Nine minutes until Form began. Clusters of students hang in the corner of the corridor like shadows, their chatter a dim droning in her ears. 

At the end of the corridor Simone, Keri and Otto are slumped against their lockers. Simone is twirling an ombre braid while she scowls at her ex-boyfriend Jerome, a refrigerator of a boy with shaggy blond hair and bulging biceps. The two of them were that couple in the school who were on and off so much it would be helpful if they made a sign to hold so people knew which one.

"Get lost." She finishes their conversation with a shout and Tessa smiles never having been a fan of Jerome; his humour always revolved around dragging other people down.

The smell is faint at first.

A hint of pine leaves curling through the corridor in a sage coil. It grows stronger with each step towards her friends, but it's not coming from them. It slips through the door and into the intersecting corridor trying to pull her stomach with it.

It becomes stronger and stronger. The sensation of drinking hot chocolate on a snow day trickles over her. A deep, rich intoxicating scent threatening to drag her wolf out and into the open. It pawed at her heart. Her lungs expanded greedily to breathe more of the scent. Heart slowing all the noise of the corridor washed away from her like she was floating through the hall above it all.

"Do you smell that?" Walter's whisper jolts her into reality like an alarm going off in the morning. Coughing into his arm his face scrunches. "I can smell a wolf."

"A wolf?" She echoes taking another deep breath. Beneath the pine she can smell the muskiness of a wolf now a combination of wet dog with the earthiness of the forest. A wolf knows the scents of their pack the same way a baby knows their mother. This wolf did not belong here. Fumbling in her pocket she grabs her phone-

"What are you doing?"

"Calling mum-"

"You can't do that." Snatching the phone from her his nails scraped her skin. She winced glancing to the end of the corridor unsure if the smell was pulling her eyes or the knowledge their friends were standing waiting for them. Walter continued in a whisper only a wolf ear could hear. "Its the full moon and what if mum can't control the alpha wolf on the full moon? She could rip them apart in the assembly hall and for all we know it could be some supply teacher or school administrator only passing through. We need to find out who the wolf is and what their intentions are before we alert the pack."

"If they were only passing through why wouldn't they identify themselves with the pack, why run the risk of getting torn to shreds if they are not here to steal our territory?" She pushed her hair off her forehead, she could sense the sweat accumulating there and at the small of her back as the hallway became smaller and smaller. 

Her legs cramped, she needed to do something, to run and find that sage scent and...she didn't know what would happen then, but her wolf howled so loud within her it threatened to burst her eardrums.

"I don't know-"

"Walter! Tessa, are you guys coming to Form or what?" Hollered Simone. Multiple times Tessa heard the boys on the rugby team say Simone was pretty until she opened her mouth. An incredibly sexist and degrading thing to say Tessa thought, but Simone did tend to make fog horn's sound like whispers.

"You have Second period free right? Meet me by the bell tower at the start of Second period and we can track the wolf together. If there's only one of them they won't stand a chance against the two of us." Slowly, in a way that reminded Tessa of those American prison movies where inmates walked death row, they started wandering towards their friends.

"Alright." The word is bitter in her mouth like cocoa powder. She knows this plan is stupid, unfortunately all their plans tend to be a bit stupid.

"Do not let their scent get to you. I know it smells like rotting meat. But this is our territory and it is all going to be alright, understand?"

"Yeah," She stumbled towards the door, her legs mutinous. Briefly wondering why the wolf didn't smell of rotting meat to her rather pine needles and chocolate. But then she saw the grim set of Walter's jaw and she knew what he was thinking and her own thoughts got discarded. "And don't even think about engaging with this wolf by yourself. We have no idea what this wolf is capable of."