My Hockey Alpha

Nina

Somehow, I managed to sleep that night, if only for a few hours before I had to be up for class. The news of werewolves had thoroughly spread its way through campus by now like a wildfire, and everywhere I went, people were whispering about Enzo.

“He’s a monster,” I heard one girl say from behind me while we were waiting for class to start. “I don’t know why anyone would want to compete with him. We should just boycott the games from now on until they replace him with someone normal.”

I felt myself fume at this comment, and turned around to glare at her.

“I think we should all be more accepting,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

She laughed abrasively. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” she said. “You two have been thick as thieves all semester. How do we know that you’re not a werewolf, too?”

“And what if I am?”

Suddenly, the girl’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped herself as the professor came in and began the lesson.

After class, I walked to the dining hall with Lori and Jessica. Along the way, we started to notice people walking toward the hockey arena with picket signs in their hands. One sign in particular caught my eye: it was the picture of a dog lifting its leg like it was going to urinate with a big red X through it, and below that, it said, “Don’t let dogs piss all over our campus!”

I felt a growl escape my lips, and I went to shout something at the guy carrying the sign, but Lori grabbed my arm and stopped me before I could.

“It’s not worth it,” she said, pulling me away. “There’s no convincing these people. They’re a bunch of jerks with no empathy for anyone who’s even the tiniest bit different.”

“Yeah,” Jessica chimed in. “Besides, there are plenty of people who are supportive of werewolves. I just joined a whole Twitter group of people who think that werewolves should be allowed to attend our school and play in our sports.”

My friends’ words were reassuring, but I still had my doubts. Suddenly, I had an idea.

before the game tonight, right?” I asked, to which Lori and Jessica nodded. “Let’s protest against them. Show them

of things. Remember that one time when people were protesting against the new professor that was

professor got fired, too. So the protests

can leave if anything bad starts to

her lip nervously, before she finally relented. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s have

…

signs and headed over to the hockey arena to meet up

protesting against werewolves — meanwhile, there were only ten of us, with myself, Lori, and Jessica included. As we met

shaky voice, holding her sign to shield her face. “There are so

Jessica and shielding her with her body.

over her mouth and screamed at Lori and Jessica from across the line, “Hey, traitors! You’re just a bunch

revealing her angry face from behind her sign. “Don’t talk about

are you gonna come over here and fight me?” the girl said, stepping into the middle of the line and cocking her

pushing Jessica back and standing in front of her, throwing down her sign, “but I will!” She pushed up her sleeves and began to rush at the other girl, but before she could, I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. My

that you wanna stand up for your girlfriend, but try to tone it down a notch. It doesn’t help our image if we let them get under our skin and

as she grabbed Jessica by the hand and rejoined the rest of

join them, however, I saw an oddly familiar head of blonde

glimpse, but I recognized that hair and that sweater vest

I called, furrowing my brow, then cupped my hands over my mouth and

trusted him when he said that he was our friend, and that he would never do something like that. As I walked back to meet up with Jessica and Lori, however, I couldn’t shake that feeling of unease. What if it

thought to myself.

Jessica asked