Chapter 3 - A Campaign Trail Begins

“Hey, where you at? I stopped by your dorm, but Kyle said you left early,” Marcel said.

It was the next morning. As soon as I’d woken up that day, the sons and daughters of other prominent supernatural congressmen raided my phone with brash questions regarding my dad’s situation. Marcel’s text message and subsequent call were the only forms of communication I hadn’t ignored. No part of me was willing to provide answers to a bunch of teens that were probably being forced to talk to me by their parents.

I also needed information about my dad from my dad. I’d left a whole message, in concerned Spanish, to let him know that I was serious about coming home later that day. Entendido?

“Just getting coffee before class. I went to the main office to let them know Lily’s coming to visit soon.” I zipped up my hoodie and climbed down the stoop of St. Josefina’s administrative building. Although we hadn’t hit the cold weeks yet, December was tickled by frosty winds that made my eyes sting.

“Oh please, boy. You’re not heading there for coffee.” Marcel was skeptical on the other end of the call, but there was a hint of amusement still.

“Whatever. You’re delusional.” But one thousand percent correct. I could see the library’s southern entrance coming into view, and my free hands sprung to the bits of my hair that always stuck up. “Did you talk to your dad last night?”

“Yeah. Him and twenty other people from the nearby blood banks. I think I had, shit, an hour of sleep. What ‘bout you?”

Cold metal door handles weren’t the only things that sent chills up my spine. I smelled the cafe at the other end of the library. I suspected I was the only one who could. To Marcel, I said, “No one’s called, but I’ve got a truckload of unanswered messages. I’m driving up to my dad’s today to get some insight.”

“Alright bro, I’m heading back to my dorm. I’ll meet you at the library after my lab. If Lily gets there early, tell her I’m bringin’ my rough draft.”

I smirked, “Sure, cya.”

“Cya.”

Maybe because we all have underlying masochistic tendencies, or because we have a looming inner force that drives us toward self-destructive behavior, I walked through the young adult section of the library, between large white bookshelves housing rows of strategically marketed softcore-porn, to get to the cafe at the other end.

But I treaded slowly. Somewhere in my backpack, a new message from AOF made my phone vibrate.

I couldn’t remember when I developed a critical eye for paranormal romance and the action-packed magical adventures sold year-round. But long before my first change, there were novels, textbooks, and movies cycling fresh ideas adapted from the recurring myths that surrounded our community. And sometime during middle school, I’d stumbled onto a website called Wettpett and grown a furious desire to incarcerate anyone who was blasphemous enough to write the words alpha and werewolf in the same sentence. It could have been then that I started to stalk the internet and become a bane on the backs of amateur writers everywhere.

I passed a finger over the spine of a single novel and pulled. And there they were. A full moon. A girl in a dress. A wolf in the background. The holy trinity signifying my kind. I rolled my eyes and placed the book back. Somewhere up front, I could hear the bubbling of hot coffee and the hiss of steam escaping the brewing machine. A tiny bit of concentration and her voice was among those noises.

At around age twelve or thirteen, my innocence was lost because of one of these novels. I was a casualty, a poor young naive child. The year was 2008, and I had read my first werewolf romance and became familiar with the largest, most offensive stereotype perpetuated by Full-human writers. The so-called mate.

“Sidney?” I heard her say.

I emerged from the shelves.

Katherine Luc lifted her gaze from the cup she was extending to a customer, and the exact moment our eyes met and the golden morning light flared around her beautiful blonde hair, the smell of baked goods and caffeine masking its tinge of sweat, I felt it.

It being absolutely nothing.

“Hey, Kat,” I said.

Don’t get me wrong, my crush on Katherine Luc made me wish that the two of us were fated in some way, but a smarter part of me—the part who laughed when people used the word effortless to describe personal relationships—didn’t dare to consider Katherine anything other an independent human being who made the best mochas I’d ever tasted.

“Yandel, hi! It’s been a week. Where you been?” Kat’s voice was sweet and loud, always welcoming regardless of whether she was working or not.

“I’ve been around. Hanging with friends and stuff.”

That was a lie. I had so much work backed up after my dad’s Senatorial bid and winning ceremony that I would sweat just thinking about the grades I was bound to receive after the Winter break.

“That’s cool, cool.” Her head bobbed up and down. “What can I get you?”

“White chocolate mocha and a hot chocolate with no whip cream. Both tall.”

“Ooh, two drinks instead of one? I’ll get that going.”

She turned around, long ponytail swishing behind her and the strawberry shampoo she wore smacking the nonchalance out of my face. I had to bite my bottom lip to subdue the smile creeping up on me and the crinkle in my eyes, the unavoidable signs that I was crushing about as hard as WWE.

That's something your favorite hunky were-boy would never do; have a crush. It’s like a silent rule in novels that the werewolf next door can’t be goofy on love, can’t have the stupid love songs playing in his head, and can’t suffer from the word vomit that ails people when they’re nervous. Otherwise, it’d break the mystery behind his serious, smoldering gaze.

“Are you excited about the upcoming year?” She asked. On the white countertop, she slid two thin straws to the trash bin waiting below.

“Yeah, sophomore year. Woop.”

“Exciting! But I meant, like, New Year’s Eve. This semester ends in June, right?”

I smiled tightly. “Yeah, sorry. I’m a little sleepy this morning. Late night.” Jesus, Maria, and Josefina, I took speech for seven years and this was the fruit of that labor.

“Party monster much?” She poked, and a second later she was back near the pick-up area holding two cups.”

“Something like that.” Nothing like that at all. I remembered the mountainous book piles left unread on my nightstand. After taking one look at them last night, my brain had shut off and fallen into a deep sleep.

I took the cups and pretended to sample the taste. I knew I should be heading out. Realistically, there remained plenty of time for me to make a move on Katherine Luc, a couple of years in fact. She was only one semester ahead of me, and she had plans to remain at Saint Josefina’s after graduation. Still, part of me wanted to get things going.

“Hey, Kat?”

“Hey, Kat.”

A soft, tired voice spoke simultaneously alongside my own. The girl coming up to the counter was a short, chubby student with a hoodie tightened all around her face. She looked sick, dark eyes half-lidded and nose a bit red, and the edges of hair peeked out from under her hood.

“Hey, Adri! You look...terrible.”

Well. That's my cue.

I decided I wasn’t going to press the issue. Besides, I had things to do. Things I didn’t want to do, but they were things. And I needed to do them.

“Bye, Katherine,” I said quietly.

If there were a point system to keep in all matters of wolven love: Mysterious Hunky Were-boy, 1, and Yandel, 0.