The Monsters In Our Town

09 // BLACK DUSK PACK

I screamed and writhed away from Wren.

"Renee," Wren snapped in a very unusual tone. "Hold her arm down."

I screamed again, but it came out all gurgled because of the cloth in my mouth. I struggled against Wren and the newfound weight of Renee, who was doing exactly what she was told.

"Where's Aria and Orlando?" Renee asked Blue. "The less she moves the easier it will be for Wren."

Blue hadn't taken his eyes off of me since I first started screaming.

"Blue!" Renee yelled and Blue's golden eyes snapped up to her. "Go and get Aria and Orlando!"

Blue rushed from the room and in his absence I started screaming even more.

The pain of drawing out the Grief's toxin was unbearable. It was disorientating to the point of forgetting the date, or the year, or my own name at that.

I pulled on my arm to try and get it away from Wren, but Renee was very strong and it was no use.

Aria was the first to appear. She shot into the room and put her hands on my waist so that now I could only thrash my legs, my spare arm and my head.

"Literally, she just stabbed Orlando with a fork," Aria scoffed, "Orlando isn't going to do anything to help her right now."

"Alex," Wren said quickly and I groaned as the toxin moved inside my veins. "I'm about to remove the toxin, but I need to cut your skin so that I can get it out."

I screamed as she did it. I'd been cut before, more times by Jones than anyone, but none hurt as much as this did. It felt likes he was ripping my skin off.

"I'm warning you Alex," Wren mumbled. "This is going to hurt the most."

"Wait!" Blue cried as he burst into the room, a big book in his hands. He dropped it onto the floor I front of him and grabbed my spare hand with both of his.

He squeezed his eyes shut and started whispering words that sounded semi-Latin. I watched him in awe.

Blue stopped whispering, and he exhaled sharply... Like he was in pain.

"Blue," Aria gasped. Blue grip on my hand got tighter and tighter until I thought that he would break my bones. He groaned, then sucked in a breath and stopped breathing.

Aria looked around frantically and then huffed. She let go of me and sped around the table to where Blue was. She ripped our hands apart and Blue fell limply against her.

The pain rushed back and hit me like a freight train, twelve times worse than before. I screamed again, but it was no use.

I passed out.

***

"She doesn't look like an anchor."

I opened my eyes slowly and two girls stood there.

"What are you two doing down here?" Another voice, male this time, hissed quietly. "Desire told you to stay away from the basement."

"But Marcel we were ju-" one if them started.

"You're going to wake her up," he snapped. "Get upstairs now. Desire just finished making breakfast."

I could vaguely remember where I was. I remember stabbing Orlando with a fork, then Renee grabbed me and found the Grief stings. Blue arrived with Wren and they all but dragged me across Northrun to a house. Blue told me that a Lycan pack lived here, but I still didn't know what a Lycan was.