Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl, #1)(41)
“Just stay on our side of the woods.” Professor Hines tone dropped into ominous levels and I perked up.
“Werewolf City’s border is marked with red stakes every few feet. Do not step over into the Wild Lands.”
Walsh shifted uncomfortably next to me and I frowned. “What is the Wild Lands?” I whispered to him.
“Look…” He ignored my question and I peered up to see the bus drive out from the thick canopy. As the treed road opened up into a green valley, the breath hitched in my throat.
“Holy crap,” I breathed.
Two giant mountains stood next to each other like old friends. Between them was a bright green valley full of lush green growth and mossy sponge covering the ground. The mountain to the right, the slightly bigger one, had a cobalt blue vein of water pouring down its middle. It was like we were at Yellowstone National Park or some other famous place, but instead we were in an unknown portion of Werewolf City, gazing at the most beautiful waterfall I’d ever seen.
Walsh pointed to a small cluster of wood cabins to the right. “I used to come here as a kid. My mom has a cabin over there.” I’d never spoken to him this much, but seeing his home seemed to bring the chattiness out of him.
On the other side of where his mom’s cabin was, there were a line of reddish-orange flags in the dirt, clearly demarcating a property line. I thought about what Professor Woods said about staying on “our side” and frowned.
I wished my parents had told me more about this place. I had little idea who the Paladins were, or any of this stuff.
We parked the bus in a designated spot and disembarked, taking in the picturesque surroundings. The beautiful sound of over thirty students’ shutters opening and shutting in tandem made a grin pull at the edges of my lips. I decided to try something different. Pulling a spare lens out of my bag, I held it up, looking through it about twelve inches away, and then snapped a picture of the lush landscape through the lens, through my camera, catching my fingers holding it in the frame as well.
“That’s going to be a good one,” Professor Woods murmured beside me.
I gave him a wry smile, so grateful for this fieldtrip.
“Let’s start hiking! We aren’t even to the really pretty stuff yet,” Professor Hines said.
I’d worn my white Converse knockoffs, which I had a feeling I was about to trash. Mental note to get hiking boots with Sawyer’s money, because now that I had these cuffs on I felt less bad about spending his cash. If he was going to be a dick and cage me, I was going to retaliate with shopping therapy.
“Oh look!” Jennie pointed to a thick fern bush and I followed her gaze.
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but when I realized what it was, I gasped a little.
Whoa.
There must be over a hundred orange and black butterflies dripping down the branches like a living sculpture.
I screwed on my macro lens and took an amazing zoomed-in picture of the texture of the wings.
Click, click, click. We all snapped pictures.
“The monarchs. We only get them for a few months and then they’re back on their way to Mexico,” Professor Hines said.
After that, we silently settled into the hike across the valley and over to the base of the waterfall.
“Can I go in the water?” Jennie asked.
I liked Jennie, she was chill, low maintenance, and didn’t make the top twenty with Sawyer, so she wasn’t an asshole to me like the other girls.
“Absolutely,” Professor Woods said.
Chris pulled a camera drone from his backpack and I scowled at him. “Cheater.”
He grinned. “I’m not climbing all the way up there for a good shot.”
“I am!” I announced.
“Me too,” a dude named Samson said, and started to hike in that direction.
“Wonderful! It seems you all have an idea of the shot you want to get. Take your time. We have three hours slotted for the fieldtrip.”
I started to hike up the well-worn path to the right of the waterfall, and Walsh stepped in behind me. “You don’t have to go up with me,” I told him.
He just grumbled under the hood of his jacket, which was now pulled up because the waterfall was spitting mist at us when the wind changed directions.
Okay, I guess my chatty Walsh was gone.
It was a steep hike. Like a freaking stair stepper. My thighs burned when we got halfway, and I stopped with Samson to pull water from my backpack and take a long swig. Walsh didn’t look nearly as out of breath as Samson and I, and I wondered what kind of exercise regimen Sawyer’s guards were on. Because clearly I needed it.
“Fuck this. Good enough,” Samson groaned, and walked over to the edge, starting to snap pictures.
I frowned. “Not going to the top?”
He shook his head. “Too much work for a photo.”
I swallowed my scoff and nodded. Photography was my life. Most of the time it was taking a photo in a moment, but others it was waiting hours for a bird to show up and drink from the bowl of water you set out, or to hike a mountain and get that shot that’s in your head. Photography was freezing your memories so other people could view them forever, and that’s what I was determined to do today.
I took off up the mountain with fierce determination. I wasn’t going to back down because something was hard—what kind of person did that? No one I could ever respect or be with. I glared at Chris’ drone as it flew down from the top, already having taken its amazing photos and now done. An annoyed growl ripped from my throat and I picked up the pace even faster.