My Hockey Alpha

Nina

I tried calling my mother after I discovered that the baby picture was missing, but unsurprisingly, she didn’t answer Cursing to myself, I hung up the phone and decided that it was too late now to worry about it, the damage had already been done, it was late at night, and I had work in the morning.

The next morning, I awoke with a start to the sound of my alarm and rain pattering against the window I crawled out of bed, showered, dressed, and made my way to Tiffany’s office with a cup of coffee from the dining hall in my hand. It was so hot that it burned my hand a bit through the cardboard, but I was too focused on getting out of the rain to care

“Good morning!” Tiffany called from her desk when I entered, her voice chipper as usual I managed a tired smile and shook my umbrella off before coming in the rest of the way and hanging my jacket on the hooks at the back of the room.

“Morning,” I said, wincing as I burnt my tongue on a sip of the scalding hot coffee. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Tiffany squinted her eyes to look out the window before looking back down at the pile of paperwork in front of her with a frown. “Well, I was going to suggest making our rounds to the sports teams today,” she said, “but it looks like the weather decided to throw a wrench in that plan. So, I guess we’ll just try to get through this paperwork.”

I nodded and pulled up a chair If I was being honest, I was glad to just spend the morning in Tiffany’s office; I didn’t particularly feel up to walking around all morning and dealing with sweaty football players who would, no doubt, be asking questions about my ” relationship” with Enzo.

Tiffany must have been able to read my mind, because thankfully she didn’t. ask any questions either, allowing us to work in silence for a while

After a couple of hours of silently scouring through physical exam records, health reports, and statistics, Tiffany threw her pen down on the desk and leaned back with a sigh. I looked up from my work to see the attractive middle-aged blonde rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“Didn’t sleep much, either?” I asked.

over to the window and clasped her hands, lifting them over her head and bending to each side in a stretch as

going to say before she

“Mad wolf ”

spoke out loud, albeit under my breath. Tiffany, thankfully, didn’t

somewhat dreamy, thoughtful voice, “when I went to school here, there was a similar string of illnesses. We called it Lupine Syndrome. It was really a rabies outbreak, though. At least, that was what the head doctors here said at

as a million things started to race through my mind. Had werewolves been biting people back then, too? I

what it was like when

finally with a shrug. “I was a lot like you,

smile; Tiffany was so youthful and full of life

top shelf. She turned back toward me with a smirk and carried it over to the table with both hands. It was dusty and the cardboard

of dust that was floating in front of her face from abruptly opening the box. I smiled and leaned forward on the table, sitting on my knees in the chair. I felt like a child again, asking my mother to show

enthusiastically and slid it closer to me. I reached in and pulled out a pile of photos, flipping through them as the smile on my face widened. There were so many pictures of Tiffany and her friends; pictures from Halloween parties where she wore matching tiger costumes with her friends, pictures of them sitting around a

handmade banner they held up with big, cheesy grins on their faces. Tiffany was right in the center, surrounded on

recognized the white-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes

mother had never once mentioned that

scanned the photograph, my eyes caught something else. A jagged edge that looked like it had been torn apart, judging from the little white line from the underlayer of the photo paper being exposed. I held the photo closer to my face and studied it harder, noticing a hand draped over Tiffany’s

and took the photo from me, her eyes momentarily flashing with an emotion that I couldn’t quite read before she abruptly cleared her throat and