"hat is so damn important?" Stella demanded as soon as I sat down. I'd been trying to call her nonstop since last week but she hadn't answered for some reason.

"Roan told me he liked me." Well, in a way.

"Eek!" She squealed.

The whole class, including me, turned around to look at Stella. Ms. Lawrence stared at us with unfriendly eyes.

"Stella, do you have something particularly interesting to share with the class?"

"Uh, no."

"No, I insist. It must be pretty interesting if you had to interrupt my lesson on conjugating the preterite tense." She crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the ground.

"No, I love conjugating verbs in Latin."

"Who doesn't?" Ms. Lawrence asked sarcastically.

"Sorry, I'll actually do my work this time," Stella admitted and the class laughed.

"Anyway," Ms. Lawrence continued and once she turned to the board, Stella whispered in my ear.

"He finally did it."

"What do you mean finally?" Did everyone know except me? Uh, was I one of those girls now, the kind that didn't see the obvious when it came to boys?

Ohmygod I was.

"Girl, are you blind?"

"I guess I am."

"Haven't you always wondered why he always hung out with you?"

"I was trying to figure that out myself." I mumbled. I always figured it was because he liked making fun of me or because I actually let him copy my homework.

"You know for a brunette, you have a lot of blond moments." Stella said and I rolled my eyes playfully.

"Hey, I'm not the one who told the teacher that I didn't do my work."

.•*•.

"Wow, the school looks so different at night." All the hallway lights were on, which kind of blinded me. It was also kind of creepy because everytime I looked outside I saw darkness, and I was usually accustomed to daylight.

I found Roan in our bio room, already setting up. He was putting a bunch of exotic-looking plants on the desks.

As soon as I got closer, the plants' strong scents hit me.

"Wow, that's very potent." He turned around and sort of smiled.

"I have all the flowers and plants ready."

"Okay, I brought all my Bath and Body Works from home." I set the box I was carrying down and pulled the sheet off.

"Shit, did you buy out the whole store?"

"No." I scoffed and started to take out all the perfumes and colognes.

We were testing to see if people could identify the difference between natural and synthetic scents. We were planning to do three trials with three plants for each one.

"Okay, where are our test subjects?"

"Right behind you."

"Ack!" I jumped and turned around, seeing Tori's face. I begged her to be in our experiment and she only agreed because she needed extra credit.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You," I quickly covered the perfumes with the sheet, "Are going to give us some space so we can set up."

Tori actually obeyed and walked into the hall. But as soon as Tori left, Stella and Taylor arrived.

"Hey, Lia, what's up?" Taylor greeted.

"Not much, just setting up."

"What does this have anything to do with biology?" Stella picked up some of the perfume bottles.

"Hey, put that back," I slapped her hand and she rolled her eyes.

"Are you going to see which one smells the best?" Stella asked.

"No."

"Are you going to set them on fire?"

"No."

"Are you going to drink them?"

"Yeah, how'd you know." I said sarcastically. Sometimes I wondered why we were friends.

"Shouldn't you be setting up your own experiment and not bothering ours?" Roan cut in and I just remembered that Stella and Taylor were going to work on a psych project tonight.

"Oh, sorry, I don't want to interrupt your hot date." Stella winked at me.

"It's not- oh, forget it," I began but they'd already gone out the door.

Roan went out to get more of his plants while I sprayed some of the perfumes in boxes.

"Okay, I'm back," Finn appeared a few minutes later and I just realized he'd been gone for thirty minutes.

"Where did you go in the first place?"

"I got distracted by other people's projects." That was so like Finn.

"I'm so happy Owen and Winter aren't here." They would just fool around and then I'd never get anything done.

"Wait, why didn't they come again?"

"Because you're the most mature. Sort of," Finn had his ADD moments but he couldn't really help it, "And because we already had enough test subjects."

Finn, Tori, and a helpless freshman I grabbed during lunch whose name I hadn't bothered to remember. I just called her "The Fresh". Actually, where was she? She was late.

"Oh, hey, Finn," Roan said suddenly and I saw both of their eyes flash in acknowledgement.

"You still remember me?" Finn asked, almost challengingly.

"Yeah, we met when I was in fifth grade and you were in second."

"Yeah, you used to bully me. I never really got over that." I totally forgot about Roan and Finn, it slipped my mind. Wow, Stella was right, I had a lot of dumb blond moments.

I cut in, "But I stood up for you, remember? And Roan apologized? So it's all good."

"Right." Roan said.

"Right." Finn never really got over anyone who used to bully him because of his intelligence. He probably never will.

I turned around and almost crashed into someone.

"Wow there," A small, mousy-looking girl was standing right infront me, "What are you doing in here?"

"You asked me to be in your experiment. I'm-"

The Fresh!

"Right, right. When did you get here again?"

"I got here a half hour ago. I was standing here the whole time."

"What, no you weren't." I would've definitely sensed her.

"She was." Finn added.

"I was." The Fresh repeated and I shook my head. How could I call myself a werewolf?

Roan and Tori arrived a few minutes later. After we set up the plants and stuff, we started our experiment.

Finn was three for three for the first and second trials. Tori and the Fresh did pretty good, too, better than I'd expected.

It was going good until the last trial.

That's when I heard it.

It pierced my ears, wailing like a siren. I shoved my fingers in my ears but it only seemed to be getting louder. It was so high-pitched that it made me want to dig my nails into my skin.

I collapsed onto my knees, feeling crushed.

"Is this part of the experiment?" The Fresh asked quietly.

"No," Roan said, confused.

"What the hell is that?" I shrieked, my cool completely dissipating.

"What are you talking about?" Roan looked at me helplessly as I shut my eyes tight.

"It's happening. . . Finn. . ." I heard snippets of Tori's voice.

"What about Finn?" My eyes shot open and I grabbed Roan's arm impatiently, trying to find my brother and see if this was happening to him, too. Sure enough, Finn was plugging his ears with his hands and freaking out.

Roan's mouth moved but I couldn't hear anything.

The ringing got worse and that's when I start flailing my arms, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Make it stop!" I screeched, "I feel like my head's gonna explode!" My ears were ringing so loudly that I couldn't even hear myself think.

Roan was trying to calm me down but I fought him off, feeling something deep inside me stir.

Something primal.

Then, just like that, it stopped.

Pure silence, once again.

Roan, Tori, and the Fresh kept looking at me like I was crazy. I carefully took my hands off my ears, afraid it would start again.

"Why couldn't you hear it?" I whispered, still shaken.

"Werewolves hear at much higher frequencies than humans. They're like dogs." Tori explained.

"Well, we have to find out what was causing it," said Roan.

"Wait, I saw someone fooling around with some robot speaker thing in one of the math rooms." The Fresh spoke up and Tori quickly took off.

"Lia," Roan tapped his ears and I felt something drip down my neck. I wiped at it and found blood.

"Gross," I moaned, "How's Finn?" I looked over to where I saw him last but he wasn't there anymore.

"Where'd he go?" I looked around frantically, "Where's Finn?" I tried to stand up but I almost collapsed again.

"I'll go look for him," The Fresh volunteered and sprinted out of the room.

That left me and Roan.

It was the first time we'd been alone in a week.

"You okay?" He asked, coming to sit beside me.

"I think I'm deaf," I swallowed, "Or at least half deaf,"

"You scared me, Leia," He gave me a quick hug but kept one arm around my shoulder, "When you started screaming, it felt like my heart was being ripped out."

"Why?"

"Because. . . you were in pain." He admitted, almost shyly.

I looked down at his arm around me.

"So what are we?"

"What do you-"

"Last week. . . I'm pretty sure you confessed. I mean, I sort of did, too, but what does that make us? Are we dating?" I'd had that question on my mind since that Monday.

Roan wiped some blood from my ears and I winced.

"You already know that answer."

"Wait, what?"

"I already told you once. I'm not telling you again."

"No, you didn't."

"I did."

I tried digging deep into my memory but nothing was coming up.

Just then, Tori came in, shoving Jesse inside.

"He's the source of the sound."

I stood up quickly, ignoring my throbbing head.

"What the hell is your problem?"

"Hey, I didn't do anything," Jesse raised his hands innocently but Tori shoved him against the wall. She was so strong that Jesse couldn't even get out of her hold.

"Woah, woah, woah,"

"What are you scheming?"

"Who are you, her bodyguard?" Jesse laughed bitterly and Tori grabbed him by his shirt and shoved him again.

"You made that machine. Why?"

"It was a math project, you can't prove anything, now chill the fuck down."

"Evidence shows that you were involved in the murder of a werewolf."

"And that's supposed to mean something? It means shit to me-"

"I also have evidence that your parents were involved, as well. And if that evidence ever reaches my superiors, we might just have to meet in a dark alley." Tori threatened and I swear, even though she looked like a kid, she was freaking scary.

"It was a math project. Now go back to pre-school where you belong." Jesse finally broke free from her hold and pushed passed her.

"He's lying." Roan said, and Tori and I nodded.

"Be careful, Lia, I think he was trying to force you to phase." Tori replied as I tried to go back to our project.

"No chance of that happening."

Because I hadn't phased in a very long time.