Tessa's school pumps squelch in the mud as she steps onto the rugby fields. The wind whips her blonde hair into her cheeks, the rain pelting at her like it was trying to paint freckles onto her cheeks. 

Ordinarily she would be curled inside by the common room window watching the rain with a mug of tea in hand. However, someone had to deal with the lone wolf.

"This is bloody awful." Walter scrapes his soggy curls off his forehead. "How are we supposed to find that wolf in all of this?"

"Tessa! Walter!" Groaning, Tessa turned on her heel. Keri is barreling her way towards them, a bright yellow rain hat doing little to keep from drenching her frizzy hair. In one hand she clenches a map, the other her phone which waves at them.

Behind her, Simone has materialized an anorak from somewhere, a flaming orange making her a beacon in the English weather. Otto looks like a rat who has been drowned. Repeatedly. The water has turned his blazer to shades darker and his long black hair hangs limply around his chin.

Sighing, Tessa stops.

"What are you doing?" Said Walter. "We need to go find that wolf."

"Yeah, we do." Her gut is telling her to run into the trees and not look back. However, her brain says; "We need to find the camera first. What if it was Rye who attacked Keri last night? How do we know Keri hasn't got a dozen pictures of him?" 

"But what about the pack? Rye could be heading to our den right now, he could attack our pack, or an innocent human who happens to be out walking in the woods. We need to find him and take him to the alpha." 

"Exactly. He could be anywhere in the woods, so we need to be with our friends to protect them." "Oh, and how are we going to do that without giving the secret away?" Grabbing her arm, he starts to tug her along. "Don't mind us guys we just grew hairs and claws, and you know turned into a bloody wolf, but don't worry I promise you we are human." 

"But what if something happens and we are not there to protect them."

 Walter stops. Narrowing his eyes at her he drops her arm and Tessa knows she has won. Sometimes being a little sister is great.

"I really hate you right now."

~

The rain has gone from British drizzle to hurtling raindrops trying to strip the flesh off their cheeks. Simone mutters darkly the entire way about having to straighten her hair later and that if her camera is ruined, she is shipping Keri to Area 51. 

They are almost at the top of the hill now, Tessa is trying to act normal, but every shadow, every rustle of the leaves as her wolf jumping to attention. The lone wolf could be waiting anywhere for them.

"Come on guys." Keri is doing a half jog half walk at the front, her cheeks a brilliant shade of crimson as she pants between each word. Map in hand, her glasses are covered in water, her scarf dripping, but it doesn't deter her. They are almost at the crest of the hill.

"If she says that one more time-" Simone starts besides Tessa grinding her teeth together.

"Stop plotting to kill your stepsister Si Si, it's not very nice." Somehow Otto had convinced Walter he'd hurt his knee in the time between meeting them in the corridor and meeting them at the fields. 

Now he sat on Walter's back, shielded by the taller boy's head from the rain and when he thinks no one is looking he braids the long hairs at the base of Walter's neck.

"Be quite you. If anyone deserves to be carried it's me! My school shoes will be wrecked after this and probably my camera too."

"Don't be mean to Otto." Walter readjusts his grips, hitching Otto up his back. "He's got a poorly knee."

"You're the only one who chooses to believe that."

"You are such a-"

"We are here!" Cried Keri.

They emerge over the crest of the hill battling through the waist high heather and brambles which shred Tessa's tights. Devil's Reach - a corner where the rest of the world forgot.

Boulders lay half submerged in the undergrowth, a thick cluster of trees to the left and straight ahead. If you kept running through those trees their farmhouse would come into view nestled into a clearing below next to the creek. To the right is the drop.

The beginning and ending of jagged ledges are masked by the undergrowth, beckoning people to misplace their feet and plummet over the sixty-foot drop. Tessa shudders. She remembers coming here with Otto and Walter as children and they would throw stones off the top and count the number of seconds it took to hear the thud at the bottom.

"Right, I know I was in a cluster of trees when I dropped it."

"That would help, except we are in the woods Keri. Do you know what the definition of a woods is? A large cluster of trees your doughnut." Simone shouldered past Tessa, hands on hips she stands on a small rock scanning the area.

Taking a deep breath, Tessa opened her blazer to fiddle with her necklace even though it left her neck vulnerable to the wind. There. The wind is trying to wash the scent away, but she can still detect a sage thread looping its way around the trees to the drop. Locking her eyes with Walter she motioned her head toward it. Her stomach gurgling and frozen fingers forgotten she meandered to the left.

"Walter and I will check over here."

"No that won't do. I know I wasn't near the edge."

"It was dark," Walter began, "You could have wandered anywhere and not noticed."

Walter can smell it too now. Rye's scent is a whisper in the trees, but Keri's smell stands out of the forest like a sixth former in a nursery winding its way through the trees overlapping Rye's scent.

"Fine, but we don't need two people to cover it." Burying her face in the map, Keri readopted her schoolteacher's tone. "Tessa can cover the edge, Walter and Otto can take to the left, Keri and I will go straight ahead. Shout when you find it."

Tessa has no idea how she is going to find the camera and Rye at the same time. But she knows she has to for the sake of her pack.