Dead Flesh

on the edge of the schoolyard.

Pryor must have been at least fourteen-stone and over six-foot in height. Although I was way smaller than him, I knew I could kick his arrogant fucking arse all over the schoolyard- but that would’ve just brought me unwanted attention to myself and my abilities. But I couldn’t bear to watch Dorsey taking a beating.

Maybe I could go and get one of the teachers. Wouldn’t they put a stop to Pryor? I wondered. But I knew that they probably wouldn’t be interested. I glanced at Sam, who stood beside me, his face grim and pale. The spark in his eyes had faded and he looked as sick as I now felt.

“We can’t just stand and watch!” I said.

Sam didn’t say anything. He stood and continued to watch the fight and the large group of boys and girls who had gathered like vultures around Pryor and Dorsey.

Whap! Whap! Whap!

Pryor looked down into Dorsey’s tear-stained face. “What’s the matter with you?” Pryor roared. “Why do you have to

look like that?” And he punched Dorsey in the face again.

Whap!

The sound of that last punch made my stomach cartwheel. Without considering what I was about to do or the shit I could be getting myself into, I raced towards Pryor. Pryor’s back was facing me, and it looked as broad and as sturdy as a dining room table propped on its side. With my fists clenched so my claws wouldn’t spring out, I focused in on my target.

Some of the other kids who were gathered around the fight saw me coming and parted like waves so I could get at Pryor. Raising my fist above my head like a hammer, I swung it down in a swooping arc. But before it connected with the space between Pryor’s shoulder blades, a hand gripped my wrist and yanked my arm backwards.

I spun around to find myself looking into Sam’s face.

“No, Kayla. Pryor won’t give a crap that you’re a girl. He’ll smash your face in, too.”

“But I can’t just stand by and do nothing,” I told him.

“You might have to,” Sam warned.

Then, the air was ripped apart with the ear-splitting sound of the sirens from the search towers. It sounded like an air raid was underway. The kids swarming around Pryor and Dorsey split to the four corners of the yard.

Sam yanked on the sleeve of my blazer and said, “C’mon. They’re coming!”

I followed Sam as he darted away across the yard. Before we reached the other side, I glanced back. Several of the Greys were racing towards Pryor and Dorsey. Their robes fluttered like wings as they swooped down on the two boys who still rolled around on the ground. I turned front and followed Sam around the corner of the school wall and the Whap! Whap! Whap!sound was replaced by Zap! Zap! Zap!

Chapter Twenty-One

Kayla

Sam and I ran round the side of the school building with the Zap! Zap! Zap!sounds fizzing behind from the schoolyard. Without even noticing it, a Grey pounced from a doorway like a shadow detaching itself from the wall. From beneath its flowing robes, the Grey produced one of those sticks and fired it up. Coils of blue-mauve electricity snapped from the end of it and lit up the mouth of the Grey which protruded from beneath its hoodie like a jagged cliff edge.

“STOP!” the Grey roared, pointing the stick at me and Sam.

Sending up plumes of dust from beneath our shoes, we both skidded to a halt, stopping inches from the sizzling electric sparks.

“Follow me,” the Grey ordered us.

“We haven’t done anything wrong!” Sam insisted.

“Stop your noise, Brook, or I’ll fry you,” the Grey grinned from beneath his hood.

“But…” Sam started.

Zzzzzzz…the Grey waved the stick under Sam’s nose and he staggered backwards like a tightrope walker.

“Get going!” the Grey cried, pointing in the direction that we had come.

We made our way back onto the yard, the Grey inches behind us.

What have I done? I wondered. Perhaps Sam had been right, I shouldn’t have tried to get involved.

Pryor was bent double on his knees and he looked sick. Dorsey was knelt beside him, and he was wringing his hands together in his lap. Behind them stood two of the Greys. One of them was huge and towered over the other, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew it was Brother Michael.

Sam and I joined Pryor and Dorsey as a giant of a man strode onto the yard. Without him even having to introduce himself, I knew that this was McCain, the self-appointed Headmaster. His hair was black and slicked back over his brow. He was incredibly thin, borderline anorexic-looking. His cheeks were so sunken that it looked as if he was permanently sucking in mouthfuls of air. His nose was so bulbous and red; it was like something a circus clown would have been proud of. But it was his eyes. I had seen eyes like that before — Jack Seth had had a set. They glowed a brilliant yellow from within two sunken eye sockets. McCain was a wolf — a Skin-walker.

“Get up!” he barked at Pryor and Dorsey.

Pryor was the first to stand, although his legs looked as if they might buckle under him at any moment sending him crashing back onto the ground. His eyes brimmed with pain, but even so, he eyed McCain with defiance.

Dorsey was slower to get up, so I stepped forward and looped my arm through his and dragged him to his feet.

“Get off me,” Dorsey groaned. “I don’t need your help.”

I let go of him, startled at his ungratefulness. Dorsey swayed from side to side like a drunk.

McCain walked amongst them like a caged tiger. “Well, well, well!” he said. “Time after time it’s the same old faces lined up before me.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I’ve never — ” Sam began, but was cut short as the Grey behind him dry-stunned him in the back with his electric stick.

“Aaaarrrgghh!” Sam cried out, locking up on the spot and going rigid. I glanced at Sam, his thick, black curly hair had straightened like he had just stuck his fingers into a wall socket. The effects were momentary, and Sam unlocked and loosened up.

“Wow, that hurt!” he groaned under his breath at me.

“Just keep your gob shut,” I whispered back, just wanting to get out of this situation without drawing any attention to myself. Jeez, I’d been at the school less than twenty-four hours and I was already in the shit with the Headmaster.

McCain stepped forward and said, “Even when you’re lined up before me, you don’t know when to keep quiet do you, Hunt?”

I looked at him, surprised that he knew my name already. McCain’s nostrils flared in and out, they looked red and sore.

“Well?” McCain said.

“Well what, sir?” I asked. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

McCain’s lips contorted into a bloodless grin. “I can tell that you think you’re a real smartarse, don’t you, Hunt? You’ve only been here five minutes and I can tell we’re going to have trouble from you.”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” I said again. I wasn’t really scared by him. I had dealt with werewolves before. I had met Jack Seth and he had been a complete and utter freak, a screw-up,