Not long after that day at Noah’s, while walking through his school's hallways, Will overhears a conversation between Noah and her friends, the ginger asking her friends about the teddy bear cameras.

He’s curious, so he stops in his tracks. His Dark brown ears turn to hear what they’re saying. “Have you heard anything about teddy bears having cameras in them?”

Noah asks them. “I hope not, wouldn’t that mean someone’s being stalked?” Her friends chuckle at the question, then one of them pauses for a second.

“Now that I remember, there were rumors of a wolfdog in the final grade who stopped coming to school a couple of months ago. I heard some Pure wolves gave him a teddy bear to apologize for bullying.” She spoke.

“Maybe he couldn’t face them even after the apology and moved?” Another girl added.

“Probably,” the first girl said, then checked her watch. “Well, we have math, so we’ll see you.” The second girl waved, both of them walking away.

Leaving Noah to sigh and walk over to Will, her hazel eyes piecing something together. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that rumor; it’s weird.” Noah bites, her ear’s showing anxiousness in their downturned position.

“How so?” He asks her to elaborate. “It just feels like something more is going on,” her face scrunching up as she thinks.

“Someone just disappears out of nowhere, I doubt it, if I were still me from when we first met, I would believe it, but now I don’t know.” Standing together in silence for a moment, Will starts to remember how they met.

When Will had first met her, Noah was more of a token wolf-dog to wolves than someone everyone liked. She hung out with self-important wolves, people pleased and stayed in important social groups.

Somewhere along the line, she had met Eve and him and figured out that wasn’t productive. She would be put down by everyone around her, but still hung out with them because they made her feel like she belonged, that she was liked.

But they didn’t actually like her, they just hung out with her because her dad, Ethan Blackwell, built the school. They’d call her a pedigree mutt behind her back.

Now, two years later, she built her backbone and was quite influential all around the school, wolves and wolf-dogs alike found themselves influenced by her energetic personality. Will felt happy that she had found herself.

Other wolf dogs look up to wolf dogs in high places, hoping they can get there one day, so it makes him happy that Noah likes the wolf dogs; she is one.

“I asked the people who had bullied him, and even they said they had no idea. It’s strange.” Noah added.

Will hummed in agreement. “Teddybear cameras in the halls, and a rumor of them being connected to someone's disappearance, that’s definitely strange.”

Noah put a hand on her chin as the bell rang, breaking through the silence and reminding them they’re still in school.

Agreeing to talk about this again later, they both rushed to class. Hurrying along with their backpacks swinging behind them. Neither wanted Fs on their report cards, either for ones father’s chagrin or a disappointed friend's glare.

At lunch, Oakley and Eve join them, getting a text after class about their new discovery.

“What is it?” Oakley starts after they sit, and Eve adds an affirmative noise. “Noah found out something weird when she asked people about the teddies.” Will briefed them.

Eve and Will gave an inquisitive and worried look. “Yeah, when I asked around, I kept hearing about a rumor,” Noah elaborates.

“I kept hearing about a wolf-dog student who had gotten involved with some bullies. Apparently, he had been given a Teddy bear before he stopped coming to school.” She adds.

“That’s… odd, I think I’ve heard of him before,” Oakley says with a little apprehension, his eyebrows screwing together. “He would try to hang out with Pure wolves, I don’t think he wanted status or anything, but people didn’t really like that.”

Oakley's grey-blue eyes are cold as he stares at the table. “I didn’t really know him.” He says, like he wanted to. His cold eyes alluding to the things he’s had to give up for his dad’s idea of perfection, Will doesn’t know exactly what it is, but Eve’s noticed enough when the four have been together, for both of them to worry a little.

“Do you think something happened?” Eve spoke up, her stoic face breaking to give way to a glare, bone chilling. Eveline was usually quiet, gentle, and sweet, but whenever she saw someone bullying or treating someone just minding their own business badly, she was angry.

She had said something once about being tired of people pretending to be her friend because she’s a pure wolf.

The glare wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. William knew it was just the thought of the discrimination that set Eve off.

“It’s possible, a lot of wolves get upset when a wolf-dog tries to make friends outside of other wolf-dogs,” Oakley says.

The bell rings as they finish their food and throw it in the garbage bins. The grey trays are being set on a cart next to the trash. The group walks in palpable silence to their next class, considering the idea of something else going on.

That afternoon, right before school is out, and they’re free to go home, Will and Eve happen to be walking past the teacher’s office. Absent-mindedly looking at the inside from the hallway.

Will notices something familiar, a teddy bear, with a blue bow around its neck, something shining around the bow.

“Hey, doesn’t that look like the ones we saw in the hallways?” Will asks Eve. “It does,” she nods her head as she tilts it slightly.

He doesn’t see anyone in so he checks if the door is locked by jiggling the doorknob a little. To his surprise, it gives.

“What are you doing?” Eve barks in a whisper, worry on her face, and her black ears showing it evidently.

“Investigating,” he replies in a whisper, his tail slightly wagging as he teases her.

“Idiot, what if someone catches you!” she barks at him again, still whispering. “Yup yup, whatever you say, aren’t you here to watch the hall for me?” Will whispers to himself and Eve.

Quickly crossing the room, he grabs the teddy. Upon inspecting the ribbon, he finds a tag attached. That must have been what was shining. Reading it, he sees the words Nathan Jones engraved into the tag.

A sickly sort of feeling comes over him as he grips it and walks back over to Eveline. “What do you think this is?” He asks, making sure to whisper.

“I don’t know, you want to take it?” Eve asks him as she looks around for anyone who may be coming back, her eyebrows lifting as she asks the last part.

Will thinks about it for a second, before gripping the teddy harder, feeling a hard box in the middle, and loosening his grip a little.

“Yeah…” He answered, stuffing it in his backpack. Both of them, as quietly as they possibly can, tiptoe away from the teacher’s office.

Once they’re a safe distance away, he can feel himself begin to breathe again. “What was that?” Eve asks him, looking at his backpack, still worried.

“I just felt like I should do something, I’m sorry. If it ends up being nothing, we can put it back?” He offers in an unsure tone. “Let’s hope it’s nothing then.” She puts a hand on his shoulder, and they both head out of school together. Riding the metro bus home.

That weekend, when Noah, Eve, Oakley, and Will meet up, he brings the teddy with him, having kept it in the storage closet furthest away from the main part of their apartment in case.

He doesn’t know what he’s precautioning against, but he doesn’t want it to happen.

That day they meet in the forest, a sort of calming place, they come to often, a couple large tree trunks that had fallen down moved to form a square, flattened dirt and moss gathered to be like a pad for laying down and looking at the stars.

The area inside the square large enough for them to both be hidden, and fit next to each other when inside it.

“It smells like it rained,” Noah states, her freckled nose wiggling in the air, as her hands hold the ground behind her. Her tail swishes into others' tails.

“It’s nice,” Eve whispered, her dark blue eyes staring at the sky with her hands in her lap. Will was stationed close to them, sitting with one of his legs bent to his chest, his arms hugging it, the other leg lying flat on the ground.

Oakley was next to him, his legs lay out with his arms crossed against his chest, as he lay back all the way. His eyes closed as he relaxed. Will was happy to relax with everyone, but the teddy bear he took from the teacher’s office was still fresh in his mind.

He brought it with him, but he didn’t want to blur the mood everyone was in. Bothered, he rolled his head down and dropped it in his hands as he held his knee to his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Noah asks him, looking over at him, a little worry on her face.

“Nothing,” he smiled, smaller than usual, flashing his pearly canines.

“Hmmm?” she questioned, a little playful tease in her voice. Noah knows what it’s like to pretend to be happy; she’s done it before. She doesn’t believe him.

“Really this time, what’s wrong?” She asked again, less playfully.

“It’s… Eve and I saw this teddy bear in the teacher’s office a couple of days ago.” He notices Oakley’s eyes snap open as he sits up, but ignores him to continue.

“I don’t know what it was I felt, but I took it home.” Oakley gives Eve a look, then looks back at Will with his eyebrows screwed together.

“I brought it here because I want to know what’s up with it,” he finished, and a silent pause followed.

“Okay, so you.. Brought home the suspicious teddy bear?” Oakley asked him sarcastically, his hands hiding his face. He nodded, then murmured.

“Yeah…it’s over there,” he points to a bush near a tree, where he stashed it.

“Go get it,” Oakley told him, almost like it was a command, but with both knowing Oakley would never actually do that.

Will, almost bounding away, grabs the teddy and comes back quickly. Sitting it down in front of them, the soft and plush texture likely getting dirt on it from the forest ground.

“Good job.” Oakley pats his head, chuckling a little.

“Wha-, Hey…” Will is happy for a second, then gives him an exasperated look as he mutters, like he’s been played.

“So, how would we go about viewing what’s on it?” Noah inquires.

“With this.” Eve pulls a laptop with a chip reader out of the thin air behind her. Noah and Will gaped at her, eyes blinking in rapid succession.

“Where.did.that.come.from?” Noah and Will spoke in unison. Eveline only smiled a little as she set it down next to the teddy bear, turning the teddy around to look for a place to open it.

Finding what seemed like a Velcro back and pulling it apart, a box similar to a voice box was inside. She opened the box and took the SD card out, inserting it into the laptop.

In almost no time, a pop-up appeared for a download, a couple of buttons were pressed, and a video appeared shortly on the screen. The media player shows the file as ‘Nathan Jones. MP4’ the screen black with a white triangle over it.

“Wait, you guys are okay with watching this? I thought you’d say no,” Will warned.

“We’re not, we just also want to find out what’s going on with the cameras, if it really is something we should worry about,” Oakley said for the rest of them.

Eve and Noah nodded, agreeing. Ever since Noah’s place with the camera in those teddy bear’s eyes, everyone has had this eerie feeling.

“Are we sure we want to watch this?” Will starts again.

“You’re backing out now?” Noah shuffles over to him, with everyone getting closer in response. Her words were almost a jab, not meant to be, but he felt his stomach wring with the thought that he started this, he did.

But good intentions can lead to bad things just as much as bad intentions do. “No.” He responds, looking at the ground briefly. When he looks back up, he sees Noah press play.

What follows would haunt them for the rest of their life.