Lily's day passed with a mindless blur. After her heart-warming chat with Ryan in PE, she couldn't think straight during English. It seemed her day was throwing tests at her, both physically and metaphorically.

First, Isaac drew attention to her unexplained lack of wounds in science. Then he brought up her family, and his disrespect had been weighing on Lily's heart for the rest of her time at school. What she desperately wanted to do was go home, hug her aunt, and hide under a mound of blankets while fiddling with her sisters' old jewellery. 

But she had to get through the elective first. Lunch was easy, she just had to sit there and try and swallow her emotions. PE had somewhat calmed her mind talking to Ryan, but listening to Isaac's booming laugh across the cafeteria with his friends slapping his back and encouraging his nasty jokes? The sneer on his face sent anger heating across Lily's skin.

She wanted an apology. She didn't want this to be swept under the rug and to have him go on like he hadn't hurt her, like he didn't do anything. That he could laugh it off.

Lily tried her best to engage with her friends but Isaac's presence fired off her nerves. 

When her last lesson finally started, Lily breathed a sigh of relief. Isaac wasn't in her class, neither were all his friends, so she could work on trying to calm herself down, to relax.

To her surprise, her teacher was Miss Winters. She merely waved the students entering her class to the mats on the floor. Everyone quickly got the idea, and Lily chose the mat closest to the open window, Jack quickly grabbing the mat next to her, and Karen on Jack's right.

"So, in this class, you basically sleep." Jack explained. "And I definitely need one after that horrid English lesson."

"Trouble with that essay?" Karen asked quietly as they all sat cross-legged facing Miss Winters, who was scowling at the small class. 

"Apparently my conclusion wasn't strong enough." Jack huffed. "And the sentence, 'If you have a different opinion you're wrong.', isn't appropriate."

"Wasn't your essay on a comparison of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and She's The Man?"

"Yeah. It's illogical. It's completely obvious she's not actually a boy and the fact that no one spotted it? They're all blind!" Jack blew her hair out of her face. "It's rubbish."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "You didn't watch it."

"...Of course I did!"

"What was your favourite scene then?"

Jack blinked. "...When the two blokes have to drink two goblets on a hill?"

"That's The Princess Bride."

"Same thing." Jack dismissed, Lily cracking a small smile, as Miss Winters cleared her throat. The class fell silent, some students fidgeting on the squeaky yoga mats.

"Meditation is a beneficial and useful tool." Miss Winters said. "You'll use it for the rest of your life. It clears your mind, helps you focus, and calms your soul."

Miss Winters placed her hands on her knees, pinching her thumb and forefinger. "Pressing your finger and thumb together like this prevents you from sleeping because of the pulse points. You can sit like this, or have your hands together, or whatever is comfortable."

"What? I can't sleep? This is rubbish." Jack hissed under her breath. Karen rolled her eyes at her complaining.

"I'm going to play a quiet track of the ocean with some whale songs," Miss Winters said as she pressed a button on her laptop. Soon, the sounds of waves crashing against the shore softly drifted to Lily's ears. "All you have to do is shut your eyes, clear your head, and breathe out longer than you breathe in."

Miss Winters followed her own instructions, shutting her eyes. Lily, a little confused, looked around the room to see everyone following suit. There four other students in front of her had decided to have their palms flat. The four behind her were either sitting cross legged or had their legs out straight. The girl on the right of Karen, Poppy, was softly humming. Jack and Karen already had their eyes closed, Jack was still frowning though.

Lily shut her eyes, pressing her fingers and thumbs together, and focused on the sounds of the ocean. Was it really that easy? She'd been recommended meditation in the past but she didn't quite believe it. It seemed easy so far; just sitting straight and listening to the ocean? She could do this for an hour.

Clearing her mind seemed to be the difficult part. Her mind was a mess of Isaac's confrontation and Ryan's attempt at a soothing chat. The past week hadn't been the calmest and that was the biggest understatement of her life. She'd seen more of her creature than ever in the past seven days; she saved someone's life and beat up three rogue wolves, punched the Ryan hard enough to give him a black eye, was almost kidnapped two days ago and fended off a rogue that pushed her through a window.

She was exhausted.

Lily scrunched up her face. She kept trying to clear her mind but to no avail. Memories from the past week were just being thrown back in her face, the sounds of waves crashing into her ears and her concentration. She diverted her focus onto anything else; the sound of the rain outside, or the sports being played on the still-damaged field. When that didn't work, Lily focused on everyone around her.

She could hear the girls behind her shifting about, hear their breathing. Jack and Karen next to her were quiet, and she heard Poppy adjust on the firm mat. Lily frowned as she heard the four in front of her gossiping under their breaths. Miss Winters was asleep, if her deep breaths were anything to go by. 

Lily squinted her eyes shut as she focused on their breathing. Her mind went numb as she counted who else was in the room over and over again. There were thirteen of them. Three were giggling under their breath. Lily heard someone tapping on their phone, and more gasps. Two more were rubbing their fingers together nervously. Lily tipped her head to the side as the four girls in front were humming to the ocean. She heard them swaying side to side, their clothes crinkling. Jack coughed under her breath, Karen sighed, and Miss Winters was practically snoring.

Thirteen. She counted. Including her, fourteen. Fourteen people meditating...

Lily stilled. There should be thirteen people including her.

The waves crashed against the shore as Lily straightened, still keeping her eyes closed, as she recounted.

Four behind her. Three on her right. Four in front, Miss Winters in front of them, and one more.

The rustling of the plant in the corner. It wasn't the wind, the breeze was coming from Lily's left side, from the window too far away from the plant to make that kind of noise.

Someone was by the plant. 

Lily gently opened one eye, staring at that corner, but there was no one there. She shut her eye again as her heart rate spiked.

Waves crashed against the shore.

Lily could hear her pulse quicken, her fingers pressed together tightly, as she tried to cast her senses. The rain started to pour heavier, the sounds of it bouncing off the glass, and droplets fell on her bare arm.

The air thickened up with moisture as Lily kept breathing deeply, trying to keep composed, but she couldn't stop thinking. There was someone else in the room, someone in the corner, but she couldn't see them. She heard them, she could hear them now - their pulse was quick, not as quick as hers, but Lily could almost picture them resting on their knees and watching the class.

They were watching her.

Instinct swam through her as a shiver went down her spine. It was the same feeling she had when she left the principal's office last week. She had heard footsteps but hadn't seen anyone. 

What were they doing? Was this a trick? Or if it wasn't, what kind of creature was it that they could turn invisible?

Her mind cleared as adrenaline sank in her stomach. What if they were working for Yuric and they were going to capture her again?

No. A chill calm swept over her. She heard a whale song deep in her toes but it sounded far away from her ears. Lily wasn't going to be captured, and she wasn't going to let the invisible thing get away.

Lily kept still, knowing she couldn't just leap up and tackle them, she didn't know what they could do, so she focused, never letting her senses leave that corner of the room. She felt moisture roll up her arms and the air thickened.

They weren't moving and they weren't getting away.

Lily heard others move distantly. She heard her name be called, and suddenly the room wasn't a peaceful tension but panic entering the students around her. Lily didn't focus on them - that thing in the corner still hadn't moved.

Jack blinked as sweat rolled down her forehead. She scrambled to her feet with the rest of the class as she tried to breathe. The air was thick with moisture and she watched as some of the students struggled to get up. The vampires, she realised, as Karen tried to crawl to the door. 

The vampires needed a larger than normal intake of blood. They also couldn't be in places with a severe drop in temperature - their blood pressure dropped quicker than everyone else, they became light-headed, and some of them lost control.

Jack's eyes widened as Karen blinked at her with a flash of a red haze glowing from her dark eyes. "Dammit." Jack snapped as she looked around. The other students were backing away to the wall, scrambling for the door. When Jack looked past Karen to Lily, her eyes widened and she sprinted to the exit.

Lily was sitting peacefully, on appearance she seemed too good at the whole aspect of meditation. But the window was open next to her and the water was splattered over her skin. The air around her was too thick, blocking the cold breeze from the window, the moisture seemed to be coming from her. Lily's eyelids fluttered and Jack glimpsed silver shining beneath.

Her creature was out, and it was heating up the room, beginning to suck the moisture out the air.

Jack pushed some of the girls aside as they pawed at the door, she ignored their panic, repeating the same thing over and over again. Get the door open. Let the air in. Get the door open and get the vampires out. 

But when Jack grabbed the handle her hand slid right off. Sweat was now pouring from her, from everyone, and water coated everything. No one could grip the door.

"Someone call for help!" She burst out, "We need to get the vamps out of here!"

"What's going on?!" Someone screamed, someone else tried to type on their phone but the screen was damp and wasn't registering. Jack was moved aside as some of the girls started banging on the door.

Jack watched as the three vampires in the class crawled to each other. Karen gently lay the others down, whispering them to relax and to let themselves fall unconscious, and not snap in anger at anyone. When she looked up at Jack, her eyes were a gleaming ruby.

The witch gulped as she got to Miss Winters. The teacher was struggling to stand, blinking rapidly as adrenaline and exhaustion battled against her heightened senses. "Miss Winters, get up!" Jack tried to haul the teacher to her feet. "We need help!"

"What's..." Miss Winters stumbled, her eyes flashing feral gold and Jack did her best to stabilise her. "I need air."

"Yeah I know." Jack pushed her in the chair by the teacher's desk, shoving her laptop at her teacher. "Get someone here to help, Mrs Khan will be able to do something."

"Mrs Khan..?"

"Tell her it's Lily." Jack said, pushing the laptop again as the pressure dropped. Her ears popped as Jack sank to her knees beside Lily.

She barely recognised her friend. Her red hair was curling from the moisture around her, but she showed no sign of discomfort. Her face was blank besides the scrunch of her brows, her silver eyes glowing between her lids.

"Lily?" Jack tried talking to her. Her own magic was sparking off her fingers, fighting to protect her from whatever was causing the room to drop and rise in humidity. "Lily, can you open your eyes?"

Lily didn't respond. Her focus was elsewhere, her mind distant. Jack wiped the sweat off her head. "Look, you're really good at this whole meditation thing, but you need to stop now." She tried again, but Lily wasn't answering.

Some of the girls had moved to the windows, trying to open more. One of them shot to the open one by Lily and screamed for the people playing sports by the field.

"We need help! We're stuck!" Poppy howled to her fellow wolves. "Please! Quickly!"

Jack watched as the one fairy in the class tried using her magic, eyes a brilliant purple, and focused on the vampires to lull them into unconsciousness. The two others beside Karen were struggling, their instincts screaming at them to fight.

Jack suddenly had an idea, looking quickly at the still Lily, before she called to the fairy.

"Belissa, wait!" She whispered as she moved over to them. Jack was all to aware of the wolves slowly starting to collapse, their heightened senses struggling under whatever Lily's creature was doing. "Wait, don't put them under!"

"Are you insane?!" Belissa quietly shrieked. "They're about to attack everyone in here!"

"I know, hang on!" Jack waved her off and looked to Karen. She seemed the only one out of the three with any semblance of control, but Jack was still unnerved by how feral she looked with her ruby eyes. "Can you direct that kill-everything-and-everyone rage onto the door?"

Karen blinked, looking to a worried Belissa, and to the students pawing and fainting by the door. Lily still hadn't moved. Karen nodded. "Get everyone to move out the way, quickly Jack." Her voice was dry from constant pressure change emanating from Lily. 

As Jack got up and shoved people out the way, exhaustion beginning to creep into her bones, Karen turned to Belissa. "You'll need to knock me out as soon as that door is down, okay?"

Belissa nodded, her eyes shifting to a deep indigo, as she dug into her magic. Karen slowly got to her feet, her mind static and vision blurring, but she made her way to the classroom door.

Jack slumped against the desk as the rest of the students collapsed, poor Poppy was still hung out the window, and Miss Winters was unconscious on her chair, her laptop flashing a 'sent' icon in the corner.

"Go on Karen," Jack slurred, blinking rapidly. "You got this. The door is your worst enemy, you want to punch them in the face, go on Karen, come on..."

Karen blinked as she stared at the door, her instinct screaming. More waves crashed against the shore, she heard more whales emanate from the laptop, and the pressure dropped further, bringing Karen to her knees.

"Come on!" Jack groaned. "Wake up Lily! Stop suffocating us!" 

Karen struggled to control the roaring in her head. She was stuck in this classroom with her unconscious classmates, one of them half out the window, and Lily was stuck in a trance. It was up to her, it was up to her, it was up to her, come on Karen. She tried to take a breath but it was too stifling, there was no relief, there was no escape.

Karen screamed, eyes flaming red, as she charged at the door. The wood snapped under the force of a blood-deprived vampire, the hinges buckling, and the door fell back into the corridor, Karen falling with it. Belissa stumbled out with her, taking a deep breath of the cool air licking the hallway, and rested her hand on Karen's back just as the vampire was about to get up.

In an instant, Karen was unconscious. Belissa had slowed her heart rate down and triggered the release of a sleeping chemical in her brain.

"What'd you do?!" Jack whispered, struggling to stay conscious.

Belissa, too, collapsed by Karen as footsteps rounded the corner and the teachers finally arrived. "Gamma aminobutyric acid, GABA, is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that de-decreases brain activity..." The fairy muttered before she fell unconscious as well.

Jack blinked against the haze in her mind as she heard footsteps run out the room, but didn't see anyone, and she knew she was at the point where her mind was playing tricks on her. She sighed when she spotted Mrs Khan run in with Ms Marlowe, and to her surprise and annoyance, Ryan Croft.

Mrs Khan ran to Miss Winters, doing her best to move the sports teacher. Jack blinked as more teachers ran in, the principal and Ms Marlowe resting a healing hand on each student to ease them awake.

Croft, however, moved past his wolves and straight to Lily. He was aware of people moving around him, that Ms Marlowe had heaved Poppy out of the window and was gently waking everyone but the vampires. Mrs Khan, he saw, took a seed from her pocket and used her magic to sprout a small, overhanging tree. Croft didn't know what it would do but knew she was an expert witch and somehow, this little twig could help.

He knelt in front of Lily, whose lovely dark eyes were still shut. "Lily?" He tried talking to grab her attention. She seemed to be in a trance, but he couldn't think of a way to break it.

In the movies a kiss always works. He immediately shoved the thought aside as best he could. Some instinct told him that if he kissed her, he'd receive more than a black eye. His mind scrambled as his ears popped, the pressure dropping again.

"Croft." He heard someone whisper, and turned to see Lily's witch friend glaring at him. His cheeks reddened, glad he didn't listen to his previous thought. Jack was slumped against the desk and waved off Ms Marlowe's attempt to help her, telling her to help the others first. The witch turned back to him, her rings gleaming as her eyes glowed juniper. "Piss her off."

"That didn't work well for me last time, witch!" He scowled.

Jack narrowed her eyes. "Exactly, she reacted." She tried to explain, but was interrupted by Mrs Khan telling her to stop talking and let someone help her.

Ryan blinked, remembering when Lily had punched him in the face after he broke her plain leather bracelet. He looked to Lily's bare wrist. Her sister's bracelet.

Ryan gulped as he outstretched a hand and replayed their conversation only hours ago. He'd asked about her family, what their names were, what they were like and she'd shut him down.

He hoped the witch's idea worked. "Rio." He recited. "Delta. Marlin's Bay." He didn't know her parent's names but he hoped her sisters names were enough. "Rio, Delta, Marlin's Bay."

Ryan grabbed Lily's wrist, the same place her sister's bracelet used to be, and jumped when he received an electric shock. He repeated the names, held her wrist again and breathed a sigh of relief when he wasn't zapped.

His heart stopped when he looked up at Lily to see her staring straight at him with swimming silver eyes. Ryan held his breath in fear as her creature looked into his soul, the sounds of waves cut off as the principal shut Miss Winters' computer.

Lily blinked, staring at Ryan's wide blue eyes. His wolf's raw gold flared away the blue, but Lily didn't break her stare. She didn't waver or look away from the dominating glare of Ryan's wolf.

He looked away first, removing his hand from her wrist. "Are you here with me, Lily?" He whispered, not wanting to startle the beast Lily had in her soul.

Ryan watched mesmerised as Lily's silver eyes slowly dulled to their usual soft brown. She blinked, her lashes brushing lightly freckled cheeks. Ryan sighed in relief as Lily brought her hands together to fidget with her fingers. She curled up when she saw the teachers were staring at her, waiting for her to reemerge from the trance she'd gotten herself into.

"What happened Ryan?" Lily whispered, looking away from the teachers and past Ryan to the corner of the room.

Ryan smiled at her shyness. "I don't think meditation's for you." He tried to joke as relief flooded his system.

Anxiety hollowed out Lily's mind as a sick feeling entered her stomach. She blinked at the corner of the room, not seeing anything different, but the lack of adrenaline swimming in her blood told her enough.

Whatever was in the corner of the room was gone.