Claws (Rewritten)

Three

Chloe

I stared down at my laptop in numb shock, not daring to believe my eyes. "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered darkly. This was perhaps the worst timetable imaginable. The professors were conspiring against me.

Caleb looked at the screen over my shoulder - I was sat at the island in the kitchen beside Adelyn and he'd just so happened to walk into the room right as I had a breakdown. "Ouch - that's rough," He commented lightly.

"Rough?" I repeated incredulously. "I start at nine every day! That's torture."

Adelyn laughed when she read my timetable. "Look when you finish on Fridays." She pointed at the screen. Nine til five on a Friday. Like I said - torture.

I covered my face with my hands and whined. "Please tell me I'm not the only one."

"If it helps, I start at nine every day except Tuesday," Adelyn said, trying to make me feel a little better. "We'll suffer through it together."

"And I don't have Thursdays off anymore," Caleb commented, pretending to wipe away a single tear.

"You poor thing." I scowled at him. He grinned back, and I couldn't help but smile slightly. Damn him and his contagious smile.

"So," Adelyn began, turning in her seat to face us, "Remember a couple of months ago when I sent a picture of that pendant to my coven? They finally found a decent lead."

Caleb frowned lightly. "Honestly I forgot about that. How did you explain it to them?" He asked.

"To stop them from coming over here and taking me back? With great difficulty."

"But that was months ago," I added.

"I know, they don't like to rush. Besides, by the sound of it they couldn't find much for ages. And what they did find was mainly fiction." She took a moment to read something on her phone before looking up at us. "It's apparently one of seven, used by the first hunters and passed on to overpower anyone with supernatural abilities. If you're exposed to it for long enough, it's believed to strip away your powers, or at least suppress them, leaving you vulnerable to attack. They were lost for a while, and finding one is like finding a needle in a haystack the size of a stadium."

"Shit, and our hunters had one? Just how serious were they?" Caleb said, looking horrified at the revelation.

"Very, by the sound of it," Adelyn replied. "My matron's offered to take it from us, and hide it from any other hunters. Witches have been searching for them for a while, to try and keep them from getting in the wrong hands, and this is the first they've heard of one in centuries. Of course, she says it's safe as long as it's away from hunters, so it's up to us."

Caleb thought it over. "Why do I find that suspicious? Like she'll somehow modify it to work on vampires and werewolves only?"

Lyn laughed lightly. "Because you know her well."

"Surely she wouldn't--" I began to argue, confused at the idea that someone would try something like that, knowing how dangerous it could be.

"Oh, if she could, she wouldn't hesitate. Don't forget, this is the same person who told me that story about the first witch turning those two men into monsters since I was a kid. She's obsessed with it," She reminded me. I really needed to find out more about her coven - it was a mystery to me.

Markus wandered into the room, looking mildly curious. "If it's so sought after, we should probably hide it somewhere a little less conspicuous. Can't risk any powerful witches trying to singlehandedly take us all out with it, or passionate hunters, for that matter." It didn't surprise me that he'd heard the entire conversation.