Seth POV

I heard the gun shot from the tire tunnel I was sat in, it sounded close, too close. Slowly I stuck my head around the side but saw no one, which was a good thing. So I got out and made my way quietly and carefully to the other side of the park.

Back at Blackthorne me and Zach had been forced to go on a mission together to investigate a missing school girl, which turned out to be a waste of time since she wasn't missing in the sense that we had to get involved but in the sense that she was stuck up a tree and was too scared to climb down, but anyway. We had had to do something like this, creeping round an empty park, only it had been darker then and we weren't the hunted, we were the hunters. Zach had told me that these types of missions were a walk in the park, a joke at the time to lighten the mood, and he also said that the key to blending in was to hide in plain sight.

So I stopped walking like I had something to hide and made my way rather nosily through the dead leaves on the floor, like I was just a normal kid. Then I heard a scream, it had come from Alexa.

All attempt of blending in vanished as I took off at a sprint through the play area, hurdling over the barriers, almost twisting my ankle at the land and running again through the grass till I came out at the clearing by the pharmacy, out of breath and alert.

It took me a second to adjust to what I was seeing, Jack with a smoking gun and on girl cradling another crying and cursing. There was also a man stood next to Jack, he had a separate gun and was much older, he also spotted me first, so I pulled out my gun and shot.

If anyone else ever asked I would tell them that I meant to blow his knee cap off, that I hadn't really been aiming for his shoulder but that at the time I had sweat in my eyes and I couldn't see clearly.

The girl had wasn't shot looked up from her panic and her eyes fixed on mine, and as much as I couldn't dare to admit it, I was glad that the eyes looking at me were Alexa's, and that she hadn't been shot. Which meant Bex had.

Jack was startled from the scream of the man next to him and veered around in time to see me charge at him and knock him to the ground, pinning his arms above his head.

"Well, well, if it isn't the glorified protector. Good job you're doing there." He spat in my face and laughed, that earned him a punch at the side of his jaw, I could have sworn a tooth flew out. He coughed a bit of blood and headbutted me, then taking me by surprise he rolled out of the way and onto his feet.

"You're dead." I told him, slowly stepping back till the heel of my shoe touched Bex's foot.

"We need to get her some help." Alexa said, I turned around to see a pool of blood around Bex, the bullet had gone through just above her hip, hopefully missing anything vital.

"Why did you do this Jack?" I asked him, crouching down next to the girls to shield them if it got rough.

"Why?!" He laughed while rolling his jaw. "Because I didn't want to go to jail for the murders that she committed!" He pointed accusingly at Alexa and her kip wobbled, he had was pressed on Bex's wound. "Her and her pathetic body guard! They told me that I didn't have to go to jail, that they would be my alibi if I joined them."

"The Circle of Cavan." I said out loud. "So why Bex?" Behind me Alexa was pulling out her phone, if Zach knew his way around Castor then hopefully backup would arrive very soon.

"Because I was promised Alexa as payment for what I have to do." He grinned at her, a grin that made me want to punch him in the jaw again.

"You're disgusting, you know that? And I'm going to enjoy beating you up." I told him threateningly. Alexa sent to text and clenched her jaw.

"Trouble." She whispered. I gulped, it looked like we were on our own then. I stood back up and looked around, except for the pharmacy there wasn't much down the street, a couple of houses at most, and they'd probably have locked their doors and windows. Maybe they called the police...

There was a woman at the window of one of the houses, it looked like she was trying to tell me something that I couldn't quite make out, then I realised she had a phone held up. She had called the police!

I looked down at the gun in my hands and threw it to Jack, who tried and failed to do a cool catch. It fell in the mans blood and he carefully picked it back up.

"Dumb move idiot." He smirked at my idiocy as I went behind Bex and checked her pulse, she was breathing slow and barely conscious but at least she was alive.

"You got a plan?" Alexa asked, taking my hand, for the first time I could see how vulnerable she was. She had trusted Jack a lot and had been betrayed, she probably thought it was all her fault.

Just as Jack raised my gun to shoot me a car came around the corner...