Chapter 9 Paranoia or Reality?

Selena woke up feeling much better, with no more bruises or broken bones. She took a very cold shower to scare away the laziness from her sore body.

While washing her hair and lathering all the ointment off of her skin, Selena took deep breaths to forget about the nightmare she was living at home.
She was still very upset about the whole conversation she had with her father on the previous night.

She also remembered the night at the bar. And Lucas.

For a moment, she thought that it had all been a bad dream. With the battle, she was able to take him off of her mind for a while.

But now she would have to face him at college. Although she thought that maybe it would be easy to avoid him, since she had never seen him there before.

However, there was also Robbie.

She left without talking to him. Would he be upset with her? She owed him an apology, but wasn’t ready to do it yet. She was still trying to figure out what she felt about Lucas.

She arrived at college and went straight to the classroom. The hours passed with Selena having to listen to Maddie talk non-stop about William.

Selena wanted to puke.

“Did you talk to Robbie?” Maddie asked while both of them got out of college.

Selena was walking fast so she wouldn’t bump into any of the guys she was trying so hard to avoid.

“No, I didn’t. But I will, you don’t need to give me a lecture.”

“You better! You stormed off like a freak. And maybe you could also apologize to Lucas.” Maddie completed with a smirk, looking at Selena.

“You're delusional.” Selena said, but at that moment she felt something really weird.

At first, she thought she was having some kind of trauma or paranoia. They were walking near a park, and Selena was certain that she sensed the same smell of the wolf who attacked her on the forest.

She looked around, searching for something unusual, but didn’t see anything.

“Are you listening to me, girl?” Maddie snapped her fingers in front of Selena’s eyes, catching her attention.

Selena got surprised and answered quickly:

“Yes… No. Sorry, I got distracted. What did you say?”

Maddie snorted.

“I said that maybe you had the wrong impression about him. You should give him another chance.”

“Another chance for what? I’m not that eager to be his friend or anything like that.”

Maddie punched her shoulder.

“I just think you should try to be more polite. He didn’t really do anything to you, at least from what you told me.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

Selena answered but she wasn't giving much attention to her friend. She was still feeling observed and she hated to feel suspicious like that.

She could swear that she heard something behind them, but when she looked back, she couldn’t see anything or anyone. Specially not a wolf.

“Do you want to grab a movie or something? I don’t feel like going home now.” Selena asked Maddie, trying to think of a way to mislead whoever it was, if there was indeed someone following them.

“Yes, sure!” Maddie agreed. “I don’t feel like going home right now too.”

Selena couldn’t pay much attention to Maddie on the way. She didn’t know if she was thinking too much. Maybe the whole thing at the forest had made her so confused and disoriented, that she was imagining things now.

She didn’t know what those powers meant and still didn’t know how to control them, so maybe that was making her more apprehensive.

They arrived at the city mall and that’s when Selena was able to relax.

She basically forgot about what she felt on the street. A few hours had passed and they got out of the cinema. It was still broad daylight.

“Do you want to go to my house?” Maddie asked Selena. “Maybe we can do our homework for tomorrow and chat.”

“You clearly can’t be away from me, right?” Selena mocked her friend, but internally glad with the invitation.

She was avoiding the most she could to return home and face her father.

On the way to Maddie’s house, she was under the impression that the smell was still around. She looked around, searching for that wolf, maybe his human form, or anything that felt strange or out of place. But again, there was nothing.

She was starting to get pissed off and nervous.

“What are you looking at?” Maddie wanted to know. She was also looking around. “You keep looking back all the time. What is it? Are you watching too many movies?”

“It's nothing.” Selena gave her a slight smile, still worried. But she stopped looking around, since she was afraid that would scare Maddie or even make her suspicious of something. “Let’s go! I have a long essay to write for tomorrow. You’ll have to help me. I didn’t pay attention to the class.”

“What's new about that?”

They arrived at Maddie’s home and went to her bedroom, spreading all the books on the floor and sitting around them to start with their homework.

A few hours passed and they were tired and exhausted from reading and writing too much.

“I have to go now. It’s really late and we need to get up early tomorrow.”

“Okay. Be careful on the way home. Are you sure you don’t want to sleep here?” Maddie asked, worried.

“No need. But thank you for the offer.”

Selena gathered her stuff and put the backpack on her shoulder.

“I'll see you tomorrow. Don’t miss me too much.”

Selena sent a flying kiss to her friend and left the house.

It was really late at night and the streets were empty. Selena took a detour to her house and it didn’t take too long for her to discover that her suspicion was right earlier.

She was being followed.