My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 121

Nina

By the time the symposium came, I had spent the past few days trying my best to solely focus on my presentation. I decided that I couldn’t let my feelings for Enzo impede upon my grades in the exact same way that he couldn’t let his feelings for me impede upon his performance in the tournament. So, I didn’t see him at all for that time, although I couldn’t stop the negative thoughts and nightmares despite that.

The day of the symposium finally arrived, and I was well-prepared. I had a presentation put together on anatomy, and had spent hours practicing my presentation in front of Luke, who used his past as a talking skeleton to give me pointers and correct my mistakes.

I was well-prepared enough, in fact, that my presentation went incredibly well. I finished my presentation and stepped off of the stage, smiling in reaction to the applause coming from the small group of attendees, one of whom was my professor.

“Well, Miss Harper,” my professor said, approaching me as I packed up my laptop and other materials, “I must say that you gave an excellent presentation. I’ll award you the extra credit.”

I couldn’t help but smile even wider. “Thank you, Professor.”

“Remember that this is a one time thing,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “I hope you’ll try harder from now on to be present in class and stay on top of your work.”

I nodded vehemently. “I will. Thank you again.”

The professor smiled, then left. I decided to stay at the symposium for a while longer and listen to some of the other presentations, as well as to walk around and look at the other projects that were laid out on tables around the gymnasium.

As I walked around and looked at all of the projects, I suddenly felt a familiar presence in the room. I froze for a moment, then jerked my head up from the particular project on mold that I was looking at, only to see none other than Enzo standing on the other side of the room.

He had his head bent and appeared to be looking at a project as well, but as I stared at him, he suddenly lifted his head as well and made eye contact with me.

His brown eyes began to glow ever so slightly red when he saw me, but he quickly looked away.

I figured that it was too late now to pretend that I hadn’t seen him -- besides, I was curious as to why he was here instead of practicing hockey -- and decided to make my way over to where he stood.

“Hey,” I said sheepishly as I approached, stopping to stand in front of him. “Surprise seeing you here.”

“I heard you were giving a presentation,” he muttered. We kept a respectable distance between ourselves, but I could still pick up a bit of his scent from where I stood, and it took some focus to not let it get to me. “You did a good job.”

“Thanks,” I replied, managing a small smile. I folded my arms across my chest then as there was an awkward silence between us, before my eyes finally fell on the table we were standing in front of.

As I scanned the posterboard, my eyes immediately widened.

It wasn’t just any other project on biology or anatomy; it was a project on werewolves.

Specifically, their weaknesses.

The poster board had several blurry photographs of werewolves, as well as a blurb under each photograph containing werewolf facts. On the other half of the poster board, there were bullet points of various werewolf “weaknesses”, such as silver bullets, fire, and wolfsbane.

On the table, these different weaknesses were laid out. There was a single silver bullet, a wolfsbane flower, and the handle of an axe -- the head had been removed, of course, to keep with the rules of no weapons being allowed on campus, but below it was a small card that mentioned how werewolves could not regenerate once beheaded.

I felt an enormous knot form in my stomach. When I looked back up at Enzo, his eyes were glowing again -- not from attraction this time, but rather from anger.

“I think he made this,” he said, gesturing to the sick project. There was no name attached to it anywhere, however.

“You don’t think…” I began, my voice trailing off.

Enzo shrugged, glancing over at his shoulder. As he did, a couple of other students quickly looked away. I wondered if they had seen this project and were starting to get ideas.

“I think he doesn’t wanna man up and try to kill me himself, so he’s trying to incite violence,” Enzo growled. “If he wants violence… Then he’ll get it.”