Chapter 10

Connor and Alison stared each other down as the atmosphere in the room dropped by ten degrees in the least pleasant way possible. Hope failed miserably at hiding her grin. She could feel the bloodlust pounding in her own veins but knew she'd be sitting this one out. It didn't matter. Connor had this under control and she had a front row ticket to Alison getting what she deserved. She could be content with that.

"You were a decoy..." Alison's voice trailed off as she struggled to put the pieces together in her own mind. "You were a decoy for Connor this whole time?"

"Nope." Hope replied, her grin not budging as Connor stood there seeming to radiate a dark light as his eyes continued to shimmer.. "I don't ever lie to good people like Max and Chloe, but you betrayed me and everyone else. Connor didn't try to break out. I turned him." With that, she pulled back the collar of her shirt to expose a cut on her collarbone. It wasn't bleeding much on account of her healing faster than a human. It had mostly scabbed over already. "I remembered how to do it from when someone did the same for me. I don't mind telling you that I can't do too much right now. I still have the healing but not much else besides. But I don't need it because Connor could totally eat you if he wanted to. And my powers will be back by tomorrow. Not that it matters because you're out of that stuff."

"How dare you? You demonic child!" Alison snapped, only for Connor to let out a threatening growl. Any thoughts she might have had about moving vanished from her head pretty quickly in that moment.

"Quite easily." Hope shrugged as she sprang to her feet and moved back. If Alison decided to try and grab her, there was no guarantee that Connor could get there fast enough since he wasn't used to his new abilities. The best thing she could do was try to gain some ground on her.

"So who was it?" Alison asked, going suspiciously calm. Clearly she was planning something. "Who turned you in the first place? Someone had to, right?" That just brought a grin to Hope's face. She knew she'd get asked that sooner or later.

"I wondered when you were going to try making me tell you that." She backed up further, stepping out from the shaft of light from the skylight that illuminated the room and just registering as the edge of it fluctuated. She was all too aware of the presence above them. "Actually, there's still one thing I have left. One last thing I can do until the rest of my powers come back." With that she threw back her head, spreading her arms to expand her chest and allowing her to breathe deeper. The sound that hit the air was one that turned Alison pale. The howl of a wolf too convincing to be from the lips of any living human.

In that instant, the skylight shattered. The shape that dropped down blocked out the sun momentarily and cast a shadow beneath it as it landed that made it look like it was wrapped in a cloak of shadows. It shook the tawny brown fur covering its arms and back causing glass to fly off in a shower of lethal glitter and bared its fanged mouth. Its clawed hands flexed in anticipation as its tail began to wag in spite of itself. It knew what was coming and it was looking forward to it. But what was most satisfying to Hope was the terrified look on Alison's face. She knew exactly who this was.

"Yes, Alison. This is what happens when we get old enough to transform. And this is only a glimmer of how powerful we'll get." With that, she turned to the fully realised werewolf next to her. "She's all yours, Dani. Just don't get food poisoning." Dani charged in with a ferocious growl. Even at only nine years old, she was more than strong enough in this form to overpower Alison and start flinging the grown woman around the room like a rag doll. Alison was totally defenceless since she hadn't been able to grab so much as a piece of wood with Connor making sure she didn't move.

Content to leave Dani to it and knowing she was smart enough to make herself scarce if she heard sirens, Hope turned towards the main door. She didn't know if it was because she'd turned Connor or because he'd been close to her as a friend beforehand, but he instinctively turned to follow her rather than join in with Dani. That was fine. He was literally minutes old as one of them after all. Besides, his strength would come in handy elsewhere. After turning someone, Hope still had her senses of smell and hearing plus her ability to howl, but her increased agility and strength were gone until at least tomorrow. She had no idea whether Alison had a remote for the warehouse door or if there was a button somewhere to open it. She also had no time to figure it out. But what she did have was a boy with enhanced strength walking just behind her.

As if reading her mind, Connor stepped forwards. Even knowing what he was capable of now, it was still jarring to see a boy who was normally so slender, quiet and docile grip the bottom of the door and start pulling upwards. After a few seconds, there was a metallic crunching as the door started to give. Slowly but surely it bent upwards piece-by-piece and folded into a wicked upside-down 'V'. Because of their small size, he didn't have to get it very far. Just enough for them to crawl under. And that was good, because that was all he had in him. She let him go through first before following on. No sooner had they made it out than the shimmering faded from his eyes and he dropped sideways, crashing to the ground. Hope was by his side in an instant, picking his head up and resting it in her lap so he wasn't just lying on the floor. They could still hear Alison's screaming and Dani's roar of fury from inside, but they tuned it out. Dani could handle herself. What mattered was that the two of them finally got a breather.

"Connor..." Hope couldn't find the words. She'd been anticipating that things with Alison would go bad someday. That one day there would be something that shattered the already tenuous relationship they had. But she never could have imagined it would be after she left the care centre or that it would be Alison's actions that caused it. She'd been imagining Alison and Trussy looking for her only to track a cell phone to a waste bin having been placed in a plastic bag and hooked up to a power pack so it didn't run out of battery. The photo library would just be full of photos of her with her middle finger up at the camera. She'd overheard Chloe bragging to Max that she'd done that to someone called David before. It was fiendish and she was definitely going to do that to someone when she was older.

"I'm okay." Connor assured her sleepily. His exhaustion made sense. He'd only been turned minutes ago and already he'd had to be on full burn for much longer than Hope herself had ever been and then use enhanced strength he wasn't even used to on two back-to-back occasions. He'd already done so much more than she'd ever dreamed he'd be able to. She was shocked when something wet hit his face and she quickly realised it was her own tears.

"I'm so sorry! I- I wanted to keep you safe from all of this!"

"Why?" Connor asked, wiping his brow sluggishly. "I'm so much stronger now. I didn't need this to feel sure of myself. I have you for that. It's not like we ever fit in. But this is going to help. It'll really help both of us. Especially since we have Dani to teach us what we're doing."

"Dani's just a kid herself." Hope reminded him. "We'll all learn as we go." She was about to say something else, but then was cut off as she heard the rumble of an engine. Connor seemed to hear it to and tried to sit up a bit. Hope was having none of it and assertively pushed his head back down again. He was staying there and that was all there was to it. The sound of that engine was familiar to her. It wasn't far off, either.

Less than thirty seconds later she saw Chloe's truck come into view. It pulled up quickly and both Chloe and Max jumped out and ran over to embrace the kids. Chloe had her shotgun with her and Max had the headphones Connor had let Hope borrow in her hand. Both women had tears streaming down their cheeks and Hope embraced them as best she could while looking after Connor. As soon as Max handed her the headphones, she put them on Connor's head and switched them on. She saw his expression instantly relax and noticed the concern on Max and Chloe's faces.

"Is he alright?" Chloe asked gently.

"He's just tired." Hope nodded. Just then, a scream came from the warehouse followed by an almighty crash that made her cringe. Chloe instantly snapped the shotgun shut and whirled to face the door.

"What was that?" she demanded. "Is Alison in there? You'd better believe I've got something for her if she is!"

"Don't worry." Hope shrugged, turning her attention back to Connor. "Dani's in there with her. I'll tell you everything properly when we get home, but you met Dani before. She was the one on the roof." As if on cue, the noise died down. There was a rustle of clothing and the noise of someone scrabbling in the dirt as Dani emerged from under the warehouse door. She'd returned to human form and squinted in the sunlight as she emerged.

"Well, she's not going anywhere until the police get here." She had a grin a mile wide on her face as she made her way over to Hope and Connor. In that moment, she realised Max and Chloe were there. "Oh, hi! You two look familiar."

"Yeah, Hope was just saying you stopped by one time." Max sighed, a dry edge to her voice. "I think she's mentioned you. You knew her from the care centre, right?"

"I did." Dani nodded."I guess you could say I looked out for her. Trussy has a heart of gold and neither of us really liked Alison. But neither of them understood her. Or me." With that, she turned to Chloe. Hope could see the shimmer creeping into her eyes and knew the adults were seeing the glow that everyone else was so accustomed to. "And just once I'd like to be able to meet you guys with no guns around. My family will go crazy if they find out someone's been playing with shotguns around me." Chloe did a double-take at that, causing Hope to chuckle. But Max was always the better one at keeping calm and shifted from her position knelt down next to Hope to face Dani.

"How old are you, sweetie?" she asked.

"Nine." Dani replied. Max let out a shaky breath. Hope remembered back to the conversation she'd heard where they had to take a moment to remember that she herself was only seven. It was something that she only occasionally got chance to remind herself of and even less frequently bothered to. Growing up fast had been needed quickly in her situation. They must have been thinking the same about Dani now.

"Well..." Max said, tears brimming in her eyes once again. "I'm just glad that our little girl found such an amazing person. Thank you for helping her through all of that. If you ever want some time where you just get to be a kid, stop by. You're welcome any time." Dani nodded, the glow fading from her eyes as she threw her arms around Max's neck in an almost frantic embrace. In that moment, Hope seemed to see the world around her change. She couldn't describe it and somehow knew she wouldn't understand it better even if she'd had her glasses. It wasn't a physical change. But somehow everything looked different knowing that Dani herself wasn't above letting her defences down.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you know the address." Chloe added from off to the side as she broke open the shotgun again before pulling out her phone and dialling. It rang a few times before someone picked up on the other end. "Hello, Officer Caldwell? Yeah, we have them. We're heading back to the beach. Alison is inside the warehouse. Apparently she's not going anywhere soon. Okay, thanks. Bye." Chloe hung up and moved to pick Connor up before carrying him to the truck and putting him in the cargo bed.

"Chloe, what are you doing?" Max asked.

"What?" Chloe shrugged. "It's legal and this is an emergency. The truck only seats three."

"Fine." Max relented as Hope climbed in the back with Connor. Even with her enhanced agility temporarily gone, she was still able to climb up and swing her legs up after her pretty seamlessly. Dani, on the other hand, had no trouble leaping up into there from a standing start just as Hope had done into Alison's van earlier. This was even more impressive since a pickup's cargo bed was higher than a van floor. But Hope had cleared a kitchen chair the day after she'd moved in with Max and Chloe. As jarring as it probably was for them to see someone else do it, it probably wasn't too much of a surprise.

"This is getting out of hand!" Chloe whispered loud enough that she knew everyone would hear it. "Now there are two of them!"

"Three." Hope corrected her, pointing to Connor. "Don't worry. We'll take care of him and show him what to do." Chloe let out an exasperated sigh and went to climb into the front as Max climbed into the cargo bed with the kids, not content to let three children ride in the back of the truck on their own.

"Well, setting the matter of Connor aside for a while, what's happening with Alison?" Max asked, turning to Dani. "What did you do with her?"

"She doesn't know this, but I'm actually harmless." Dani grinned. "I just threw her around a bit and then showed my strength enough to scare her. She dived into the cage through the hole Connor made and then flipped it over so that I couldn't get in after her. As though I'm not capable of just flipping it back. I dropped an entire shelving unit on it to make sure she can't put it back herself. She's stuck until someone gets there to let her out." Max burst out laughing as Dani and Hope high-fived. Clearly both of them had been wanting to do something like that for a long time. And as Chloe set off in the direction of the beach, Max pulled out her phone to call Officer Caldwell. Now that she knew everyone was safe, Hope let herself relax. Properly this time. No one had said anything, but she knew she stank of Wolfsbane. She was looking forward to taking a dip in the sea to clean it off. With a final mental curse to Alison, she put it out of her mind and focused on trying to be a kid for a few hours. She'd earned it. They all had.