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║J A C K S O NXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX A weather-beaten homestead sat at the far end of an untended track of land at the edge of a small one horse town, lawn littered with disorganized trees and no landscaping, practically melding into it's backdrop. The wooden slats were long since silvered by the sun, and the roof shingles warped. That house, although a much smaller scale, was one that was frighteningly reminiscent of the old abandoned haunted houses in the Scooby Doo movies Jackson Kastner had grown up watching as a child. The floorboards creaked in odd places, making him feel like he was playing hopscotch at the moment rather than trying to sneak past his mother's bedroom door without waking her. Creeeeeak. He froze, cringing, hovering in mid-step like a victim of Medusa's wrath.
He waited for what felt like an eternity until he was, like, ninety-nine point nine percent she hadn't stirred before daring to move again. Or at least ninety percent. He was eighteen years old now officially, for Christ's sake, why was he creeping about like the hamburgler in his own 'home'? Because his mother would jerk a knot in his ass if she knew what he was up to this fine Saturday morning, that's why. Eighteen or not. After all, no respectable teen was up before the crack of noon on the weekends. She'd suspect he was up to no good....yet again...and to be fair, he was. Jackson couldn't help it though, he just had a taste for trouble. Whatever brought the most eyes on him. He basked in the attention.
He finally made it safely past her door and to the front of the house, releasing a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding until now.
Out onto the porch, the old boards creaked under the weight of his boots too. Goddamn, does everything in this house make noise? They felt thin and veined, frozen by a hundred winters, baked by a hundred summers, and smelled of dust and age. He didn't freeze mid-step this time though, he was almost scott-free and if she hadn't woken yet she probably wasn't going to. He skipped risking taking the steps down and just cleared the whole thing, jumping off the deck onto a rolling sea of dry grass and picked up a light brisk jog down the dirt drive up to the street. Jackson didn't have a car, couldn't afford one, but the town was small and one could get just about anywhere on foot. Plus, he had a knack for finding the fastest route possible to any given destination, even though he couldn't find his own way in life.
It was his senior year, at long last, but Jackson didn't like to dwell too much on high school. Most of it was sort of hazy anyway, like his brain had been stuffed with cotton balls, but he remembered a lot of bad marks on his report cards, a lot of "Apply yourself!" and "See me after class!" notes scrawled down on his failed tests. Calculus didn't click for him, grammar was a waste of time--he knew how to write a damn sentence--why did he have to deconstruct it and then put it back together in some stupid diagram? It was difficult for him to pay attention. His brain was constantly offline it seemed. It wasn't like he hadn't tried. Early on, before he'd given up completely on academics, he'd tried, like, ridiculously hard. Stayed up late studying, gotten tutored, scribbled pages and pages of notes...But a light was on in an empty house, or so one of his teacher's had once said. You see though, lesson plans were differing in every town they moved to. Each school was at a different point and it made it difficult for Jackson to follow things he had yet to learn at the previous place and he couldn't get caught up before he was too quickly thrust into yet another school. It just was rough on him altogether....Which was probably one of two reasons he was headed the direction he was now, to vandalize some school property.
On to reason numero dos. Now though his academic game was weak, his social game was strong. Jackson could charm the skin off of a snake without batting an eyelash. He could easily win over many friends, but he'd then be forced to sever those ties each and every time his mother decided they had reached some invisible point where it became necessary to pick up and leave again without notice. Ms. Kastner believed it was important to keep your friends at arms length anyways when you were unidentified werewolves like they were, so she could never be brought to see his plight. Now, technically, werewolves were supposed to be confined to living in the ghettos in the city, but his mother largely avoided that for whatever reason; choosing to illegally hide out under a human guise. Jackson wouldn't have minded living in the city with others like him despite the prejudices outted Werewolves faced today, but anytime he pressed her about it, she shut down. She shouldn't have been surprised when her teenage son, cut off from the rest of the world, fell in with a bad crowd then...One that wanted him to meet them early on a Saturday morning to leave paint bombs in the school lockers, set to explode on Monday when the hapless students of Thorp High went to retrieve their books.
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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Turns out the school had an alarm system installed last fall and when the cops showed, mid-setup; Jake, Ryan, Bobby, and Jo bailed, leaving Jackson to take the fall. It was not in Jackson's nature to be bitter or angry over it though, he understood that his friend's might not get shown the same leniency that he was sure to, and he was happy to cover for them, because even more importantly, they knew they could trust him not to narc. But none of this stopped Jackson from crossing his arms over his chest in the back of the squad car like a sullen little boy, pouting for being placed in time out. This wasn't the first time he had been scooped up by the police, not even the first time in this town, but maybe this deputy had a soft spot for kids or maybe he was just a perv for blonde teenaged youth, Hell, he didn't know or care, the important thing was he was letting him off with a warning, dropping him back home instead of the county jail. The vehicle hastily pulled up outside the humble house, kicking up earth and dust with each tire rotation, blanketing the white squad car with a fine tan layer of dirt. The driver, one John Griner, who had deemed Jackson could be let off the hook parked it on a patch of dead grass and came around the side to let him out as the other officer ducked out of the passenger side to meet him, to hold Jackson back from bounding straight into the safety of his ramshackle walls.
"I'm going to have a word with your mother, first." Deputy Griner stated. "Mcknab, Stay with him a moment."
Jackson sighed, rolling his eyes. "Good luck with that, she's probably not even home. Can't you just leave a note or something?" He pressed knowing full and well she was, only to be proven right as a bleary eyed Ms. Kastner stepped out onto the porch, delicate hand shielding her face from the bright midday sun, appearing all to the world like she had just woken up. Dammit.
She looked to the police officer approaching her door with skepticism until her eyes went back further to rest on her son. Surprise.....a blazing white grin, that under different circumstances would make even the most doleful person smile, flashed across his face, splitting across his countenance like a nail pounded into glass as he cheekily waved at his mother. The officer and notorious prick Mcknab, holding Jackson back with a hand placed on his chest, scowled.
"You realize you are one lucky son of a bitch, don't cha? Griner may think you will sort yourself out, but I know better. You'll be back behind that cage in my car again. Your type always finds a way to screw something up." He grumbled, voice low so the pair on the porch wouldn't hear him.
Jackson frowned and began patting himself down, checking the pockets of his jacket like he was looking for a misplaced set of keys. "Now where did I put....that rats ass for your opinion I could give?"
He barked out a laugh as the officer grabbed a fist full of worn leather and spun Jackson around, slapping him onto the hood of the squad car.
"Damn, I didn't know you liked it so rough, if you wanted to 'frisk' me, all you had to do was say so." He breathed out as Mcknab applied pressure to the arm he had twisted behind his back, forcing a hiss out from behind Jackson's pearly teeth.
A growl rattled around in his chest, but he suppressed it. He could have tossed this bastard off of him with a simple shirk of his shoulder, but he had to play his human role and submit. He and Mcknab did this little song and dance just about every time Jackson was caught. He had a real chip on his shoulder about not being allowed to do his job, when the most excitement he saw was getting to issue the odd speeding ticket or two, or submitting the weekend revelers to the station's drunk tank.