Dead Flesh

but dangerous. He could teach McCain a thing or two.

McCain eyed me with suspicion and said, “You even say ‘sir’ like a smartarse. Well, let me make myself clear. In here, you’re mine. I own you. You are no one and you have no one.” Then, stepping away from me, McCain looked at the four of us who stood before him. “The lot of you have been given over to me by your parents or you were orphaned and the state gave you to me to look after. And this is how you show your gratitude, by behaving like wild animals?”

McCain strode towards Pryor, and Pryor looked away.

“Look at me, Pryor!” McCain roared, grabbing hold of his face and snapping it towards him. “Don’t think you can throw your weight around in here. No wonder your mother and father ran out on you. God knows if I’d had a son like you I might have been tempted to disappear!”

I watchedPryor clench his fists into two meaty clubs.

“You’re nothing but an animal so you’ll be treated as such,” McCain roared. “Brother Michael, take this vermin to the rat-house.”

Hearing this, Pryor loosened his fists and said, “Not the rat-house. I spent most of last week in there!”

“You shouldn’t worry, Pryor, you’ll be in good company — the Addison twins are serving a fortnight in there. Now get going!”

Brother Michael stepped forward, and taking hold of Pryor by the arm, he marched him across the yard.

“What’s the rat-house?” I whispered at Sam.

“Some rat-infested shack,” he whispered back.

“Please, Mr. McCain!” Pryor pleaded over his shoulder. “Anything but the rat-house! ”

Then, there was the zapping sound and Pryor crumpled to his knees. Taking hold of him by the tails of his blazer, Brother Michael dragged Pryor off the yard and out of sight. McCain approached Dorsey and looked down at him.

“You need to toughen up, boy, or no wolf will ever want to be matched with you,” McCain told him, like Dorsey would be missing out on some sought after honour. “What’s your problem? That house fire melt your backbone along with your face?”

Dorsey stood staring down at the ground and said nothing.

“Answer me,” McCain said, rummaging in his trouser pocket.

“Can’t you leave the kid alone?” Sam suddenly said from further down the line. “Can’t you see he’s got… issues?”

“You’ll have issues in a minute, Brook, if you don’t keep your trap shut!” McCain barked, and he nodded at the Grey who stood behind him.

“Aaaarrrgghh!”Sam shrieked as he was zapped again from behind.

“Brother Vincent, take this jellyfish Dorsey to the pool and don’t let him leave until he has swam a hundred laps. It might help him develop a spine,” McCain said. Then taking a bottle of sinus spray from his pocket, he rammed it up his own right nostril and breathed in.

“But I can’t swim,” Dorsey whispered.

“Then it’s about time you learnt,” McCain sniffed, screwing the cap back onto the bottle and putting it away.

Brother Vincent took Dorsey by the scruff of the neck and marched him back into the school. McCain waltzed in front of me and said, “It would appear that your parents were in need of some swimming practice, Hunt.”

I met McCain’s cruel stare and said, “My parents were excellent swimmers.”

“That’s not what your uncle told me when we spoke on the telephone. Didn’t your mother and father drown?”

You know they drowned and I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of thinking that you’re hurting me, I smiled to myself.

“So it would seem, sir,” I said, emphasising the word ‘sir’, knowing that it pissed McCain off.

McCain wiped the tip of his bulbous nose with his forefinger and stared hard into my eyes.

“Give me your stick,” he said, holding out his hand towards the Grey who stood behind me. The Grey passed him the stick and straightened the folds of his robes.

“Put out your hands, Hunt,” McCain said, his voice just above a whisper and his eyes never leaving mine.

I did as he asked and held out my hands, palms facing upwards. Bracing myself for the pain, I tightened the muscles throughout my entire body. McCain raised the stick and I could hear it humming, like the sound of a cat purring in the sunshine. Except there wasn’t any sunshine. The sky was the colour of gunmetal and full of clouds.

McCain fired up the stick, and hues of blue and pink flashed in his eyes. I clenched my jaw and gritted my teeth.

Here comes the pain! I thought.

But yet it didn’t. McCain thrust the sparking end of the stick into the palm of my hand and I felt nothing. The stick hissed and spat and the smell of burning skin wafted up into the air. I was startled by the sweetness of its scent — like roasted pork glazed with applesauce.

McCain’s eyes widened, not because of the smell of my roasting flesh, but the fact that I seemed to feel no pain. Yanking the stick away, McCain pressed down as hard as he could onto the fleshy ball of skin beneath the thumb on my other hand. Again the stick hissed and spat, sending tendrils of smoke up into the air. But again, I felt nothing. I didn’t even flinch. I just stared hard into McCain’s eyes.

What’s happening here? This should be frying me! I thought. But then again, I was dead — did I not feel pain now?

More out of frustration than spite, McCain bore the end of the electric stick down into the palm of my hand again. I looked up at McCain and couldn’t help but notice that his nose had started to bleed.

Staring at him, I said, “Your nose is bleeding, sir.”

McCain removed the stick from my hand and he wiped the end of his nose against his suit sleeve. Looking down, I could see blood smeared up his wrist. McCain touched the tip of his nose with his fingers and looked at the globules of red that now covered them. He glanced at me and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, spreading the blood across his upper lip like a crooked crimson moustache. I looked down at my hands, they were blistered and raw. The skin around my fingers had turned black and crisp in places, and streams of white liquid-fat oozed from the fleshiest parts of my hands.

McCain looked at them too, and realising that I wasn’t in any pain, he turned to the Greys standing behind Sam and me and said, “Get them out of my sight. Send them back to their rooms.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kiera

I was woken by the sound of the telephone ringing. Potter groaned beside me and rolled over. Without surfacing from beneath the bed covers, I fumbled blindly about the bedside table as my hand tried to locate the phone. I plucked the receiver from its cradle and dragged it under the covers with me.

“Hello,” I groaned, still partially asleep.

“Hudson! Hudson, is that you?” an irritable and obnoxious voice asked.

“Speaking,” I mumbled, rubbing sleep from my eyes with my free hand. I felt Potter’s hand brush against my thigh and flicked it away.

“It’s Inspector Cliff Banner,” he barked down the phone at me. He didn’t sound happy.

As soon as I realised who it was on the other end of the phone, I yanked the blankets from over my head and