's up?"
His voice was the usual calm, with a little bit of gravel, like the sound of riding in his truck over the gravel roads in the woods.
I wasn't sure what was up. Even my alpha hearing couldn't pick out what his earpiece said. But Harvey simply agreed, "Sure. Let's go with that. Thanks."
Then he touched the earpiece again. This made his phone screen light up again with the call log, and then darken when it was ignored. The rock music continued, and Harvey was back at typing again. I couldn't see what was on his screen. There was a dark film over it. Was that what a privacy film looked like?
After a while, I got bored of watching him just typing. So I took out my phone to kill time. Maybe play until I leveled up again on that game, or watch a video about… I don't know. I remembered the videos Savy and Lizzy had scrolled through. Maybe it was time I learned to braid my own hair.
Oh, my text app had 99+ new messages. It was like it got tired of keeping count. I opened it. It wasn't that bad, spread out across a few groups…