Authors Note: I own nothing.
"Chloe!" I screeched as Chloe's black hair burst into flames that gradually started drifting down her petite body. I tried to catch my breath as the girl I loved had suddenly transformed into a burning inferno. I had to cover my eyes to protect them from the brightness of the first few seconds as she lit up. She yelped and dropped to her hands and knees. She must've been trying to do the 'stop, drop, and roll' thing, though we both knew that that wasn't going to me enough to stop the blaze from eating away at her skin. The strange ripping sound of the flames seemed to laugh at my pain and her agonizing screams as they danced all over her body. As I sprinted, trying to ignore the sickening smell of bubbling flesh, I realized that they were changing colors like some kind of morbid rainbow. They had started out red, then changed to dark orange, then to light yellow, then to dark green, and then to an unnatural pale blue. I didn't let it slow me down, though it seemed that with every step I took her calls for help sounded farther and farther away. I felt tears glide down my cheeks as Chloe became completely still, laying flat on the pavement of the empty parking lot. I got down on my knees next to her, trying desperately to think of something I could do, something that would save her.
"It's gonna be ok, it's gonna be alright. I'm right here. I'll protect you." I wept pathetically. I wanted so badly to touch her, to just be able to wipe the flames from her face and kiss her cheeks. It was then that I realized that I couldn't even tell which part of her was which, if she was facedown or on her back. She just looked like a pile of black stick that had been used for a bonfire. I didn't recognize the noises of anguish that came out of my throat. They didn't sound human, or wolf, but like something in between. Eventually sobs started dying down, even though the flames were still burning strong.
"Why didn't you save her?" I heard Rae's voice call from behind me. Her usually sassy tone had disappeared and been replaced with a somber, emotionless voice, one that sounded more like a computer than a person. "She was right there and you just watched her die."
"No…" I whimpered as I shut my eyes and tried to block out the wave of pain that lapped at my heart. "You killed her."
"Say that all you want, but you know the truth. You're the one that killed her. The one that just stood by as her skin melted off of her tiny little bones." Rae said, "I started the fire, but I can't take all of the blame. It was something you could've stopped." That was it. I stood up and turned in one single motion, swinging my fist as hard as I could at her face. Instead of hitting Rae's dark flesh, my fist collided with something hard and cold.
I opened my eyes to find my knuckles buried a new, two-inch dent in the wall. "Damn it…" I whispered as I withdrew my hand, shaking it as I did. I flexed my fingers. I doubted any of them were broken, but the drywall was a different story.
I sighed as I plopped back down on the mattress and stared up at the white plaster ceiling of the crappy hotel room we'd decided to stay in. The blankets were itchy and I could clearly hear small rodents in the walls, but at least it was better than sleeping in the pickup like we had the last couple of nights. It had been a little over three days since we left Troy's house, and every single night I'd been plagued with images of Chloe burning to death. It wasn't always in an empty parking lot, and the fire didn't always change colors, but Rae was always there, telling me that I could've done something to save her. Chloe's screams were always there. My tears were always there.
I looked around to check if Simon was awake before reaching over the side of my bed and reached into a dull red over night bag. I grabbed the cheap cell phone that we'd bought at a local Walmart the day before we left Texas. We gave Troy and Chloe one too, just in case. I didn't want to bother her, but I just had to check on her. I might gloss over the details of me driving myself insane with worry. I was supposed to be the one comforting her for once, not the other way around. I flipped the phone open and clicked the green talk button to turn it on, placing my hand over the speaker to muffle the sound it made when it started up.
"How do I text on this thing…" I asked myself as I shuffled through the message settings. I was just fine with calculus and college-level science was a breeze, but text messaging was a whole different issue. I usually left it to Simon.
"Derek…are you alright?" I heard Lauren say sleepily. I glanced over to see her standing over to my right in the doorway that connected our two rooms (Simon was in my room while Casey, Lauren, and Tori slept in the other). I shoved the cell phone under my thigh before nodding, still trying to get used to the idea that I was no longer the only one in the group with super hearing.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up." I said and sat up, letting the sheet fall down off of my bare chest. She walked over to my bed and sat down on the side, her dark hair draped around her green eyes that looked so much like my own flashing in the darkness. There was something about her eyes that held a terrified innocence that I hadn't seen before. It was almost like looking into the eyes of a baby deer.
"It's fine, I wasn't really sleeping well anyway." She said and smoothed out the creases in her blue sweatpants "They always gave me medication before they put me to bed, so I guess I'm just not used to going to sleep without being drugged up."
"Wow," I said "they kept you on a pretty short leash, huh?" Lyle House had felt like a prison, I couldn't even imagine what living in the Edison building felt like.
"Don't get me started." Lauren said with a yawn. She scratched her arm and watched curiously as the tendons in her arm began to shake and slither.
"You're about to change…" I said as I got a closer look and touched her arm with my fingertips. Her skin had that luke-warm feel you get when you've been sweating for hours on end without cooling off very much. Lauren winced and looked at me uncomfortably.
"Have you gone through it?" she asked. Her voice sounded shaky and I could tell that her throat was dry. I nodded solemnly. I could tell she was scared. "Is it painful?" I nodded with a scowl. I shivered from the thought of my bones rearranging themselves under my skin. Not exactly my most pleasant experience.
"I had to go through it several times before I completed it. I think it was because of the Lyle House experiments." I said, "I'm still not sure that they didn't mess with anything else...Do you know what kind of tests they were doing on you?" I asked as her arms stopped wriggling and rested at her side.
"They always told me that they were trying to cure me. Like lycanthropy is some type of disease." Lauren said. She stared at the nightstand to my left, and I saw that she was in another place. A place where pokes and prods were part of daily life. A place where you hardly ever got to go outside. A place where your home was a cold room with no windows.
"Do you think that's what they were trying to do to me?" I asked. You'd think that if they were trying to get rid of the werewolf within me, my change would've been later than expected rather than earlier.
"It depends. Were you given shots after morning pills? Did they make sure you didn't eat any red meat?" she asked. My forehead wrinkled.
"No, nothing like that. They gave us drugs, but they never used a needle on me."
"In that case, probably not. Unless they were trying to use a different method on you." She said. We were quiet for a while. There wasn't really much of a way to be completely sure what they did to me. I was about to open my mouth to say that Lauren should get back to bed when movement from the other room distracted us. I looked over at a small digital alarm clock. The bright red dashes read 5:42 am.
"Looks like it's about time to get to work." I said as a light turned on and the sound of a shower running filled both rooms. "Hopefully Casey won't get us lost again. We could've been here in two days if he hadn't stopped every twenty minutes to pee." I said with a roll of my eyes. Lauren smiled lop-sidedly before getting up and walking to the other room. She had a kind of silent elegance about her, and I realized that I'd never really heard her laugh. Then again, she probably hadn't had much to laugh about in the building she'd lived her whole life. Chloe had a beautiful laugh. It was the kind that made you just want to burst out into giggles. Had she laughed since we'd left? What was she doing? Sleeping? Was Troy teaching her some new supernatural skill? Did she miss me at all?
"Dude, you need a hobby. You're getting clingy." Casey said casually as he passed through my room, buttoning up a blue over shirt.
"Would you stop reading my mind for five seconds?" I said as stretched my arms behind my back.
"I would if I could. My whole mind-thing has been going a little haywire lately. I barely slept last night 'cause I kept hearin' people's thoughts and seein' random stuff that's gonna happen today. Feel like I have some supernatural hangover or somethin'." Casey said as he grabbed a hair band from the hardwood dresser below a small tv. "By the way, your ass is about to ring. Don't bother answerin', it's a wrong number."
"Of course, just as we're about to break into Triton House, our brain-boy gets a head cold." I said pessimistically as I dismissed the next call and got up to stretch.
"Nothin' is gonna stop me from getting' Alaina back." Casey said with a deep breath. I nodded. I could understand how he felt. He was worried about someone close to him, someone that meant the world to him. I could definitely relate. I just hoped that we'd get there in time.