Kayla

I was relieved to discover not only was I sharing many of the same classes as Sam, but we had rooms next to each other. Sam seemed friendly enough, and I guessed I would need a friend at Ravenwood. My room was little more than a box, three floors up in one of the school’s winding towers. To get to the room, I had to navigate a set of stairs that spiralled upwards like a corkscrew. The stairwell was dark and the steps echoed with each snap of my heel.

A metal framed bed lent against the far wall of my room, and the sheets were rough and made my skin itch. It was like falling asleep in a bed of stinging nettles. The walls were made of stone and a desk crouched in one corner.

I intended to stick close to Sam, as I tried to find my way around Ravenwood and understand many of the odd rules that seemed to be at its heart. On my first night I took my iPod and sent a brief message to Kiera. I told her about the freaky Greys and how I had made a friend who might be able to give me information about what had taken place at the school. I stressed that I needed to be careful as I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Within minutes of sending my message, Kiera sent one back explaining that she and the others had arrived at the nearby farmhouse. I took comfort from knowing that. Kiera also said that she had made a visit to the local cop shop, but wasn’t holding out too much hope that they would help her.

Once I had read her message, I deleted it as she had told me to do. Should my iPod be found and the messages read, then that would have given our whole plan away.

Was there a plan? I wondered, hiding the iPod into a gap in the seam of the bag that Potter had sliced open for me with one of his claws. With the iPod hidden again, I reached into the bottom of my bag and took out a bottle of Lot 13. During the day, my cravings had progressed from feeling like a mild itch to an aching need in my stomach. Potter had given me enough bottles of Lot 13 to last me seven days. I unscrewed the cap and gulped down the slimy pink liquid. It coated the inside of my mouth and throat. I swallowed the bittersweet fluid and those cravings for the red stuff eased.

I pulled the blanket made of stinging nettles over my head. The feelings of uncertainty and loneliness that I suddenly felt as I lay in the dark were almost suffocating.

Had I done the right thing by putting myself in the middle of Ravenwood? I couldn’t help but now wonder, as I lay and listened to the way off sounds. The background noise seemed almost deafening. None of the sounds were familiar to me – not like sleeping at the manor where I had grown up. I had gotten used to the noises back there. But at Ravenwood, as I lay in the dark, I could hear the sound of the Greys’ robes swishing across the cold stone floors as they patrolled the corridors in the dark. I could hear the sound of sobbing as if coming from some far-off place. But above all, I could hear the sound of wolves howling.

Unable to bear it any longer, I reached for my bag, slipped my fingers into the tiny tear in the fabric and pulled out my iPod again. I wore the earphones and scrolled through the tracks I’d downloaded during my last night at Hallowed Manor. I dragged my fingernail down the screen until I found the song that I was looking for. With the blanket over my head and my eyes closed, I listened to Ugly by The Sugababes. It was the song that I had often cried myself to sleep listening to during my time spent at boarding school. Ugly and Stickleback were the names that the other girls there had called me. The song was one constant in this new world that I now found myself in. I don’t know how long I had lain awake listening to that song, but eventually I fell into a restless sleep where I dreamt of those girls that had bullied me and made my life a misery for so long. I had been their dumping ground. Every school had one, even Ravenwood School, as I was about to find out.

Alan Dorsey was small for his age and very burnt. The rumour was that his parents had been killed in a house fire, a fire that Dorsey had managed to escape from; but the flames had left their mark, a permanent reminder of what had taken place that night. His face was scarred, the skin stretched tight across his face, and in places it looked as if it had run like melted candle wax. Dorsey’s eyes were two narrow slits, his nostrils looked like two puncture wounds in the middle of his face and his mouth was pulled into a permanent grimace. Dorsey knew that the other kids at Ravenwood stared at him, and I guess he didn’t blame them. No more than I now blamed those girls who had stared at me. After all, wasn’t it human nature to stare at the freaks?

On my first morning at Ravenwood, I had overslept. Fearing that I would be in trouble with the Greys for being late for class, I showered in the communal girl’s bathroom and hurried down to join the queue for breakfast, which snaked across the schoolyard. The day was overcast and dull-looking again, but at least the rain had stopped. It was still very cold, though. I found Sam, propped up against a wall.

“What you doing?” I asked him. “Not joining the line for breakfast?”

“Waiting,” Sam said, and it was only in the pale winter light that I realised how good looking he actually was. It wasn’t only his thick, black curly hair, it was his eyes; they were a brilliant blue that had such a look of mischief in them.

“Waiting for what?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the other kids on the schoolyard. Some of the girls stood chatting, while a group of boys kicked a scruffy-looking football about.

“For the fight to start,” Sam said.

“What fight?”

Sam nodded in the direction of the boy who I had caught staring at me from the back of the class the day before – the one with the scrunched up face and Marine haircut. “See Pryor over there? He’s gonna smash Dorsey,” Sam told me.

“How do you know that?”

“He’s been winding-up that kid for weeks,” Sam said. “Pryor’s a bully - an animal.”

“What makes you think he will -” I started, but before I could finish, Sam stepped away from the wall.

“Watch,” he whispered.

I looked at Pryor amongst the crowd of boys with the football. He stood amongst them and watched Dorsey walking alone. I saw Pryor’s eyes narrow as he followed Dorsey’s progress. Unaware that he was being watched, Dorsey made his way towards the school building, his head bowed, chin almost touching his chest. Pryor broke away from the pack. Slow at first, and I could hear his shoes whispering against the concrete. Then, he was running, narrowing the gap between himself and Dorsey.

“You’re dead!” Pryor screamed, leaping through the air and crashing into Dorsey.

The first Dorsey knew that he was under attack was when the back of his head bounced off the ground and the air from his lungs belched out through his burnt and twisted lips. Dorsey looked up to see who it was that had knocked him off his feet, his eyes wide and full of bewilderment.

“You fucking freak!” Pryor roared, straddling Dorsey.

From where I was standing, I could see the loathing Pryor had for Dorsey in his eyes. Dorsey could see the hate in them too and he knew he was in trouble. Throwing his hands in front of his face, Dorsey managed to block the first wave of blows that Pryor threw at him.

“Freaks like you should be caged!” Pryor spat, smacking Dorsey up the side of his head.

“What have I done?” Dorsey cried out.

“You should be in a circus!” Pryor said, punching Dorsey in the face.

I stepped away from the wall. The first thing that struck me was the sound Pryor’s fists made as they pounded into Dorsey’s face. They didn’t make the crunching noise that I had so often heard in the movies, but more of a Whap! Whap!sound. Seeing Pryor’s fists raining down on Dorsey made me feel as if I had a heart that was beating, but not in my chest, in my stomach. Those sounds made me feel sick.

I wanted to stop Pryor. Not for Dorsey’s sake but for my own. I couldn’t bear that Whap! Whap! Whap!sound. If I had to listen to it for much longer, I believed that I might just go insane, right there 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.