Liam was the first to stand as he approached me. With every step he took towards me, I took one away from him. He was trying to touch me, and I couldn't let that happen. He was a freak. They were all freaks...

I was a freak.

Liam wanted to comfort me and explain, but he was unsure of himself. He was frustrated at his unsureness. There was also want. He wanted me, but he was conflicted because he had Sophia. Eventually, it turned to knowing.

"You know, don't you? Just like you knew my name before I even told you," he asked, trying to keep the conversation between us.

"M-Mya told me," I lied. A hush fell over the cafeteria as they watched me back away from their leader. Apparently, disobeying him was frowned upon. Another thing I didn't understand. Liam noticed my dodgy eyes and looked back at the curious faces with a growl before he stepped directly to me, passing me in the process.

"Come with me," he muttered towards me on the way out. I stutter-stepped before I followed him out quickly. I didn't want to be alone with Liam by any means, but staying in the cafeteria with all the eyes on me was worse. Liam walked briskly, and I had to jog to keep up with him. He left the school building out the back and went into a tree line nearby. My head was still pounding as I breathed heavily trying to keep up with him. Physical activity wasn't my strong suit and gravity wasn't my friend, so I more stumbled after him than jogged. The cold wasn't helping either. Even after walking for a few minutes, he continued.

"Okay, s-stop!" I yelled at him, shivering. My coat and scarf were still in my locker and I was completely vulnerable to the ice winds. He stopped and whipped around to face me, catching me off guard. I ran right into him. The hairs on my arms reached for him, even in the cold. I could feel him all around me. He tried to catch me, but it only made me freak out even more as I tried to get away from him.

"D-don't t-touch me!" I said, falling onto my butt. He huffed out a breath before crossing his arms and watching me stand up on my own. He grabbed my clothed arm as he stood in front of me.

"What are you?" he asked firmly.

"What am I? What are you?!" I retorted in frustration as I pushed him away from me. He growled low in warning as his canines extended further down.

"Never, push me away," he warned. I was too stunned to argue back. Stunned and scared. I'd never seen anything like that in my life. Well, once.

"Just like Sophia," I breathed out before my brain could tell my mouth not to talk. That only made him angrier.

"Sophia growled at you?" he asked, getting even angrier. I sighed and shook my head as I crossed my arms over my chest in a lame attempt to get warm. I really hated the cold.

"Yes. No. Not really... kind of... I don't know how to explain it. I don't even know what it is. I don't know what's happening, but ever since I got to this weird backwards town, things have been... weird," I struggled to find the right words. He didn't look happy with my answer.

"Try," he ordered, I glared at him.

"Stop using that tone on me; it only pisses me off," I told him before I took a breath to calm down. I shook my arms out to try and get some heat into them before I crossed them back. "Look, I don't know what's happening to me. I've always been an empath. Picking up on people's emotions and intentions has always been easy. But ever since I got here, it's been... intense. I'm reading people's minds. When I touch someone, a scene plays out before me like a movie or video. My vision hazes, my eyes go weird, I get these pounding headaches," I admitted, just ranting for the sake of getting it out at this point. "The first person I touched today was Sophia. My scene of her portrayed her as... feral and vicious. Her teeth extended like yours just did and she was glaring and growling at me. The scene wasn't clear cut in the picture it showed but the meaning was clear to me. She was jealous of me, for reason's I don't get at all, and she wanted to destroy me at this school," I finished. I turned away from him and ran my fingers through my hair and tugged on it slightly as I tried to make sense of it. The more I tried, the less I understood. Nothing was coming together.

"What did you see when I touched you?" he asked, calmer now. I hesitated and began chewing on my cheek. It was a really bad habit of mine. I felt urged to tell him, but it was embarrassing. I couldn't look at him. I was compelled to tell him. I wanted to get it off of my chest and see, once and for all, if I was imagining it.

"We were laying in a forest. Y-You kissed me and told me that you loved me. Then you ripped my heart out of my chest and left with Sophia," I explained, looking at my feet. He was quiet for a long moment.

"What does that mean?" he asked hoarsely. He cleared his throat as I finally looked at him. He had pink creeping up his neck. I'd caught him off guard. I released a breath and looked at my feet.

"You lust for me... you may even feel some kind of connection to me like... we belong together or something, but you'll choose her," I explained timidly, my voice tapering off towards the end. He heard me anyway. I was too embarrassed to look at him. Embarrassed because I felt the same about him. Embarrassed because the vision actually hurt, and seeing them together at lunch only confirmed my suspicions. And I didn't have that claim on him. I didn't know him well enough to feel for him the way I did.

"That's why you told me to stay away from you," he noted as a partial question even though he already knew the answer. I shrugged. He took a step towards me and despite my shivering and my knowledge of his much warmer skin, I took a step back to keep my distance. When I looked up, my eyes were caught by his.

"It's a lot more complicated than that," he protested. I held a hand up to stop him.

"One, I just moved here and you don't even know me. You're not qualified to even have feelings for me yet. Plus, you're with Sophia, and I get that. Two, I may not know what's been happening with me lately, and they've never come like this, but my gut is always right when it comes to someone's emotions and intentions. It's never been wrong. It told me you were with Sophia before I even knew your name. I'm not stupid Liam. I know you love her, and I don't care. It's none of my business and it doesn't bother me at all," I said. The last part was a lie, but he didn't need to know that.

"How does it work?" he asked after a moment, changing the subject. I shrugged.

"Honestly, I have no idea. They didn't start happening like this until today," I admitted as I tried to warm my arms. We were both silent as we avoided eye contact. Liam didn't seem to even notice the cold.

"And you seriously have no idea what we are? What you are? I can smell the wolf in you. How have you not shifted yet?" he asked.

"Considering the fact that I don't even know that you're talking about, 'I don't know' seems like the appropriate answer," I said.

"Where have you been? This is basic stuff, born into your blood. This is taught to us practically as soon as birth. It's your life; you're livelihood," he rambled.

"My dad's an ambassador. We traveled a lot. I never stayed in one place for more than three years. I-I didn't even know my real mother's name until yesterday, so cut me some slack," I snapped at him. His defense softened.

"I'm sorry," he said softly and sincerely. I shook my head. It was all I could do. It was a different conversation for a different time. "How old are you... exactly," he asked.

"Almost 18, why?" I asked.

"Because you haven't shifted yet and that's typically something that should have happened already," he answered. "Maybe I could try to show you by touching you, or something?" he asked, holding his hand out towards me. I looked at it unsurely as I readjusted my arms. My breathing created a small cloud in front of me.

"I don't even know if that's how it works," I said. He only shrugged.

"Then it can't hurt to try, can it?" he countered. I didn't want to touch him. He'd already seen my eyes change before and knew everything so why was I hesitating?

I didn't want to feel hopelessly drawn to him like before...

I sighed before I gave in and took his hand in mine. I gasped as the picture changed rapidly this time. I was thrown into a warmer day in a different part of the forest. The sun was shining down, warming my skin with it's rays. The birds were quiet. There was Liam, too, but he was much younger. Maybe around 8 years old. He was with his father; a clone of him. Liam groaned in pain, his bones cracking slowly, one at a time. His body demanding him to morph into a beast. He was screaming, crying on his knees, grasping the dirt that couldn't save him.

"You're fine, son. It's the most natural thing in the world for us. Don't fight your wolf; it's only going to make it harder. Embrace it, son. It's a onetime pain," his father instructed him as he circled the poor boy. I watched as each bone broke until he was fully a wolf. I felt bad for the boy, but Liam viewed it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He was relieved that it finally happened. He was proud.

"You're Alpha blood will eventually take over and you'll grow to be the largest. Well, second largest," the father joked, referring to himself. The small wolf wagged his tail as his head tilted slightly. He circled his father playfully before they tussled together. The father was proud and laughing.

The vision shifted, sending a jolt through my head. There was an image of the entire pack as wolves. I saw who stood next to his father as his best friend and Beta, I saw Liam's mother, the Luna, and Liam's sisters. I saw his life in fast forward. I learned what he learned, saw what he saw.

I couldn't help but to notice that Sophia was always there. He really loved her. I saw the memory of when she finally shifted and they realized they weren't mates. I saw them make a pact to pretend. They were happy together, after all. I saw his thoughts when he first saw me and what we were to each other. I saw what I was supposed to mean to him.

The stabbing, throbbing pain in my head got to be too much and I let go quickly. There were unwanted tears in my eyes as I waited for the haze to fade and Liam to come back into focus. I took a step away from him as I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. My head pounded painfully, but that wasn't what I was worried about at the moment.

"There's no way," I breathed. I took another step back as I held my forehead, trying to squeeze away the pain. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to wait for it to pass. With one touch, knowing about werewolves was second nature. It was like I was born into it instead of just finding out. The rank structure, the history, it just came easily to me. But one thing in particular terrified me.

"What did you see?" he asked hesitantly.

"Everything," I whispered, opening my eyes slowly. "We're nothing to each other. We can't be mates," I said unsurely.

"We are," he said softly.

"Everyone already thinks your mate is Sophia, so how can we mean anything to each other?" I asked as I moved my hand. I was getting dizzy but I needed answers. Liam looked at me with worry as he stepped closer.

"Are you okay?" he asked. I was confused until I felt the thick liquid from my nose, touch my lip. I touched it curiously, thinking my nose was just running from the numbing cold. I looked at my finger through my black-spotted vision to see the crimson red smear. It was blood. I muttered something incoherent as the world began to spin and I lost more of my sight. I tried to stay conscious but my body shut down on its own accord.