New Moon (Alpha Wolf Academy)

by JJ King

  I opened my phone and starting flicking through the images until I got to one of me looking out over the water from our backyard. Mom had snapped it in secret while I’d been daydreaming and had it framed for the living room. Looking at it now, my heart ached for the simplicity of home and the love I’d always felt there. My fingers flew over the keyboard.

  Hey mom. Missing you guys today. Got lots to fill you in on. You’ll never guess in a million years who I met last night! Skype you later. Love you. Xoxo

  I pressed send and frowned when my phone beeped to alert me that it didn’t send. Unconcerned, I resent the text and grumbled to myself when it still refused to work. Back home the internet had a habit of being spotty but I’d become accustomed to seamless access here. I was getting spoiled, I thought with a quirk of my lips. Superior coffee and internet were making me soft.

  A wave of grumbling met my ears and I glanced up to see frowns on a multitude of faces as they stared at their screens.

  “Is your internet gone?” a guy nearby asked aloud, pulling earbuds from his ears.

  “Yeah,” someone confirmed with a sigh.

  I slipped my phone into my pocket, figuring it would take a while for the IT crowd to fix whatever had gone wrong with the servers. I’d just have to find another way to occupy my mind while I waited for Bash.

  A flash of black chrome from below caught my attention and I focused in on one of the guards approaching a group of guys who’d been tossing a football around like every guy in every university movie ever made.

  Such a cliché, I thought.

  Another guard appeared a moment later and, this time, I realized they were wearing something over their faces, like balaclavas. I leaned close enough to the glass to fog it with my breath.

  In the second it took me to wipe my hand over the fog, the quad erupted in chaos. I gasped and jerked back from the window as I watched one of the guys, a big jock with a cocky grin, fall to the ground at his friends’ feet with a bullet hole through his forehead.

  Chapter 12

  Screams echoed from the quad and through the windows of the solarium. All around me, students who’d just been lounging or chatting quietly with friends, jumped up and raced to the windows to see what was happening.

  They didn’t notice me fall back on unsteady legs with ragged breaths wheezing from my throat. They were too busy realizing that all Hell had just broken loose.

  Hands reached for cell phones to take videos or call for help. Curses peppered the air as frustration and panic swept through the room. Then came the pop of gunfire.

  A scream burst from a girl I’d seen around campus as she stood, frozen to the spot in front of the windows. Her eyes were wide with shock and her skin a sickly shade of gray as she lifted a finger to point.

  I dared a glance. More guards had swarmed the quad, now, all with weapons drawn, corralling students towards the front doors of the administration building. And there, on the grass below us, two more students lay still and lifeless, their eyes wide with horror and fear.

  My stomach threatened to rebel. I pressed a hand against my abdomen and jerked my head around, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to hide. While students clung to one another and cried, I raced into the stacks, searching for a room, a corner, anything.

  Buzzing filled my ears so loudly I couldn’t even hear my own blood racing through my veins. I gasped for air and turned in circles, unable to think straight.

  More screams filled the room, filtering up to the stacks from the main floor of the library. Shouts of “Move!” echoed through the room. Like I’d been shoved into action, I dove for cover at the end of a stack, as far away from the intruders as possible.

  My fingers curled around the edge of the immovable wooden shelf that houses hundreds of books and I stared at that connection, wishing I could curl up on the shelf and hide. My eyes shifted up, where large tiles covered the ceiling and the modernized duct work behind them. Without a single thought to failure, I found a bare spot on the lowest shelf and hoisted myself up.

  My heart pounded furiously with each step I took, but I kept climbing until I was crouched like a cat on top of the thick stacks. The shelves, placed back to back, created a solid three-foot wide surface. I stood on shaking legs and reached for the nearest tile.

  “Shut up!” The scream burst off the walls, echoing through the library. A moment later the sounds of a scuffle met my ears, followed by the sickening sound of gunfire and the thud of another body collapsing.

  I pushed against the edge of the tile and nearly wept when it lifted without complaint. Shouts and footsteps sounded through the library, coming closer to my location, pushing me to move faster. I shoved the tile with all my strength and sucked back a cry of horror when it hit something hard and a jagged crack appeared in the perfect cream surface.

  Tears stung my eyes and my hands shook, but I couldn’t stop. It was move or die; I’d never felt surer of anything in my life. A cold white calm drifted down over me, and the sounds of distress and death faded away.

  I reached into the void of the ceiling and wrapped my hands around the first thing I touched, a thick metal beam that disappeared into the darkness in both directions. Praying it was structural, I took a deep breath and sprang into the air.

  I hooked the beam with my forearm, giving myself enough leverage to pull my weight up. The metal bit into my skin but I hardly felt it.

  The space was tight, barely enough for me to squeeze my 5’10’’ frame in. I spread out, using the beam as support, and glanced down at the library below.

  A guard, his face covered with the black balaclava like the others, moved into view no more than thirty feet away from where I hung, still exposed. Slowly, I reached for the tile, praying with every fiber of my being that he would keep his gaze trained on floor level, and pulled it towards me.

  It shifted silently, inch by inch, the crack holding. I blinked back tears that dripped from my cheeks and shifted the tile the last precious inch. It clicked quietly into place.

  It seemed impossible that the guard couldn’t hear my racing heartbeat or jagged breathing but his footsteps faded and the shouts from below quietened. I stayed frozen in the ceiling, not knowing how much time had passed or if more guards with guns were waiting in the commons below. My body felt frozen in time and place, unable to move now that I’d found a safe place to hide.

  Slowly, my fingers regained feeling and my mind kicked into gear. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone. If I could just call for help, I thought, moving the phone in front of my face.

  The glow from the screen lit the dark space and dashed my meagre hope. The text I’d tried to send to mom was sitting there, unsent. I looked at the bars and let my eyelids flutter shut as a wave of nausea threatened to pull me under.

  They’d blocked cell service. We were on our own.

  Letting out a long slow breath, I tried to think. A few years ago, a hurricane had whipped through Newfoundland before dying out, and it had taken out cell service for most of the province. My Nan, though, had never given into what she called “new fad technology,” and relied on her land line and a transistor radio her father had given her when she’d been a younger woman. I’d loved playing with that thing, so she’d taught me how to finesse the controls one weekend when I’d stayed over.

  There was a transistor radio in the artefact museum. I’d noticed it the first time I’d walked the library. I’d called Nan for a chat almost immediately.

  If I could just get there, maybe I could set it up and get a message out. At the very least, I’d be able to reach a trucker.

  I shifted my weight and winced as jolts of nerves came back to life in my legs. The library was quiet, but I moved slowly and silently, unwilling to try my luck.

  The tile cracked into two pieces the moment I pushed it, sending both parts crashing to the shelf below then onto the floor. The sound carried like a shotgun throughout the room.

  Terror shot through me like electricity. If there were any guards
in the vicinity, they would have heard the crash. I shimmied forward until my feet were hanging from the ceiling and lowered myself down onto the shelf top.

  I kept my ears trained for sounds of running feet but kept moving, keeping my body as close to the stacks as possible as I raced toward the artefact museum. It was on the other side of the library, close to the art section. The only problem getting there, unless guards showed up, was that I had to cross the commons to get to it. There was no other way to get across the library.

  I stopped at the end of the shelves and looked out at the open space. My breath caught in my chest painfully as I saw the body of the librarian, the one that had so helpfully pointed me in the direction of the map room, lying lifeless on the floor near the doors. Blood had pooled around her head from the shot she’d taken between the eyes.

  The eyes, I shuddered. They were wide open and staring, like a broken doll, at nothing. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out the horror.

  Silence and stillness met me as I stepped clear of cover and rushed past her body with a prayer to the Old Ones for her soul.

  The artefact museum was deserted. I ran to the radio, circling it to see if all its parts were intact, and blessed the university for having high standards. It was a slightly older version than my Nan’s but it looked functional. I found the cord and followed it to a small hole in the podium it was set on.

  It buzzed to life the moment I switched on the dial. The first grainy sound of another person’s voice on the other end of the line made my heart leap.

  “This is Elena Jensen,” I rushed the words, stumbling over them, then started again. “Repeat. This is Elena Jensen. We need help a.s.a.p. I’m at…”

  Plastic and wires exploded in a boom of deafening sound, showering the area in tiny, useless bits of electronics. I covered my head and threw myself to the floor, cowering. My ears rang, filling my entire world with a strange combination of silence and vibration. My eyes focused slowly on a pair of black boots, then moved up a man’s body and zeroed in on the gun pointed directly at my head.

  Time slowed, and I began to notice things with startling clarity. His eyes were a mossy green with tiny flecks of gold.

  Pretty, I thought absently, then a shudder ran through me as I recognized the hard, unyielding glint of a killer in those pretty eyes.

  Chapter 13

  “Get up.” His voice had a sharp edge of impatience that made me scramble to my feet. The gun pointed at my head helped spur me on.

  I raised my hands automatically, imitating every victim I’d ever seen. I had no weapons, he had nothing to fear from me, but still I raised my hands and prayed he wouldn’t use the gun. I was too young to survive a bullet wound, even if he didn’t shoot me in the head or heart.

  Wolves healed, but there was no coming back from some things. A chill arched up my spine.

  He reached for his shoulder mounted radio and pressed the button, then leaned over to murmur, “Riker. Zone seven clear. One student caught.”

  “Description.” The single word was barked out.

  He flicked his gaze back to me and narrowed his eyes. “Female, redhead, blue eyes, tall. Pretty,” he added, slowly lowering his gaze from my face, down my body and back up again. A disgusting smirk lifted his lips.

  My stomach rebelled.

  Nerves and fear mingled in my stomach, churning painfully. I lunged forward as my body expelled my lunch on my attacker’s boots.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth and cringed back as he roared with fury. I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable, and said goodbye to my mom and dad.

  The blow never came. Instead, I heard curses and the buzz of his com. I staggered, my head spinning, my stomach roiling, still not at all sure I’d be allowed to live. But the guard was ignoring me now or, at least, he was ignoring my contribution to his boots. He was murmuring something into his radio, occasionally glancing at me with narrowed eyes that made me want to vomit again.

  “It might be her.” The man on the other end of the radio said, his voice rising loud enough that I could hear. “Check your phone.”

  The guard glared at me and pulled a cell phone out of his front vest pocket. The sound of my too-loud breathing filled the silence.

  When he looked back up from whatever he’d been sent, the guard’s smile had returned but, this time, the leer was gone. Replacing it was satisfaction, like he’d accomplished something great.

  It might be her…

  The words echoed through my mind. I might be who? Who were they looking for? I threw my hands up and backed away from the guard, who’d hauled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and was advancing toward me without a thought for his soiled boots.

  “I’m nobody!” I insisted, taking another step back. “I promise. I’m nobody.”

  But he wouldn’t listen and, when the back of my thighs hit a table top hard enough to leave a bruise, I knew I’d lost. I sucked in as much air as I could, remembering my high school gym teacher’s instructions on self-defense. You couldn’t defend yourself if you deprived your muscles and brain of oxygen.

  His hand shot out.

  I lunged forward, moving instinctively, and slammed the outside of my forearm into his throat. The impact of the hit vibrated through my body, stunning me for a second but I didn’t have time to freeze.

  Everything I’d practiced in gym class came rushing back in surprising clarity. As he grabbed his throat, gasping for air, I spun in place, putting all my weight behind the strike, and rammed my elbow into the middle of his chest.

  His eyes bugged out in pain.

  I reached for his shoulders and shifted my stance, preparing to deliver the final blow to his family jewels and remembered Joey O’Connell’s face when I’d managed to land the knee to the groin move back in grade twelve. He’d kept a grudge for weeks, just about as long as he’d walked funny.

  Pain exploded in my ribs. I crumpled, grabbing for my side, and cursing myself for not moving faster.

  “Bitch.” The guard was blue and pale and very angry. I’d taken him by surprise before and knew I’d lost that advantage. He pulled back an arm.

  An incoherent roar filled the room, echoing off the walls as someone wearing a dark hoodie and jeans rushed into the room wielding what looked like a crow bar and slammed it into the guard’s shoulder, making him crumple to the floor with a shout.

  My savior rushed past the fallen guard, still holding the piece of metal, and reached for me. “Hurry,” he urged in a familiar voice that sparked hope in my chest.

  Strong hands pulled me to my feet and started tugging me toward the door. From the floor, the guard moaned and struggled to his knees. My eyes felt glued to him, to his hand, which reached immediately for the gun that had skittered across the floor.

  I screamed as his fingers closed around the weapon.

  My savior spun around and cursed when he saw what was happening. Again, he roared, as if the sheer force of his voice could stop the guard from using his gun. He sprinted forward, throwing himself on top of the bigger man without pause.

  I backed away from the fight, eyes so wide they hurt. The hood had fallen back from my savior's face, revealing his identity. The last time I’d seen Xavier, I’d yelled at him, and now here he was, risking his life for mine. Shame mixed with the terror in my veins.

  The guard elbowed Xavier in the ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain from my teacher, but he was apparently stronger than he looked. With a move that would have had my highschool gym teacher cheering, Xavier swung his leg around the guard’s shoulder and flipped him over. In an instant, he was on him again, trying to get the gun free.

  It happened fast. The guard shoved Xavier hard, pushing him back enough to swing the gun up between them. I saw Xavier’s eyes go wide with shock as the room exploded with the sound and smell of gunfire. He jerked back and grabbed his side, then raised his blood covered hands slowly.

  The guard shifted, pulling his legs out from under Xavier and lifted the gun again, pointi
ng it at the middle of Xavier’s forehead. He grinned and began to squeeze the trigger.

  Xavier’s hand shot out, faster than anything I’d ever seen before, and knocked the gun to the side. It fired and the bullet hit the drywall behind him, then, somehow, it was in Xavier’s hand and the room exploded with the rapport.

  The guard’s eyes went wide then shifted to find me. He stared for a long moment, and I watched as his eyes filled with rage and hate, then faded to dark and unseeing. His spine seemed to disintegrate and he fell, lifeless, to the floor.

  A sob of terrified relief wrenched from my throat and I began to gasp. I fell to my knees and bent forward, my breath hitching uncontrollably, as I fought for air. Panic sounded like a thousand bees in my brain, buzzing too loudly for me to think straight. My gaze darted from the dead guard to Xavier, who was still holding his stomach, his eyes dark and unfocused.

  I smelled blood, so much blood I could taste it. The floor was slick with it as it spread from the guard’s body towards my shoes. I scrambled back, away from the thick red proof of death, until my back hit the wall next to the shattered drywall.

  Xavier’s low grunt of pain and quick exhalation caught my attention enough to draw my gaze from the slowly spreading river of crimson. My gaze flitted over his drawn face, his bared teeth, then down to his hands. More blood seeped through his fingers and dripped onto his jeans.

  “You’re bleeding,” I heard myself speak in what sounded like a normal tone and wondered if I was broken. How could I be so casual? One man was dead and another bleeding out, in front of me. I had to be broken.

  I looked down at my hands, looking for my own blood, and frowned. I wasn’t bleeding, I wasn’t torn or broken.

  Xavier swayed then sat down with a thump. Color drained from his skin and his eyes rolled back for an instant before he regained focus.

  “Holy shit, you were shot,” I said on a gasp as my body moved of its own accord, rushing to his side to keep him steady. He leaned into me and began to shake violently.