Broken Threads: Curse of Mates
Thirteen

thirteen

I was not surprised at Sera’s reaction when I started to get to know her. She’s apprehensive, uncertain whether I will be a fair-weather friend. I know I pull in people and quickly become a beacon of popularity like Sera once did. Even Catherine and her crew want me to be their friend. Even when I pull away from Catherine’s group, they still try to include me.

I quickly became friends with two wolves, Logan Mercer and Blake Wilson. A she-wolf, Yvonne Farrell and her friend Jaymie Radden hang around us too. I know the girls don’t like Sera, as they’re easily influenced by Catherine and their pack hierarchy, but the boys are genuinely kind and friendly. I could see myself having an affair with Logan… when he’s older. I know he won’t meet his mate until his late twenties. And I can see that Blake likes Sera. Although I know neither are the other’s mates, it’s nice to see someone finally caring for Sera. She’s a nice girl but has been through hell because of things she has no control over. Sera deserves better.

I don’t know if it was in the plan to become friends with Sera. I know she’s a nice girl. I’ve grown quite fond of her over the past couple of weeks. We spend lunch together, taking over her ‘spot’ in the lunch room. But I’ve also found myself sitting with her in English and Art. She’s thoughtful and creative. Like the lunchroom, others join us when I sit with her in Art. The Art classes are where I see Sera relax and be herself. She jokes around with her peers and actually laughs. It’s good to see the smile on her face. At least my being here can give her a little bit of comfort.

I’m smiling at these thoughts as I breathe in the banana goodness of my vape. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Banana-flavoured things. They don’t taste like real bananas, like chicken flavour doesn’t taste like real chicken. The flavour tastes the same no matter what it’s on, but it doesn’t taste like the real thing.

I see someone rush past, and I look up.

“Hey!” I call out, recognising Sera. She stops and looks at me.

“Are you okay?” I ask, knowing by looking at her that she definitely is not. Sera looks up at me and nods. Such a liar. When people are not okay, and you ask them if they are, of course, they will lie. I chastise myself for that.

“I would ask what happened… but….” I begin, looking at her wet skirt. I wince. It’s like Sera is her packmate’s personal plaything. They all enjoy bullying her.

“Inaya spilt her iced coffee on me. She said I tripped her. But I didn’t,” Sera stutters, trying to control the tears falling down her face. Of course, they did. Sera has one of the sweetest souls out there. The others… are tainted. I know it shouldn’t, but it makes me feel less terrible about their future.

“What are we going to do with you…” I murmur. I can’t help but feel bad for her.

“Come on,” I suggest, turning towards my car, “let’s blow this joint.”

I don’t wait for Sera to follow me, and I smile when I hear her footsteps behind me.

“Are you coming?” I then ask, looking over my shoulder at her. She nods and runs up to me so we match our pace.

“Is this real leather?” Sera asks when she sits in the passenger seat. I watch her run her finger over the upholstery and then sniff the leather seat. This makes me chuckle.

“Yup. While I was here, I wanted to splash out. Why not, huh?” I wink.

“Seatbelt,” I then instruct, watching her buckle it in. As soon as she’s belted in safe, I put my foot on the gas and take off down the street. I love my red Mustang, and I love driving it.

I have no set plan for where I’m going to go. I could take Sera to the mall and buy her some new clothes, but I’m not a fan of shopping. Being on your feet is tiring, having to walk from shop to shop to get what you want. Even online shopping bores me. Which is why I got Nancy to do it. I decided to take her to my place.

“You live here?” Sera asks as we drive towards my house

“Yup. You like?” I ask. Sera nods, and I smile, exiting the car and opening the front door.

“Wow,” Sera gasps as we enter the large foyer.

“Yeah. It’s a bit too big, I think. But I always wanted a place with an indoor pool, so I thought, why not?” I smile at her. Only some of my homes have an indoor pool. One place I own is a run-down log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Off the grid, rustic living.

I show Sera to my room and offer her free reign of my clothes. I then let her know where the shower is before I leave. Sera comes down an hour later, and I offer her a coffee.

“Uh… I’ve never had coffee before….” Sera admits.

“Well, you’re in for a treat,” I grin. I make her a coffee and watch her take a sip, laughing when she almost spits it out.

“Here, try it with this,” I say, adding two teaspoons of hot chocolate powder to her drink. Sera takes another sip, and the face she makes isn’t as severe as the one before.

“Better?” I ask.

“Better. Thank you.”

After our tea, I use the phone and order pizza for lunch.

“Please say you’ve had pizza before,” I ask after I order.

“Yes. I’ve had pizza… homemade….”

We sit at the kitchen table and chat. I tell Sera about my childhood, growing up with my family. I leave out most details, as she thinks I am an eighteen-year-old human girl.

“What about you? What did you do as a kid?” I ask after I’ve rendered her laughing about the story of my brother and I trying to catch a frog from a pond.

“I used to spend my summers with my dad’s best friend and his daughter. We did everything together and would tell stories about how we were twins born two weeks apart,” Sera says, looking down at the table.

“We would go for runs in the forest, and mum would always have watermelon cut up for us and glasses of lemonade waiting. They were my favourite memories of my childhood,” Sera admits. I nod and am about to ask what happened (of course, I already know) when my gate bell rings indicating the pizza delivery man is here.

“Hold that thought,” I tell her.

“So… this is cheese pizza, and this is Hawaiian… and this is my favourite, pepperoni,” I tell Sera, who nods. I grab two plates and load mine with a slice from each.

“Uhm, I think… I’ll try the cheese,” Sera says, lifting the slice from the box. I watch as Sera takes a bite, and the cheese comes out in strings from her mouth. I laugh at her, and she swats me with her hand.

“I like the cheese one,” Sera tells me once our laughter dies.

“Another coffee?” I ask after we finish. Sera nods, and we pack away the leftovers and put them away in the fridge.

We decide to watch the latest Jurassic World movie, and Sera asks me to make her another coffee. I smile, happy that she’s enjoying the delicious goodness of cocoa beans. It is another human invention I adore. Coffee and chocolate. To think these beans could make something so sweet and another so bitter. This invention definitely rates high in my list of great things humans have created.

After her second coffee during the movie, Sera is on a high. Her feet literally can’t keep still as we sit and watch the dystopian movie overrun by Jurassic dinosaurs. It reminds me of Krystal when she’s eaten too much sugar and has to keep still at one of our board meetings.

“Thanks for the lift. And spending the day with me,” Sera says, smiling like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

“Anytime. I’ll pick you up tomorrow, okay?” I tell her.

“Oh… you don’t have to…”

“No ifs or buts. I’ll pick you up. See you later bitch! And yes, I mean that literally!” I tell her. Okay, maybe I’ve had one too many coffees as well…

“I’m not a bitch…” Sera begins.

“Yet,” I say softly.

“What?” Sera asks, frowning. Whoops. I may have said too much there.

“See you tomorrow bitch!” I smile, trying to hide my mistake. Sera nods and gets out of the car. She waves goodbye to me through the window, and I put my foot on the gas. Shit, I hope she doesn’t overthink that slip.

I know Sera’s coming close to her end; I see it when I look at her, so I pick her up and take her to school the next day. Today, Friday… is going to be a hard day for Sera. It won’t be anything she hasn’t experienced before, but it will be fresh in her memory when her time comes. I’m sad. I know I shouldn’t get attached. I rarely get involved with the lives of the threads that get cut.

I know things are okay for Sera in the morning. If being ostracised by her peers is what one considers okay. Sera didn’t have any friends before she met me. Catherine and Zach have too much influence over the wolves and humans that attend the school. And the pack… well, their class hierarchy is very outdated.

At lunchtime, I sit at Sera’s table and am joined by Blake, Logan, Yvonne and Jaymie.

“Where’s Sera?” Blake asks, scanning the lunchroom.

“Why does it matter?” Jaymie says under her breath. Blake, Logan and Yvonne have turned eighteen and have their wolves, so her quietly said comment doesn’t go unnoticed. I pretend I didn’t hear it, making my face look blank as I look out at the lunchroom while Blake and Logan glare at Jaymie.

“What, it’s not like she’s your mate, is she?” Yvonne angrily whispers.

“I can’t see her,” I say out loud, shrugging my shoulders. I look at everyone at the table and see a standoff between the boys and the girls (which I knew about but pretended I didn’t).

“What’s going on?” I innocently ask.

“Oh, we can’t see Sera either,” Jaymie says, mimicking me by shrugging her shoulders. I just nod, not acknowledging that she’s covering her arse.

“She’s probably held up in class,” Yvonne offers.

“Yeah,” Logan says, giving Blake a hopeful expression.

“I might go look for her in a minute,” I say, moving my spoon through the beef curry.

“Okay,” Blake says.

“So, who heard about what happened in the History block this morning?” Jaymie offers, changing the subject. Everyone starts talking about a punch-up outside the History building this morning, ending with one student thrown through the entrance window. I know the fight was between two werewolves trying to exert their dominance over each other, but the conversation didn’t mention that.

“I’m going to look for Sera,” I say as the conversation continues. Jaymie nods and continues talking, and Blake smiles, thanking me. I nod and leave the table.

It’s easy to follow Sera’s trail. No, I may not be a werewolf, but one of my abilities is to see the strings that link people together. It is an extraordinary power that only fates can see.

“Sera?” I ask as I walk into the bathroom. I know she’s in here, but I don’t know how hurt she is.

“Are you there?” I ask again, opening the toilet cubicle door and looking in. I go to the cubicle with the locked door and knock.

“Open up! Sera?”

I don’t hear anything for a moment, and then a slight movement can be heard.

“Coming,” I hear Sera respond softly. But her voice isn’t smooth. It’s croaky. I’m about to open the door myself because there’s no one else here to see me when I hear a loud thud on plastic. Fuck this. I touch the lock, and it clicks open.

“Hey… hey… are you okay?” I ask. I know by looking at her that she’s not okay. As I bobbed in front of her, my hand resting on her arm, I looked up at her bruised head. Looking deeper in, I see the actual trauma inflicted on her head by the blow she was given by her ex-best friend. If her fate wasn’t already set, this injury, left untreated, would take her eventually anyway.

“I still can’t believe they think this is okay to do to one of their own. This was not the purpose of a pack. I’m so sorry, Sera. I wish this didn’t happen to you,” I say, my hand remaining on her arm. Sera makes an attempt to shrug her shoulders.

“This is my life,” she murmurs. And unfortunately, what she is saying is true. This is her life. It veered in a direction it wasn’t meant to go, and my girls have tried hard to steer it back.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, hot tears forming. Slowly I place my first two fingers on the bump on Sera’s forehead. Light ignites from my fingertips, the glowing balls expanding and spreading onto the bruised area.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more,” I whisper again.

“It’s okay,” Sera croaks. I sigh. I should get her home. Sera won’t have a concussion, and I’ve fixed any residual brain damage, but she will be out of it for the evening.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” I say, wrapping my arms under her shoulders.

~ Edited with Grammarly