I stepped into one of the shower stalls, and removed my clothes. Turning on the water, I threw my head back and let it splash against my face and it felt wonderful. With my fingers, I started to untangle the worst case of bed-head ever. Then, very carefully, I felt for those little black bones that had been sticking out from between my shoulder blades. With my eyes screwed shut, I felt for them. To my relief, they had gone. I opened my eyes again and saw a shadow fleet past on the other side of the shower block. I reached up and turned off the water. Standing with my arms covering my chest, I listened. I could hear the sound of movement on the other side of the cubicle I was in. Keeping my breathing shallow so I could hear the slightest of sounds, I hurriedly pulled on my jeans and yanked my top over my head. My clothes clung to me and I felt uncomfortable in more ways than one.
Easing open the cubicle door, I peered out into the room, which was now empty. I opened the door leading to the passageway that ran between the cells and I could see by a set of damp footprints who had been spying on me. With my heart thumping in my chest, I raced down the passageway, following the footprints as I went. But as I reached the corridor that led to the canteen, the footprints had faded, the moisture evaporating into the air.
With my blood almost seeming to boil in my veins, I threw open the canteen door and rushed inside. I could see him sitting at one of the tables, sipping coffee from a mug. How dare he? I screamed inside and raced towards him. But no sooner had I taken my first step than I was upon him and knocking the mug away from his lips with my fist. Jack Seth looked startled as the mug flew from his hands, and hot coffee splashed against his face. His eyes blazed brilliant yellow as he pounced from his seat.
It all happened so fast, I think it had taken everyone in the room by surprise. All I could hear was the sound of chairs skidding backwards across the tiled floor.
“What was that for, you crazy bitch!” Seth snarled, his top lip rolling back to reveal his black rotten teeth.
“You filthy, freaking pervert!” I screamed, and clawed at his face. As my fingers flashed before my eyes, I could see that my fingernails were no longer clear–looking and neat, but now long and ivory-looking, like claws.
Seth saw me reaching for his eyes, and snatched my arm away, twisting it down by my side. His grip was fierce like a vice, but with one lightning snap of my wrist, I had pulled my arm away as easily as if I were being held by a baby. I saw the surprise in his eyes at how easily I had gotten away from him, and he took a step backwards.
Leaping into the air, I took hold of his scrawny neck and launched him through the air. He spun away from me like a child’s toy and smashed into the wall on the opposite side of the canteen. Plaster and brick dust exploded into the air, as the wall cracked beneath the force of him colliding with it. But Seth hadn’t even hit the floor before he was coming at me, his eyes burning in their sunken sockets. He came towards me in a flash, and I stood my ground, back straight and arms and legs rigid. And in my mind’s eye, I knew exactly what I was going to do when he reached me, I was going to…
Then as if being plucked from the air, Seth flew from the room as Potter clattered into him. They hit the side the wall with such speed and force that the whole building shook.
“What’s going on here!” Eloisa suddenly roared as she pounced into the air, landing on top of a table, her nails making a clicking nose against its surface.
“Why don’t you ask your lover over there!” I shouted back at her. “He was watching me take a shower!” And inside, I could see those images again of him hurting me, laying on top of me, and the thought of it made me want to puke.
“What the fuck are you going on about?” Seth growled as Potter fought to restrain him from coming at me again.
“Ever since I met you, you’ve been staring at me with those fucked-up eyes of yours!” I roared back. “Filling my head with disgusting images of how you want me – of how you want to slowly torture then murder me. We’ll I’m not having it anymore, you sick bastard. It ends now! It ends at this moment!” Then, before I knew what had happened, I was standing before him, as Potter held him back. I looked up into his crazy eyes and whatever he saw in mine made him flinch. It was only there for the briefest of moments, but it was there.
Leaning in so close that I could feel his hot breath against me, I hissed, “You ever look at me like that again, you won’t believe what happens next.”
Seth stared into my eyes and I refused to break his stare. Then smiling down at me, he ran his grey coloured tongue over his cracked lips. “I look forward to it, Kiera Hudson. Now, whoever you thought you saw watching you, it wasn’t me. I’ve been here the whole time. Your friends will testify to that.”
“But I saw paw prints leading away from the shower block,” I insisted.
Shaking his head from side to side, and not taking his eyes off mine, he said, “Not my paw prints.”
“How can I be sure it wasn’t you?” I snapped.
Then looking me up and down as if he were undressing me with his eyes, he licked his lips again with his dead-looking tongue and chuckled, “Kiera, if it had been me that had had the pleasure of seeing you washing yourself in that shower, you’d be dead now – I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself.”
“Okay that’s enough, you sick pup,” Potter snarled and pushed Seth away. “Why don’t you do everyone a favour and go and die somewhere?”
Straightening the bandana around his throat, Seth smiled and said to Eloisa, “C’mon my dear, let’s go and get some air, I need to cool down – perhaps a cold shower might sort me out.”
“Yeah, why don’t you go and do that,” Potter yelled.
With my heart racing in my chest and my breathing coming out in short, sharp breaths, I watched Seth and Eloisa leave the canteen.
When they had gone, Isidor and Kayla came rushing across the room towards me.
“Where did you spring from?” Isidor breathed.
“Yeah, what just happened?” Kayla chipped in. “It was like one minute I was sitting there listening to your iPod and the next minute the werewolf dude was flying across the room.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I whispered, looking down at my hands, which had now gone back to their normal shape and size.
“You threw Seth across the room like he was made of straw,” Isidor said.
Looking at the three of them, I said, “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Then lighting a cigarette, Potter said, “You’re changing – that’s what’s happening.” Turning to Isidor and Kayla, Potter said, “Okay, the show’s over. Go and get your stuff, we’re moving out in five minutes.”
Without saying anything back, Kayla and Isidor looked at one another, then silently left.
“Help me, Potter,” I said looking at him.
“You don’t look like you need any help, tiger,” he said, and blew smoke from his nostrils.
“Please, just for once, can’t you stop the wisecracks?” I pleaded. “I’m scared.”
Pitching out his cigarette, Potter came close and cupped my face in his strong hands. “There isn’t anything to be scared of, Kiera. I’ve got your back.”
“Someone was watching me,” I told him.
“But it wasn’t Seth this time,” he said.
“Then who else could it have been?”
“Didn’t you say there was another Lycanthrope hiding out in this town?” Potter reminded me.
“Nik?” I said. “Why would he be here? Why would he be watching me?”
“Maybe he wasn’t watching you – perhaps he was guarding you?” Potter suggested.
“Guarding me?” I breathed. “Guarding me from whom?”
“Whoever it is amongst us that’s the traitor,” Potter half-smiled, but I could tell he was being serious for once.
“Isidor, you mean?” I asked.
“Now why would you go and say a thing like that?” Potter said, removing his hands from my face. Then leaning into me, he kissed me softly on the forehead. “Come on, tiger, we’ve got to get you below ground before sundown.”
“I’m not going down to The Hollows,” I told him. “Not yet, anyway.”
“You’ve got to,” he said, sounding alarmed. “You’ll be safe there.”
“Am I safe anywhere?” I asked him. And before he could answer, I said, “I’m going to look for Ravenwood.”
“But you don’t even know where to start looking,” Potter said, sounding frustrated with me.
“I know a good place to start,” I answered.
“Where?”
“Back at the facility,” I smiled.
“The facility?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “What makes you think that he would go back there?”
“Do you remember that disc I downloaded at the monastery?”
“The one we all nearly died for while it was downloading – yeah I remember it,” he said dryly.
“Well, when you snuck up on me last night, I’d been looking at some files on it,” I started to explain. “Anyway, that facility has been closed down due to some kind of biohazard. I’m guessing that the biohazard is the infection that Hunt and Ravenwood spread amongst the half-breeds they were developing. The infection probably spread amongst them, and the Vampyrus got scared enough to think that it would spread to them – that’s why they moved us to the zoo.”
“So why would Ravenwood go back if there is this potentially dangerous biohazard floating about?” Potter asked.
“Because he helped to create it and knows that it’s not dangerous to the Vampyrus, just to the half-breeds that are injected with the DNA code. See, it’s like this self-destruct button for the half-breeds. They grow so much – then wham – the infection kicks in and they die. We can’t die from it because our immune system will fight it off, but Hunt and Ravenwood were savvy enough to alter the DNA coding in the half-breeds so as not to be able to fight off the infection. So where is the one place that the Vampyrus won’t go back to?” I said.
