After a while, I was pulled from my sleep, and I slowly opened my eyelids to see the same room as before. I had been hoping that the whole incident had simply been a dream or something; it would have made things so much easier, but the sight of the room brought me back to my strange reality. The room was almost completely dark, which worried me because I was sure that my mom would be wondering where I was. In fact, I hadn't had contact with anyone except Kris since I had dropped Jamye off, so there was a good chance that my mother wasn't the only person worrying about me.

Slowly, I sat up, prepared for the wave of pain that had hit me when I'd done the same thing earlier. When it didn't happen, I let myself turn and hang my legs over the side of the bed, moving carefully. I was short -- only 5'2, actually -- so my feet didn't even touch the floor. As I sat there, I took a moment to really take in the room around me. The poster prints I had noticed before were of places like London, Madrid, Dubai, and Tokyo, all black-and-white nighttime skylines of each city. The bed had a white bedspread, and the walls were a light heather grey. There were other pieces of furniture, all painted a shade of grey darker than the walls, and the floor was covered in shaggy grey carpet. The entire room was very monochrome, but at the same time, it was very clear that it was lived in.

Suddenly, a noise pulled me from my observations, and my attention was drawn to one of the windows, draped in a dark grey mesh curtain. I slowly stood up from the bed and made my way over to the window before drawing the curtain aside and peering down at the view that spread out below me.

From what I could tell, the large house that I was in had been built in a clearing, surrounded on all sides by a dense forest, probably the same forest that was part of the state park where I had wrecked my car. The clearing composed the yard of the house, and though the grass seemed to be maintained, there were wildflowers growing all around the few trees that remained inside the clearing. But in all of this, the thing that caught my attention the most was the presence of two boys fighting in the yard.

It was clear that they weren't really trying to physically harm each other; it seemed more likely that they were practicing some form of martial arts that I wasn't familiar with. Regardless of that, they were extremely good and I could tell that it was something that they must have both been doing for many years. I could also tell that they were both from that group of foreign exchange students, which seemed logical since Kris had claimed that this was his house. However, I didn't know which two they were since they weren't either of the two that I had classes with; that meant that Kris and Luhan were probably somewhere nearby, as well as the other two that I didn't know.

"You're awake again."

The voice startled me and I jumped, quickly turning to find Luhan standing in the doorway. I hadn't heard the door open, so there was no telling how long he had been standing there.

I took a moment to observe him quickly: his baby-ish features, making him seem years younger than he really was; his bright blonde hair that almost seemed white; his dark brown eyes that were also watching me curiously. I had no way of knowing what was going through his mind, but he at least only seemed curious about me and nothing more.

"You were really lucky that you didn't hit your head harder," he said, tilting his chin downward a little and, even though he was taller than me, he looked at me from underneath his eyelashes, contemplating something.

"I was lucky Kris found me when he did," I replied, watching him as well. I hadn't moved from the window, and he hadn't moved from the doorway, but I didn't actually know him aside from seeing him in class and I wasn't going to just let my guard down.

"Is that what he told you?" he responded, the corners of his mouth twisting up into a smirk. "He enjoys taking the credit for everything, being the alpha."

He paused, clearly trying to give me time to ponder his use of the word 'alpha', and I will admit, it threw me off guard. I knew it as a term usually referring to the strongest and lead male in a pack of wolves, and I couldn't remember ever hearing it being used in relation to another person. Just one more thing that was making the afternoon seem more and more like a dream -- or a nightmare.

"He only carried you here and had the doctor look at you," he continued once I looked back up at him. "I told him it would have been better to call an ambulance and let them take care of you; it certainly would have been easier to explain. But he couldn't just leave you: he was afraid you had seen one of us. Or at least, that's what he said."

"What are you talking about?" I said, confused again. "I see all of you at school every day, especially you and Kris."

"Ah, so apparently you didn't see what chased the deer out of the woods. A good thing too, at least for Lay. Looks like our secret is safe for the time being."

Secret? What secret? All the talk of alphas and whatever chased the deer out onto the road was swirling around in my head, and my mind kept going back to one thing in particular. What if Jamye's theory hadn't been wrong? What if her idea had been right on point?

"Werewolves," I said just as Luhan was turning to leave.

"What was that?" he asked, his eyes bright as he turned back around and took a few steps toward me, though not threatening.

"You're all werewolves."

His eyes widened when he actually heard me say it, and I thought something inside of him was going to go off, but instead, he suddenly pulled me into the most massive hug I've ever received, lifting me off of the floor in the process.

"I can't believe you actually picked up on all those hints!" he said, sounding as if he had won first prize in a contest. "Finally, someone outside the family knows what we are!"

I was shell-shocked enough as it was, having realized that Jamye was right and I was in a house full of half-human, half-canines. But now Luhan was celebrating my realization as if it was the one thing he had always wanted. Just another reason my brain was having a hard time keeping up.

Once he set me back down, I looked up at him and said, "So let me get this straight: you claim that you guys being werewolves is some big secret, but you're excited that I figured it out? How does that make any sense?"

"You may not understand now," he said, ruffling my hair like we had been siblings for years. "But you'll have everything explained to you in due time, dongsaeng."

~

After that, Luhan led me out of the room into a long hallway lined with doors on either side. He didn't say anything about them, instead leading me downstairs into what I assumed was the living room. There was one large flatscreen tv with a few long leather couches facing it. The tv was , and seated on one of the couches was one of the boys from the group.

"Xuimin-hyung, look who's finally awake!" Luhan said, the tone of his voice sounding like that of a small child, despite him being several inches taller than me.

Xiumin turned in his seat when he heard Luhan's voice and looked at me with curious eyes. But his face was also serious, and, without looking away from me, he said, "Luhan, why did you go get her? I thought Kris said to let him take care of her."

"But she already figured it out, hyung! She's so smart!" Luhan beamed at him, his smile lighting up his entire face. Clearly my realization really had made him quite happy.

Xiumin, however, didn't seem to react quite as well as Luhan. Jumping out of his seat, he looked at Luhan very seriously before speaking to him, his tone low, almost as if he was growling, further reinforcing Jamye's theory.

"What do you mean she figured it out?"

Before Luhan could answer him, someone walked into the room behind me, their footsteps light and almost inaudible. However, both Xiumin and Luhan turned to look at the person who had entered, and immediately they lowered their gaze, almost submissively. Slightly fearful of what I would see -- all I could imagine was a bristling human-wolf hybrid with bared canines. But I suddenly found myself face-to-face with Kris again, though he was much closer than he had ever been before, only inches away.

The close proximity startled me and I jumped back a pace involuntarily as he took a step away from me. Clearly he hadn't been expecting me to up and about because he looked as surprised to see me as I probably did to see him. But his expression quickly hardened an he looked to Luhan, avoiding my gaze.

"Don't any of you know how to stay out of my room?!"

( Hi guys! Trying to bring the guys in gradually; all of them at once would be rather overwhelming, if not for you as readers, then at least for me! Anyway, I hope you're enjoying it regardless, and if your bias hasn't been mentioned in depth yet, I promise to have them all in in the next chapter! (Although who doesn't love Luhan, right?) Also, I got a really great comment on the last chapter and I would really appreciate some more! Thanks again, love you all!)