another of the half and half’s spoke up.
“Do you not care that human children are taken from their parents, driven out in the night and held captive in prisons masquerading as schools? Does it not frighten you that these children are chosen to be matched with wolves, and those that aren’t are sent back to their homes, towns and villages, turned dumb so that they cannot speak of the horrors they have seen? If we stand back and do nothing – regardless of the fact we are not humans – then we may as well join the wolves. Because to sit back and do nothing, is as bad as taking part. But each and every one of us gathered here now are only able to do so because of the blood that has been shed by the humans. If it wasn’t for the blood spilt into these Dead Waters – then we would be dead also. We are not human; you are right about that, but the best part of me – the part I cherish the most – is my humanity. The ability to love and be loved – to offer kindness and understanding – those are the things I want to define me. All those qualities make us different from those wolves. And I believe we are different because we have been bathed in the Dead Waters. We have the humans to thank for being different to the other wolves. I am proud to be different from the rest. We owe the humans that at least. I, for one, cannot sit on my hands and do nothing – I have to intervene. I have to push back.”
“I can’t sit back and do nothing either,”
Meren said, getting up and coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with me.
I looked at the group, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Murphy watching me.
“I want to push back, too,” Peter said, standing up.
“Me too,” Alice said, joining him.
One by one, the others got to their feet.
And it was as I looked at them all staring back at me, I realised they were looking at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to say something more.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving,” I smiled back at them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Potter
I opened my eyes and went to put a hand to my head, but I couldn’t. My hands were secured behind me. I twisted my wrists and heard the sound of metal chains clinking. I was lying down on my side. The ground was hard, made of stone and covered with straw. It was something you would find a wild animal caged in. The cell stank of piss and shit. I tried to lift my head off the ground to get my bearings. The back of my head throbbed from where I’d been struck. The cell was dimly lit and something about it seemed familiar, but I just couldn’t be sure where I’d seen it before. Slowly, gritting my teeth against the pain, I lifted my head. There was a cell door. The hatch was open and a stream of white light poured in from whatever lay on the other side.
I slowly turned around on the floor.
There was a small bed, the type you get in a police station cell. It was a hard plinth of concrete.
Placed on top was a plastic-looking mattress. It looked more comfortable than the floor. Despite having my hands cuffed behind my back, I would have struggled up onto the bed if it hadn’t already been occupied. I could see the shape of someone lying on it.
“Hello?” I croaked. My throat felt dry and sore. “Hello?” I managed again, wondering if I was sharing the filthy cell with another prisoner.
The shape rolled over, then swung its feet over the side of the bed.
“Hello again,” a voice said. It was soft and female.
Straining, I lifted my head an inch off the ground to try and see who the voice belonged to.
My new heart leapt at the sight of Kayla looking down at me from the bed.
“Kayla?” I gasped. “They got you, too?”
“No, I’m one of them,” she said.
“Look, this isn’t the time to start throwing one of your fucking hissy fits,” I groaned. “Just get down here and untie me.”
“You don’t understand,” Kayla said, standing up. “I really am one of them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I muttered, twisting my wrists in their chains.
“Where’s Sam? Maybe I’ll get some sense out of him? Doubtful – but you never know.”
“Sam?” Kayla said, screwing up her nose.
“Who’s Sam?”
I looked at her standing above me, bright flaming red hair and brilliant yellow eyes. “You really aren’t Kayla, are you?”
“No,” she smiled. Then, shaking herself free of Kayla’s skin, she revealed the wolf hiding beneath.
“A fucking wolf,” I groaned. “I might have guessed. When am I ever gonna learn my lesson not to trust a bit of skirt?”
“Potter,” the wolf said, licking its snout with a huge pink tongue. “Oh, Potter.”
“Who are you?” I sneered.
The wolf padded towards me on its giant paws. It was covered in a coat of gleaming white fur. A bushy tail wagged excitedly out behind it. I remembered how Murphy had described Pen.
Was this her?
“Pen?” I whispered.
The wolf cocked its head to one side.
“Lola,” the wolf eventually woofed.
Lola? My mind scrambled through the pain. Lola? Hadn’t Sam mentioned a wolf named Lola? Hadn’t this wolf wanted to match with Kayla?
With my heart starting to race, I stared into the wolf’s piercing yellow eyes and said, “What have you done with Kayla? Where is she?”
“We thought you might be able to tell us that,” the wolf barked.
“Who’s we?” I shot back.
Before Lola had a chance to answer, the cell door was swung slowly open. A stream of fluorescent light spilled into the cell, momentarily blinding me. With my eyes screwed half shut, I peered up at the figure looming in the doorway.
“Who’s there?” I snapped.
My question was answered with a soft, wicked chuckle. The figure stepped out of the blinding light and into the cell.
“Hello, Potter,” Jack Seth smiled, his bright orange eyes spinning wildly in his emaciated face.
“How is my little sister, Kiera?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kiera
Potter had been gone some time – too long to search for some food. Leaving Murphy with the others, I set off up the shore to look for him. I followed his footprints, until they led away from the sand and into the forest. With the trees seeming to close in all around me, I headed into the gloom. With my eyes seeing through the darkness, I was easily able to follow the marks he had left behind. The broken twigs and disturbed undergrowth were all obvious pointers to the direction in which he had travelled. I made my way amongst the overbearing tree trunks until I came upon an area where the ground had been almost trodden flat. Hunkering down, I inspected the ground. The area hadn’t been trodden down, like I had first thought. Somebody had fallen to the ground here. Potter? I wondered.
Brushing my fingers delicately over the ground, I came across two other sets of footprints.
One set was definitely that of a female, and the other, a tall male. Crouching, I edged my way around the track marks, looking for the direction in which they had headed. There was no sign of Potter’s footprints, so I could only assume he had been carried away over the shoulder of the male.
The male’s footprints were deeper on his route away from the scene than they were on his approach, telling me he had carried something heavy away with him. Fearing that something terrible had happened to Potter, I jumped to my feet and started off after the footprints. They led away from the direction of the lake and out of the forest. Why would anyone come to take Potter?
My mind scrambled. Had whoever taken him come across him by chance? Had he been taken by wolves? Skinwalkers? We had been told by Sam that the wolves no longer lived near the forest, they had all vacated the caves behind the Fountain of Souls and were now in Wasp Water with the Wolf Man. Had Sam got it wrong or had he lied?
There was nothing here for the wolves anymore. There was only the lake...
“The lake,” I breathed out loud, stopping in my tracks.
The wolves might not live here anymore, but what if they knew the power of the Dead Waters? Hadn’t Sam told Murphy that the wolves wouldn’t want us coming to the lake because of the waters’ healing properties? So why then leave them unguarded....?
“It’s a trap!” I gasped. “We’ve been led into a trap.”
If they had taken Potter already, what about Murphy and...
“...the half and half’s...” I breathed, then suddenly I dropped to my knees. Blood trickled from my left eye. This was something which hadn’t happened for a while. Had my body been too much like stone before – unable to shed any blood, needing every last drop? Whatever the reason, it now dribbled from my eye and onto my cheek. Then, just like a flashbulb going off in my head I saw Jack Seth again. Those flashbulbs had been away for too long. Had bathing in the Dead Waters restored that inner ability to be able to see?
Jack was standing on that stage again. A sea of body parts whizzed over my head and clattered into him. The crowd roared and it was deafening. I clapped my hands to each side of my head and covered my ears.
Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! The Skinwalkers roared at him.
But who had Jack betrayed? The wolves?
But he was one of them.
Who did you betray, Jack? I screamed at him over the roar of the crowd. Who did you betray?
You, little sister! he smiled back at me. I betrayed you and your friends. I betrayed all of you!
“No!” I cried out, those flashbulbs fading in my mind. Wiping away the blood from my face with my fingertips, I clambered to my feet again.
Spinning round, I raced back the way I had come, back towards the lake and the others. With my hair streaming out behind me, I clenched my teeth and.... blinked...as Gayle had called it. The world became a blur around me as I raced through the trees. Each trunk passed me like a fleeting shadow. I broke through the treeline and onto the shore. Snapping my head left, I could see my friends gathered around the fire someway off along the shore. Then, snapping my head to the right, I saw a throng of wolves silently making their way towards them. They approached with their heads down and bellies almost dragging along in the sand. Their tails protruded like arrows from behind them. Their bodies looked sleek, huge, and powerful beneath the dying moon.