by Cheree Alsop
Beneath the water, the beast was struggling. It kicked with its massive limbs, but was fighting to get high enough to reach the surface. Alex took a deep breath and dove. His arms encircled the creature’s head. His muscles tightened as the cur struggled. Alex gave a hard jerk. The creature twitched, then went still.
Alex reached the surface again just as two of the curs surfaced as well. He swam to the first one. There was panic in the beast’s eyes. Alex ducked under the water, missing a swipe of its claws when it attempted to climb on him to stay up. Alex came up behind the creature and latched onto its neck. The cur clawed at his arms, but he didn’t let go. As its struggles slowed, it sank beneath the water. Alex held on until he was sure it was dead.
The other cur had just reached shore when Alex broke through the water again. It lay gasping in the grass. Alex wondered if Drogan had thought about his beasts swimming. There was no sign of the other two that had followed him to the cliff. He forced himself toward the shore.
The cur there was trying to rise. Its massive limbs shook as it struggled to hold its weight. The cur smelled like blood. Alex wondered how many students it had hurt. He spotted a broken branch near the creature’s head. He grabbed it in his clawed hand and shoved down, using his morphed strength to stab the branch through the cur’s eye. It shuddered, then held still.
Alex could only stare at the creatures around him. The attack hadn’t given him time to think about what was happening. He had just killed five of Drogan’s curs and maimed another. He knew two others lay at the bottom of the lake, victims to their massive bodies. A pit formed in his stomach at the thought of how many others there could be. He started toward the school.
“Alex!”
He knew the voice by heart. It reached his sensitive ears with a fear and pain that tore through him sharper than any cur’s claws. Alex took off running. He pushed his morphed body, running far faster than any werewolf could. He crashed through the trees and reached the gate within seconds. He yanked it open so hard he ripped it off the iron hinges. Throwing the gate aside, Alex ran around the Academy to the courtyard.
He reached the corner and froze.
Siale was lying on the top step. Blood colored the cement around her and injured students cowered away from the scene.
Above Siale stood the massive cur, Lucian. He met Alex’s gaze and the corner of his lip lifted in a toothy smile that pulled at the scar running through his eye. Alex’s heart skipped a beat. The cur bent his head toward Siale, intent on finishing the job he had started.
Alex ran across the courtyard. The cur’s fangs opened, dripping blood-tinged drool. There was no way he would reach Siale in time. He passed Jet’s statue. The cur’s jagged teeth were about to close on Siale’s neck. Alex ran faster, but was too far away. The cur would kill her.
Siale’s hand lifted at the last second and she drove a knife into its throat.
Lucian jerked back with a roar of pain. Blood streamed from the wound. Alex hit the first step and leaped. He dove into the cur, barreling him away from Siale. They slammed into the side of the Academy. The stone cracked under the impact of the cur’s body. Lucian snarled and shoved Alex away. He ducked under the huge cur’s sweeping claws and drove his own into Lucian’s side.
The cur gave another roar and jerked back, tearing Alex’s claws out of its flesh. Alex pummeled him again and again, fueled with rage. His hands slicked with blood as he forced the cur away from Siale. They reached the stairs and Lucian stumbled down. The beast hit the bottom and rose to his feet. He scrambled away with a bellow of wrath that rebounded off the Academy walls. Two other curs appeared from the side of the school and joined Lucian. They raced to the wall and their claws gouged the stone when they climbed over.
Alex wanted to pursue them. Instinct demanded for him to slay the curs who had attacked his home. He needed to see Lucian dead for attacking Siale.
Siale.
Alex turned. All thoughts of revenge or fighting fled at the sight of his love lying on the cement.
Blood poured from gouges across her stomach. Her head lolled back and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Alex fell to his knees next to her. His morphed form faded as he stared at her torn and broken on the steps of the Academy.
“Siale?” he asked, his voice shaking.
Memories flashed to Kalia, of holding her in the snow. He felt the sticky cold of the flakes that landed on his blood-soaked hands. He watched the way the blood puddled beneath her, melting the snow until she had nothing left to bleed. Kalia had called his name, begging him to help her. He had failed, and watched her be lowered into the ground.
Tears clouded his vision. He couldn’t do it, not again. He couldn’t sit there as the life blood of another person he loved seeped away. Siale was his one. She completed him in every way, and he hadn’t gotten to her in time. She had called for him with fear in her voice like Kalia’s. He was undone, empty. He had failed her completely.
A sound caught his ear. He looked down. Siale gave a shallow breath, but didn’t open her eyes. Hope fluttered faintly in his chest like a butterfly with broken wings. She was broken, but she had been so before. Her blood was his blood. Alex slid his hands beneath her and stood. The doors to the Academy had been smashed by the curs. He walked through the mess of broken glass and twisted metal.
The Academy was filled with scared students. Even though the curs were gone, the sour, animal scent of them lingered in the air along with blood and fear. Carnage coated the floors along with deep gouges from the creatures’ claws. Students huddled together, some working to patch up their friends. Alex glimpsed a body lying still on the floor. He turned away, intent on the medical wing.
“Alex!” Cassie exclaimed. “Oh thank goodness!” She ran down the stairs two at a time. “They said you led the curs away through the forest...” Her voice died at the sight of Siale’s body in his arms. “Oh no.”
“She needs help,” Alex said, stumbling toward the medical wing. Cassie grabbed his elbow, guiding him there. She carried most of Siale’s weight, helping Alex make it through.
Chapter Nine
“Mom!” Alex called as soon as he reached the doors. He shoved them open with his shoulder, aware of how difficult it was. He knew he was losing blood, but he didn’t care. Siale was still alive. He had to save her.
“Alex?” Meredith’s voice came from further down the hall.
“Mom, Siale needs help. She’s bleeding...” Cassie looked down at her arms covered in blood. “A lot.”
Meredith and Lyra appeared. Alex’s mother’s face washed white when she saw Siale’s condition. “This way,” she directed them.
Both members of the medical team at the Academy looked as though they had been hard pressed already to care for the students who had been injured. Alex glanced in a room they passed and saw someone working on a student.
“Brock and Mouse are helping, along with Jaze and Nikki. More students keep flooding in. We’re trying to keep up,” Meredith said, leading them to the next empty room.
At Meredith’s motion, Alex set Siale gently on the bed. Siale gasped despite how careful he tried to be and curled around her injured stomach. The sheets immediately soaked red with blood.
“You have to help her,” Alex said with panic in his voice. “She’s lost so much blood. You have to save her!”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Meredith replied. She gave Cassie a look.
Alex’s sister set a hand on his arm. “Come on, Alex. We need to wait outside.”
“No,” Alex protested. “I have to be here for her.”
When he refused to leave, Cassie brought him a chair. He sat in the corner and watched Lyra and Meredith work on Siale. They cut away what remained of her shirt, exposing her shredded stomach.
“Get Mouse and Jaze,” Meredith commanded quickly.
Lyra left the room at a run.
Alex buried his face in his hands. Cassie rubbed his back. Tennison appeared at the door; he and Cassie spoke quietl
y for a moment, but Alex didn’t hear what they said. A deep sound filled his ears like the rushing of the ocean. It ebbed and flowed, covering everything that was happening around him, the beeping of machines that had been hooked up to Siale, the scuff of sneakers on the tile floor, and the whirlwind of activity as they tried to save the life of the girl he loved.
After what felt like hours later, a hand touched his shoulder. He looked up to see Meredith watching him, her brow creased in concern. Jaze, Lyra, and Mouse waited near the door. Someone had pushed open the curtains near Siale’s bed, bathing her in healing moonlight. Every room in the medical wing at the Academy had a huge window and beds that could be moved to the best position to be blanketed by the moon. Sometimes it made all the difference between living and dying.
“We’ve done what we can. Only time will tell now,” his mother said. “You need to let me clean your wounds so they’ll heal.”
Alex rose. He limped to the bed. Siale stomach was covered and her other wounds bandaged. Her face was pale and eyes closed. She looked worse than when they pulled her from the body pit.
“She has to have more help. There’s got to be more we can do.” Alex knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had never felt so helpless in his life. “She needs a blood transfusion. She lost so much blood.” He pushed up what was left of his sleeve. He barely noticed the blood that covered his arm from the cur bites. “Take my blood. Give it to her. Anything to save her.”
Meredith shook her head. “You’re not a match. We already have—”
“No!” Alex said, surprising himself with the strength he still had left. “She needs help. She can’t just lay there and die. I have to do something, anything!”
Meredith put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down to sit in the chair. “You listen to me, Alex,” she said in a voice that left no room for argument. It was the first time she had ever used such a tone with him. “You’re bleeding and about to fall over at any minute. You are my son and you will let me take care of you. Now. You can’t help Siale if you bleed out.”
Shocked by his mother’s demand, Alex looked from Meredith to Cassie. His sister appeared just as worried as his mom.
“Come on, Alex. You need to get bandaged. Look at you,” Cassie pleaded.
For the first time, Alex glanced down at himself. His shirt was in tatters. If he remembered correctly, it used to be green. Now, what remained of the material was dark brown where the blood had dried and almost black where it continued to flow. His chest was a patchwork of claw marks, his shoulder was chewed opened to the bone in parts, and he could feel the stickiness where his shirt clung to his back.
He didn’t remember any of it, getting bitten, clawed, anything. All he could think of was seeing Siale on the top step with Lucian hovering over her. The cur’s crooked smile was seared into his brain.
“Alex?” Cassie asked gently.
Alex took a breath. It hurt more than he remembered breathing should. He nodded.
Meredith and Cassie helped him to his feet. Jaze held open the door. Alex stepped on his right foot and winced. The dean ducked under his arm and helped him to the next room.
“Can I go back to Siale’s room when we’re done?” Alex asked quietly while Meredith cut away what remained of his shirt.
“Yes, you can,” his mother replied, her tone gentle. She reached up and cupped his cheek. “I love you, Alex.”
“I know, Mom,” he replied, touched by her gesture. “I’m sorry I put you through this.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It is,” Alex replied. He glanced up at Jaze and winced when Lyra began to dab at the claw marks down his back. “Drogan said he was going to kill me. I just didn’t realize he would come after me the second I got home.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Jaze said. “None of us did. The way those mutants attacked destroyed our defenses with the first wave. They threw themselves into the guns and anything else we used, shielding the bullets with their bodies. Those beasts were nearly unstoppable. We have students in critical condition and parents on their way in as fast as they can get here. Drogan has a vendetta against this school that he developed from his father. That’s been obvious since his first attempt.”
“I was the one the curs were after.” Alex rubbed his forehead in an attempt to clear his thoughts.
“Curs?” Jaze asked.
Alex nodded. “That’s what Drogan called them. He must have sent them after me. I only had to call for them and they started to chase me. I led them to the cliff.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “They jumped off after me.”
His mother’s gentle fingers slowed. He could feel the attention of everyone in the room. He kept his eyes closed, feeling the throb of his wounds with every beat of his heart.
“I thought it would be a good way to pick them off, or at least a few of them. I knew I couldn’t take them all.”
His mother’s ministrations stopped altogether.
Alex opened his eyes. “I pulled one down with me and when it hit the water I realized they couldn’t swim, at least not well. I held the cur down until it drowned. I broke another’s neck, and killed two more.” Alex figured he could spare his mom and sister the details. “The water slowed them enough that I could handle them. I thought I had them all, then I heard Siale call my name.”
He swallowed, the memory of her cry for help echoing with another. “When I got there, Lucian had her.”
“Who’s Lucian?” Jaze asked, his voice forcibly calm. “Is he one of the mutants, I mean curs?” he corrected himself. It was obvious how much the attack on his students had affected him. The dean looked ready to throttle something. His hands opened and shut in a gesture Alex recognized.
“He’s the leader of the curs. He was the one who freed Drogan from the Extremists.” Alex didn’t let himself think of what had happened there. “Siale stabbed him with a knife and it gave me enough time to chase him away, but she was already hurt...” his voice faded.
“She’s strong, Alex,” Cassie reassured him, coming to the side of the bed. She took his hand. “You know what Siale’s gone through. She can make it through this.”
Lyra pressed bandages to Alex’s shoulder to slow the bleeding so it could heal. He gritted his teeth at the pain. “She shouldn’t have to be strong.”
“Neither should you,” Meredith said, wrapping his ankle. “But you’re the strongest boy I know.”
“And the craziest,” Cassie said.
Alex gave her a small smile. “That’s why I’m still here.”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
Alex settled back on the bed.
“The curs have no instinct for self-preservation,” Mouse said from Jaze’s side.
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, glancing at him.
The small professor explained, “That’s how they broke through our security. They swarmed our weapons systems. At least a dozen died in the process, but their bodies blocked the guns that line the perimeter, allowing the curs to enter through the forest. That’s probably why they jumped off the cliff after you. They don’t fear death.”
“That makes them all the more dangerous,” Alex said.
Jaze nodded. “But also beatable. We can use that as a weakness against them. No fear of death can also mean no recognition of the things that lead to death, as you’ve described. It might give us the means to beat them.”
That gave Alex something to think about. Jaze and Mouse left them to tend to the many needs of the other students. Alex couldn’t imagine how they felt. The Academy had been washed in blood when he carried Siale through it. So many had been hurt.
“Alex?”
He opened his eyes, only at that moment aware that he had nodded off. His wounds were bandaged and everyone else had left besides his mother.
“Is Siale okay?” he asked immediately.
“She’s sleeping,” Meredith answered. She smoothed Alex’s hair back from his forehead. “How are you fe
eling?”
“Better,” Alex answered. He sat up.
“Maybe you should rest a bit longer,” she told him, her voice filled with motherly concern.
Alex took the time to look at her, really look at her. There were circles under her eyes and her face was pale.
“You’re the one who needs to rest.”
She blinked at his caring observation and gave him a smile. “Thank you, son. I will make time for it later. Right now, there are students who need my attention.”
“Do you mind if I rest in Siale’s room?” Alex asked.
Surprise crossed her face that he took the time to ask. She nodded. “Of course.” She helped him rise to his feet.
Alex put his weight on his ankle and was glad to find that it would hold him. He walked carefully to the door with Meredith at his side. He paused in the hallway.
The scent of blood filled the air. When he took a breath through his mouth, he could taste it.
“How many were hurt?” he asked quietly.
“Twenty-seven,” Meredith replied. “Three students were killed, five are critical along with Siale. Trent is holding on by a thread.”
Alex felt as though his feet were suddenly glued to the floor. He stared at his mom. “Trent?”
She nodded, her eyebrows pulled together as though she realized he hadn’t known. “He’s three rooms down. They found him by the Great Hall...”
Alex was already to Trent’s room. He pushed the door open with his shoulder, forgetting until the pain flooded through him that it wasn’t a good idea. Jordan looked up from where she sat at the side of the bed. Tear tracks showed on her cheeks.
“Oh, Alex,” she said; fresh tears welled in her eyes.
He crossed to her. Jordan hugged him gently and turned her attention back to Trent.
The small werewolf had a thick bandage across his throat. His eyes were shut. It looked like he was grimacing in pain even though he was unconscious.
“What happened?” Alex asked quietly.
“We were in the Great Hall when they attacked,” Jordan told him. “Trent went running out to see if he could help, and one of them clawed him. It continued on its way as though he didn’t matter.” Her voice tightened. “I held his throat until your sister found us.”
