Chapter 2

Aside from the texture of the spongy bread and chewy meats, Natalie might as well have been eating cardboard. There was no hint of sweetness in the honey wheat bread. No saltiness to the bacon strips or sharpness of the mustard. Only the ghost peppers gave the slightest hint of flavor.

Living like this was miserable. When fully sated, it was fine. But there just wasn’t enough big game to hunt around here and the longer she went without something fresh, the worse the flavors got. At some point, she wouldn’t be able to restrain it anymore and that never ended well.

Holding the sandwich in one hand, Natalie went back to scrolling through the local hunting grounds. For a remote place like Harrisonburg, Virginia, it was surprisingly hard to find a quiet spot to set up that was still close enough to drive to.

Natalie hummed to herself as she clicked through the sites, sipping her homemade ginger ale. Her mom and dad had long figured out how to make something that they could taste even in the worst of situations. The high concentration of ginger, cayenne peppers, and the family’s secret sauce would make most people blanch with even a whiff, but to her, it was one of the few things she could still enjoy.

Kicking her feet idly at the table, she looked around the lunch hall for Melissa. She’d disappeared into the lunch line almost ten minutes earlier, likely still enraptured in making the perfect salad. How she could call anything perfect without bacon and eggs wasn’t particularly clear to Natalie. Even at the best of times, Natalie couldn’t be bothered to chew on a spinach leaf, let alone an entire bowl of it. If she wanted to taste nothing, she could just wait until everything became bland anyway.

Finally spotting the familiar red hair of her first college friend bobbing amongst a crowd exiting the line, Natalie waved to get her attention but groaned at the sight of who was accompanying her.

Trent Helman and Noah Clive.

Trent was okay, mostly just the football stereotype in every way, but it was Noah who really bugged her. The posterchild of every frat boy and dude bro ever, the guy just oozed ick. And worst of all, he had his slimy sights set on her. The way he undressed her with his eyes made her shudder in revulsion.

“Hey Natalie, look who I bumped into,” Melissa said with a big smile, too focused on Trent to notice Noah’s leer.

“Hey girl,” Noah said, sending a shiver down her back as he eyed her up and down. “Looking fine today.”

“Hey,” Trent greeted casually, pulling out the chair and taking a seat next to Melissa.

“Uh, hi,” Natlie said, shuffling her chair away from Noah who had sat right next to her. “I thought you all usually ate with your frat brothers.”

“Yeah, we just stopped by because ‘Alpha T’ here saw Melissa,” Noah said, grabbing one of Natalie’s chips unbidden. “What happened to you last week at the freshman mixer? I came back with drinks and you were gone.”

“Ah, you know, not really my scene,” Natalie said, leveraging her non-existent psychic powers to call for Melissa’s help. Sadly, Melissa was more interested in making googly eyes at Trent. “Just, kinda, prefer quiet.”

While nothing would have made Natalie happier than to chase Noah and his faux macho bullshit away, it was hard enough to make friends and biting Trent’s buddy’s head off probably wouldn’t earn her much in the way of brownie points with Melissa. Although Melissa probably wouldn’t care that much ... as long as Trent was still cool with it.

Probably best not to push it. Melissa was by far the coolest friend she’d ever had. Also, the only one she’d ever had. Being awkward and standoffish didn’t earn Natalie a lot of good will, so screwing this up for herself wouldn’t be doing her any favors.

“Shoulda said you wanted some private time,” he said with a leer, that chip hovering right in front of him. “I coulda shown you a good time upstairs in my room. Alpha style.”

Ugh. Maybe just a kick to the balls when Melissa wasn’t looking would be fine.

Taking her silence as some kind of encouragement, Noah put the chip into his mouth in the skeeziest manner possible; all tongue and eye contact.

Watching that smirk of his slowly morph as his nostrils flared and his eyes grew brought a smile unbidden to her face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked innocently. “I thought you alphas liked the insane spicy chip challenge?”

Sweat began to bead on his forehead as his face grew red. His eyes darted to the bottle of ginger ale sitting next to her. She didn’t stop him as he reached for it.

This was going to be good.

It was hard to say which was the best part of it all. The brief moment of relief on his face before he went pale, or the fact that he doubled over and practically coughed his lungs out as he gagged and dry heaved.

“Dude, seriously?” Trent laughed as Noah stamped his foot and gasped for breath. “Didn’t realize you were such a pussy.”

As if to show off, Trent grabbed the bottle and took a swig.

“Oh, you shouldn’t—,” Melissa started to say but it was already too late.

Trent froze, his eyes slowly panning from Noah to Melissa and then to Natalie. He then took the most exaggerated swallow Natalie had ever seen, placing the bottle gingerly back onto the table.

“Spicy,” he rasped, stifling the coughing fit that was clearly bubbling up from his lungs. He instead grabbed Noah by the back of the shirt and escorted him from the premises.

Melissa gave him a short wave before turning on Natalie. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“You couldn’t warn him?”

“It’s not like I offered them any.”

“Ugh.”

Melissa speared her leafy concoction and took a bite, still grumbling.

“So ... Trent, huh?”

Melissa just gave her some side-eye and then stuffed another load of greens into her mouth.

“Oh my god, you did,” Natalie said with a laugh. “You totally hooked up with him.”

“Well ... like, made out a bit,” she said, a coy smile spreading across her lips. “We’re going to get together again next week. Uh, what about you? You meeting up with Noah again?”