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SIXTY-ONE | COCOON
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2020-09-30 05:28:36“What was that all about?” Kathrena hissed, once we were seated in my truck.
Kathrena looked stunning, in a simple calf-length green dress that shimmered softly in the dim cabin light. Her black bob was neat, her dark skin was dewy, and she’d slicked eyeliner on in wings that gave her a mysterious cat-eye.
I shrugged, my jacket sliding down my shoulder. “He wanted to make amends,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I think I’ve upset him. We used to spend so much time together, but now, with you, and with Skye, and with school, and all of this research – well, let’s just say that Falmer hasn’t been at the top of my list of priorities.”
“That’s understandable,” Kathrena sighed. “I feel like everything has changed this year.” She shifted uncomfortably as we pulled out of the driveway. “I never liked being this way before,
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“You – you what?” I stammered, keeping my voice as quiet as I could over the pounding, rhythmic music. “I don’t understand.”“Don’t lie to me, Ellis,” she hissed, her tearful eyes narrowing. “Grandma Rosie told me. She felt your hand, Ellis, and she told me what you are.”“Wait a minute,” I said, utterly confused, now. “What did your Grandma Rosie say, exactly?”Rowan rolled her eyes at me, though the smudge of mascara beneath her right eye considerably lessened the effect. “That you’re the one who attacked Toby.”“Woah,” I hissed, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her further into the woods. “Rowan, I promise you, I didn’t. I’m your friend, Rowan, and every part of that friendship is real for me. I would never hurt Toby, or you.”&ldqu
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My eyes widened, and I span around, gesturing wildly but silently at Skye. He frowned at me, confused, and then I heard a thud.It sounded heavy, meaty, and then: “Alfie?”I launched myself towards Danny, sprinting through the dark, damp foliage as fast as I could. There was something else in the wood, something faster, black on black, a shadow of a shadow, and then there was another, terrible thud.“Danny?” I whispered, trembling. I put my arm out to steady myself – the darkness was too thick, I couldn’t see – and then I screamed.I was leaning on a white birch tree, and, just below my hand, was a tar-like smear that looked like a handprint.Then my eyes adjusted, and, face down in the dirt, were two bodies. Danny, and, I assumed Alfie. My hands flew to my eyes, desperate to shut out the image. I couldn’t deal with another –
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Though Aradia was, for all intents and purposes, to the outside world, my mother, I was in the fortunate position of being able to put my own phone number down when the police officer cornered Skye, Rowan, and I as we were leaving the senior party.“You three were the ones that saw it, yes? The ones that called it in?” She’d asked impatiently, one hand on her hip.We’d nodded slowly. I’d struggled to comprehend why they’d ask that. The monster had got away, Danny and Alfie were in an ambulance, and we’d failed. I’d failed.Rowan, seemingly exhausted from finding Kathrena, had shrunk against my side.“I called it in,” Skye said, and I’d never felt acute relief at hearing someone else take charge of a situation before. Sweet, shy Skye had spoken, and, though his voice had wobbled with emotion, he’d stood up straight and looked the
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The police station was on the outskirts of town, and was set against the forest in a miserable grey block building, with a faded sign over the electric front doors. It looked like an afterthought in an otherwise beautifully constructed town, and even less fitting than the suburban houses that ringed around the old English centre.It looked like the sort of place that people went into, and never came back out of.I rolled my truck into an empty space – of which there were a surprising number, though it was a Sunday, after all, and Hawthorn, despite the recent attacks, still wasn’t exactly a bustling city with a new crime to report every hour. The drizzle didn’t help the muted grey exterior, and I slunk inside, my hood pulled up over my head to keep the rain off my face and hair. I wondered where Skye’s little car was – I couldn’t see it anywhere, even though his slot had been right before mine.
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“Uh,” I said, wanting to buy myself more time, but wanting to get it over with, too. Torn between my options, I realised that they were both, at their core, the same. I had to tell him, whether it was right now, right this second, or in another ten, another twenty. “No. Vampires don’t age,” I said, taking my foot off the accelerator as I looked at Skye, my eyes narrowed, not harshly, but curiously.He nodded to himself, his expression steely. His hand stayed steady on my thigh, though, and I slotted that reaction into a neat pile, marked ask Skye about later.“Okay,” said Rowan. She’d caught the slight tension between us, her lip caught between her teeth, a tiny smudge of red lipstick on her rabbit-like front tooth. “But you said you drink animal blood?”“Yeah. And if a human willingly offers their blood, then I would drink that, too. But I would
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There was a beat of horrible, brittle silence. We were frozen in place: Rowan with narrowed, accusing eyes; Skye with a wild, desperate gaze, his lips parted; and me, torn between the two of them, scared to even breath.Then Skye reached up an awkward hand to scratch at the back of his neck, and I inhaled a tiny, shallow breath. The tension broke, and Skye let out a nervous bark of laughter.“I mean, we need your help, Rowan. And that of your Grandmother, too. You’ll find out soon enough, and we need you to trust us.” He sounded as though he was listing off reasons to tell her – and, I had to admit, all of them were good, sound reasons for him to share his secret – but it also sounded as though he was stalling.Beneath the table, I squeezed his knee gently. He sighed.“I’m a werewolf.”Rowan shook her head in disbelief, looking betw
Last Updated : 2020-09-30
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She Runs with Wolves 108 | BOUND
The week following the defeat of the demon had been surprisingly normal. Well – as normal as a week could be for two vampires, a witch, and a werewolf.I leant back against Skye, pressing my body against his. His arms slipped around my waist, and I snuggled closer. I could see the darkness swelling outside, scattering the stars and drawing away the purple haze of dusk.Skye had all but moved in to the Clan house, and, whilst most of his belongings were stashed in the spare bedroom upstairs, he slept and spent all of his time in my room.I’d dragged another chair up the staircase and lugged it into my room, so that we could share my desk – though very little homework ever got done, what with our constant teasing and moments where, despite the desk and my laptop, despite the mounds of assignments and text books, nothing but Skye and I existed. Those moments ended in kisses, always, and though I was
She Runs with Wolves 107 | AFTER
The large, red-brown wolf in front of me panted, its claws digging into empty earth. I stepped closer, one quivering hand outstretched. The rain splattered onto its fur, slicking it down as it turned its huge, golden eyes to look at me.There was a nudging glee between our bond, as though we were both too scared to accept that we’d done it. We hadn’t failed. We’d won.I held the wolf’s gaze. He gave me a nod, and his jaw hung open in a lopsided grin.It was raining. I’d made it rain.I couldn’t make sense of everything that was happening. My grip on the knife loosened, and it clattered to the floor. Then Skye was shifting in front of me, and, rain soaked and bloody, we fell into each other’s arms. All around us people were waking up, witches and vampires alike, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. They were going to
She Runs with Wolves 106 | ICARUS
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She Runs with Wolves 105 | SIX MINUTES
“You know?” I whispered. My mouth went dry, and I swallowed thickly, trying to wet my lips. Ice flooded my veins. We had lost. We had failed.He stepped out of the shadows, snakes of black mist pooling around his body as he moved. His smirk deepened, and I saw a flash of white teeth as he struggled to hold in his laughter.He looked, for the most part, human. His skin shone with a pearlescent lustre, but two dark horns protruded from his forehead and his eyes glowed red. He was tall – taller than any person I’d ever seen, be they vampire, human, witch, or wolf – and, as the fog parted, billowing away from his legs, I understood why.He had the upper body of a human, and the legs of a large goat. But, as I watched, they shifted and shimmered in the darkness, stars and sparkles of an indeterminable colour – too matte to shine like that, too black to be so bright; it was impossib
She Runs with Wolves 104 | OBLIVION
“I guess this is where I have to leave you,” I said, though I didn’t slide my hand out of Skye’s, or make any indication that I was planning on walking away from him. I was reluctant to leave him alone, even though I knew that his job was more likely to be safe than mine. That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared for him.“I guess so,” he echoed, though his clutch on my hand grew firmer.We’d agreed before that Skye should stay to protect the humans in the maze. With every second that we put off the inevitable, we were putting lives at risk. Our jaunt through the maze had been undertaken with the knowledge that we would likely be to first to arrive at the scene of any attacks – but there had been none, and, so far, it seemed as though the demon was planning on giving the maze a miss.The thought gripped me with fear, icy and unyielding, a frozen cage that constricted my
She Runs with Wolves 103 | HALLOWEEN
We had an hour to kill before the Clan were due to start their fight. I didn’t want to think that it might be my last, but try as I might, my barricades were struggling to stay in place. The two thuds played on a loop in my head, and I had to concentrate very hard to keep the images of David and Toby out of my mind.No. I couldn’t think like that. Tonight we would avenge David, and we would keep the rest of the town safe. We’d been lucky so far in that there had been only one casualty – there was something odd about that, I was sure, though I was grateful that was the case – but I didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.I took a deep breath. “Do you want to go through the maze?” I asked, turning to face Skye.He slipped his hand out of mine and rubbed it on the thigh of his jeans. “Sure.” He pulled a smile onto his lips, but it seemed that I wasn’t alone w
She Runs with Wolves 102 | TALISMAN
“Okay,” Molly said, clapping her hands together. “I think that’s everything.”“Finally,” Rowan muttered under her breath, and I had to stifle my laughter.It was the night of Halloween, and we were all milling around at the entrance to the maze. The committee had grown considerably since our meetings – we’d needed more volunteers to fill the maze, and there were parents, teenagers, friends and family stood beside us, all in costume. Molly had given out costuming guidelines before the event, much to the dismay of most of those participating, but even I had to admit that she’d done a good job with organising the maze and the activities within it.And, to my absolute delight, she’d made Skye come as a werewolf.“You’re just tall, and muscular, and you have all that hair,” she’d shrugged. “It makes perfect sen
She Runs with Wolves 101 | VISIONS
Skye let out a tiny, defeated sigh, but then he pushed through his disappointment and stepped closer, peering into the window beside me. “Are you sure they haven’t just changed the display around?”“The display is the same.” I groaned, banging my head against his arm. We were being careful not to say what we were looking for out loud – there could be ears anywhere – but I’d been so pent up all day, so focused, and it felt as though our plan had fallen flat before we’d even had a chance to start.“Hey, don’t do that,” Skye murmured, prying my chin off his shoulder. “You almost went through a window yesterday.”I shrugged. “It’s pretty much healed now. But – thank you for being concerned. It’s sweet. I like that you forget what I am, sometimes.” I gave him a tiny smile, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, rig
She Runs with Wolves ONE HUNDRED | OCTOBER
I’d thought that my classes had dragged today, but they had been nothing compared to the committee meeting that followed.Beneath the table, I linked my fingers with Skye’s. We were in the same dimly lit classroom as yesterday, and, though it was still light outside, the room was cast in shades of grey. Outside, most of the leaves had fallen from the trees, leaving behind gnarled and bony fingers stretching up into the white sky.“So,” Molly said, tapping her stubby index finger against the whiteboard, “we’ll put the tomb right in the centre of the maze, and then I’m guessing you two want to be the ones to jump out of the coffin?” She directed her gaze at Carys and June, who both nodded eagerly, before turning to grin at one another.“Awesome,” Carys said.“Where’s the centre going to be?” I asked, frowning. It looked close
