Chapter 131: 103. Over Exposed

After the conversation with mom and mum Friday morning, the rest of the long weekend was actually pretty good. I spent that afternoon and evening with Kaylee, then on Saturday me and Nina went and hung out with Melanie and Cerys, before I met up with Kaylee for another date Saturday night.

Sunday I spend half the day doing homework and stuff so I'd be ready to go back to school Monday morning, and the other half of the day was gaming with my little sister. We had a nice dinner with mom and mum, then me and Nina played more video games until it was late. Then I spent a while more reading before I decided it was finally time to get some sleep.

It was nearly midnight as I emerged from the bathroom all ready for bed, when I was surprised to hear someone knocking at the front door. Nina was still awake, but our parents were already asleep by then. Unfortunately the noise woke them up, before my sister or I could get to the door.

Mum was kind of grumpy as she went down the stairs to the door, while the rest of us waited at the top of the stairs to see who it was. We were all in our nightgowns and everything, and I got the feeling whoever was at the door was going to be in a lot of trouble if they didn't have a good reason for being there at that hour on a Sunday night.

Except as soon as mom opened the door everyone's mood did a complete flip-flop, from grumpy or angry to concerned or worried.

"Sorry for waking you Mrs. Underwood," Melanie apologized. "I um, I didn't know where else to go. And back at new years you and Julie said..."

Mum shook her head as she stepped aside, "Melanie, Cerys, please come in. What happened, is something wrong?"

I was already heading down the stairs, with Nina and mom right behind me. The two wolfgirls both came inside, they were carrying stuffed garbage bags as well as their backpacks, and both looked stressed.

Melanie sighed, "Yeah, a lot of things went wrong tonight. I think I got me and Cerys kicked out of the house."

The blonde wolf added, "We packed up all the clothes we could, and our school stuff..."

Just like that our parents went into emergency mom mode, and the next few minutes were a little whirlwind of activity. The sofa in mom's office was folded out into a bed so the two wolfgirls could put all their things in there, then the six of us gathered in the kitchen. Coffee was made along with hot chocolate, and we all ended up sitting around the kitchen table listening while our friends explained what happened.

"So me and Cerys worked the evening shift today," Melanie explained quietly, "We got home from work late as usual. Only when we got there we found those two reporters were there interviewing my dad. We refused to talk to them, and I told dad not to tell them anything but it was too late."

The wolfgirl sighed, "It's like, I guess he's had a lot of stuff bottled up inside for two years now right? Like everything that happened to me, how it ruined his marriage and how we had to move and stuff? And he hasn't been able to talk to anyone about it. Like he couldn't talk to mom, even before they broke up mom just didn't want to discuss it. And he won't talk to me either? And he couldn't talk to anyone else since they'd think he was crazy right? Like talking about werewolfs and stuff."

"So he's had all this stuff bottled up for so long," she continued after another long sigh, "And I guess these guys come along who're willing to listen and who don't think he's crazy? And dad told them everything. Or almost everything. Luckily he doesn't know about the club, he doesn't know about anyone else. But like, he told them all about what happened to me and how I was turned and stuff. And they were asking me questions and stuff, like they wanted to film me shifting and everything. They wanted pictures of my wolf form and my wolfgirl form. And I was freaking out, and Cerys was freaking out..."

I was totally cringing by that point, and I could just imagine how uncomfortable that must have been for the two wolfgirls. Meanwhile my parents both looked sad, anxious, and stressed.

Cerys added, "The guys were videoing the whole thing too, and this time they didn't stop when we asked them. Apparently Mr. Caetano gave them permission to record his interview, and they were using his permission to record me and Melanie. Since it was his place and he was the adult and everything."

Melanie had a gulp of her hot chocolate then admitted quietly, "So I denied the werewolf thing, I told the guys dad was tired and said maybe he was drunk, I said he made stuff up all the time and he was just looking for attention. I hated to do it, I hated to throw dad under the bus like that but then he shouldn't have told those guys anything about me being a werewolf. That's when the guys dropped the real bomb on me."

"They had some blurry footage of me at work with my ears and tail out," she sighed again. "Apparently they talked to Mr. Jacobs, our manager at the grocery store? They were probably asking about Sylvia, and maybe he told them about me. Anyways, apparently Jacobs saved the security camera footage from that one day when I revealed my wolfgirl stuff. And he gave it to these guys, now they're going to expose me to the world. And yeah it's blurry and grainy and if they post that online maybe nobody will believe them? But they believe it."

She started to get angry as she continued, "And they have dad's detailed account of what happened two years ago, my first change, everything. Even the fact that I'm trans, he told them all that stuff! So by that point I lost my temper. Me and dad got into a shouting match, we both said some nasty things to each other and um, yeah. He said he'd taken that job in Peterborough, and he was moving out there next week. And he said I wouldn't be coming with him."

The anger was already gone as her shoulders slumped and she sank a bit in her chair, "Me and Cerys don't have anywhere to go. Those reporter guys know I'm a werewolf. And they have some blurry footage of me with my ears and tail visible at work. And I don't know what to do or where to go."

"You'll stay here with us," mom said in a soft gentle voice. "I know it's not ideal, but at least for the short term it's better than being out on the street or in a shelter."

Mum agreed, "You two can stay here for as long as you need. We can try to help you find a better, more permanent solution if you like. But for now, it's late and I think it might be a good idea if we all got some rest."

"Thanks ma'am," Melanie replied. She looked like she was almost going to get emotional as she added, "We really appreciate it. You're all really good people."

"Of course hon. Tanya and I are happy we can help. Even if we're sorry you need it," mom responded. Then she asked, "Melanie, Cerys, do you both think you'll feel up to attending school tomorrow?"

The wolfgirls looked at each other, then Cerys nodded. "We've missed a lot of school this year already because of me, every full moon. So we really need to get to class whenever we can."

"All right," my mom replied. "Then like Tanya said, we should all try and get some sleep for now. If either of you need anything just ask though, ok? Don't be shy."

The girls thanked mom and mum again, and apologized once more for waking everyone up and giving us more problems and everything. We all told them it was fine though, and me and Nina both gave our friends some hugs and stuff so they knew we weren't upset or anything.

You are reading story Club Luna at novel35.com

It was around one in the morning when we all finally went back to our rooms, but I couldn't sleep after all that. It turned out Melanie and Cerys weren't ready to sleep either, and the three of us spent another hour or so texting each other from our beds before I finally drifted off.

The wolfgirls also posted a summary of what happened to the group chat, so the rest of the club would know about the internet guys showing up at her house. And how much they'd found out about Melanie from her dad and her boss and everything.

After the late night on Sunday, we were all kind of slow and tired the next morning. We managed it though, and we were even more or less on time as the four of us set out together for school.

We met Kaylee along the way like usual, and she gave the two wolfgirls a hug and everything as well. The whole club had seen their posts from the night before, there were lots of responses and stuff on the group chat but I hadn't had time to look at it yet.

Then as the five of us cut through the ravine my girlfriend quietly told us, "I checked those guys' social media this morning, after I saw what you'd posted to the chat. They didn't name any names, but they've already posted about finding a real live werewolf. And they shared a screen-grab from that security camera footage. They didn't post your face Melanie, it's a view from behind that shows your ears and tail."

"Crud," the werewolf groaned. "It's basically my worst nightmare. Dad's kicked me out, the world's gonna know what I am, I'm gonna end up in some government research lab or something..."

Despite feeling tired and a bit drained I stated in a calm confident voice, "No you won't. We won't let anything bad happen to you Melanie. You can count on us, all your friends are looking out for you."

"Our parents wouldn't let that happen either," Nina added. "Cass is right, we're all looking out for both you and Cerys."

Melanie looked emotional again as she smiled, "Thanks Cass, and Nina. I really appreciate it."

"Same," Cerys nodded. "You folks are amazing."

Kaylee smiled as she slipped an arm around me and nodded, "They sure are."

Things at school were pretty much the same as usual, like after missing three days the teachers were all acting like everything was normal again. My first class went by slowly, and I almost had to force myself to pay attention a few times since my mind kept drifting off in different directions.

Then my math class was just as bad, and I ended up completely tuning out whatever Mr. Guthrie was going on about as I found myself worrying about Melanie and Cerys again. And I was still uncomfortable with the idea of those internet reporters snooping around. Then finally I started to think about who in our school used magic to attack Mr. Sanderson.

I knew it had to be another student, but I wouldn't be surprised if half the school hated the guy. Anyone who wasn't fit or athletic was a target for him. Actually the only teacher people hated more than Sanderson was Mr. Guthrie the math ogre, who was still droning on about equations or something up at the front of the class.

Mr. Sanderson was a bully, but at least he was nice to the athletic kids. Nobody liked Guthrie, even the smart kids who were good at math hated him.

That actually left me wondering if our math teacher might be in danger too. Like on the one hand maybe someone had something against Sanderson, maybe it was personal. On the other hand, if a student was going after teachers they didn't like then there could be more of those incidents. Which made it feel wrong for Club Luna to be sitting this out.

I decided to mention all that to Paige and the others at lunch, incase it hadn't occurred to anyone else yet. And that's when I noticed something was wrong. A few students were laughing or giggling, and about dozen had got their phones out so they could video the teacher.

My stomach lurched as I looked up at the front of the class and saw Mr. Guthrie apparently talking to himself in tongues as he wrote out a series of chthonic glyphs and runes, interspersed with snippets of latin and other ancient languages. And the thing I could see that nobody else was aware of, was the shimmering purple glow of magic dancing around his head.

I glanced around the class to see where it was coming from, but none of my classmates had a matching glow. The magic was coming from somewhere else.

One of the guys sitting on the other side of the class near the windows finally spoke up, "Yo Mr. Guthrie! Is this stuff gonna be on an exam or something? Cos I don't know any of those symbols. I'm not even sure that's math, y'know?"

The teacher didn't respond, he just continued writing out the runes and stuff in chalk like a grade-school kid having to write lines as punishment. Except the stuff he was writing was mostly gibberish. Even to me, and I could read it. He wasn't writing anything meaningful, and he wasn't copying magic notation or anything like that either. The markings were definitely arcane, but it was just random words and sigils.

"Mr. Guthrie?" one of the girls near the front of the class asked. "Are you ok? Maybe you should sit down. Or should we call the school nurse?"

The teacher's movements became more erratic and the stuff he was writing on the blackboard was getting less legible. I glanced around and made sure nobody was looking at me, as I prepared to dispell the magic on him.

That's when he suddenly spun around, and his eyes looked kind of wild and crazy. He gestured broadly across the classroom and announced in a voice that didn't sound like him, "Medeia is here, and she will punish the wrongdoers!"

At that point his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor, while the class dissolved into chaos. One of the girls screamed, someone called 911 on their phone, and someone else ran to get the nurse.

With all that going on I was able to dispell the magic on him, but he remained unconscious. I got a sinking feeling as I realized whatever it did to him, the damage was already done.