Chapter Four Halloween Disaster

Chapter Four

Halloween Disaster

 

 

I had never been more pleased by a Halloween costume than I was this night. I was wearing an elegant floor length crimson gown with narrow off-the-shoulder sleeves, a tight, lower cut bodice with a V waistline, and intricate black beading. The skirt was full and the top layer of tulle was gathered from the bottom almost to the beaded waistline. The second layer of tulle was shorter with three small, black, embroidered flowers on it. The cloak I had borrowed from Kat’s mom was black and hooded. I had the hood laid back against my shoulders where the edges of the cloak came together. The outer edges of the cloak flowed out from the elegant, golden clasp at my throat to the floor behind me. The makeup was simple, dark eye shadow, black eyeliner, mascara, blush, and red lipstick.

Jennifer, Kat’s sister, had done an incredible job on the makeup and Chris’s friend, Michael Dawson, had made the coolest fangs I’d ever seen. My costume was perfect.

“Aly, Mark’s here!” Kat called up the stairs.

I smiled to myself, wondering how he would react. Would he like it? Would he hate it? Would he even notice? Why do I even care? I wondered to myself.

“Coming,” I called back, starting down the stairs.

I watched Mark’s face with satisfaction as his expression went from indifferent to shocked, to impressed, back to indifferent. Apparently he didn’t want me to see his reaction.

“What do you think?” I asked, modeling the gown for him and Chris.

“Wow,” Chris said, staring in amazement. “That’s the plain red dress you wore to prom last year?”

“You saw it before?” Kat asked curiously.

“Yeah, my cousin took tons of pictures of her and her friends at prom last year. Aly was one of the people in almost every picture,” he explained. He’d been the cousin Carrie wanted to send pictures to last year.

“What was different about the dress?” Kat demanded.

Mark appeared to be listening but I couldn’t be sure. If he was, he didn’t want anyone to know it.

“There were no beads on it,” I answered, turning my attention away from Mark’s costume. He had worn a pair of tight black jeans, a fitted black t-shirt, and black boots, with some fangs and fake blood. Creative. I thought sarcastically. But hot. Another part of my brain argued.

“No beads?” Mark asked curiously. “I suppose it would have been nice that way as well, but I think the beads make it perfect.”

I blushed and looked quickly away, wondering why he was complimenting me.

“And you got all the beads on there yesterday?” Kat asked in shock.

“No,” I laughed. “I’ve been working on it all year.”

Mark looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“Oh,” she giggled. She gasped suddenly. “We should get going or we’ll be late! I don’t want to be late.”

I shook my head, amused by her enthusiasm. Her costume choice suited her, a cheerleader.

“Ok,” Chris agreed, taking her hand.

“Let’s go,” Mark said, extending his arm. At least he could be a gentleman if he had to. If he could be this sweet when forced, I wondered how sweet he could be if he actually wanted to.

I smiled, took his arm, and walked with him to the car. He opened the door for me and waited patiently while I adjusted my skirt.

“Thank you, for agreeing to come to the party with me,” he said conversationally.

“Thank you, for inviting me,” I replied.

He shrugged. “I figured someone should ask the new girl.”

I glared at him. “So you invited me because I’m the new girl?” I hated being invited to anything because I was the ‘new girl’.

“No, of course not.” He sounded shocked.

“Then why did you invite me?”

“I didn’t have a date, neither did you.”

“Perfect, a charity date.”

“No,” he sounded offended.

“You’re not explaining well, then,” I snapped. “That sure is how you’re making it sound.”

He rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you take things too personally.”

“It is true that I do that sometimes, but this isn’t one of them. Everything you’ve said sounds like I’m just a charity case to you.”

“You’re not,” he insisted.

“Then you’re trying to make me change my mind about fighting you to be alpha.”

“I do want you to change your mind about that, but that’s not what this is about,” he argued in exasperation. Why couldn’t he just let it go? Then again, why couldn’t I?

“Fine,” I said, turning to look out the window.

This Halloween night was doomed from the start. And it would only get worse.

 

 

♠♠♠

 

 

“You don’t look so happy, Aly,” Kat observed, walking to where I was sitting at the dance.

“I shouldn’t have come,” I answered.

“Uh oh, what happened?”

“Apparently I’m either a charity case or he’s trying to convince me not to fight to be alpha.”

“Not a charity case, that’s for sure.” If could be so sure, why couldn’t I? “Why does being alpha mean so much to you?”

“Because it’s part of my bloodline and I want to claim what should be mine. And I think I would make a decent alpha. I also want to prove to this close minded town that a girl can be alpha, and a darn fine one too.”

“And she’s stubborn, determined, and ambitious,” Mark added from behind me.

“That too,” I admitted. I hated having to admit he was right.

“I can see why it means so much to you,” Kat nodded.

“so can I,” Mark agreed. “But I’m not giving it to you.”

“Fine,” I shrugged. “I’ll fight you for it, no problem.”

“You can’t fight him!” Kat objected. “He’s the best fighter around, he’ll kill you!”

“No, he won’t,” I disagreed, though suddenly I wasn’t feeling as confident as I sounded. “I’m a good fighter, too.”

“In wolf form?” she demanded. “That’s how you’ll have to fight.”

“I’ve never been in wolf form,” I answered.

Mark was about to say something when the doors to the gym crashed open suddenly and a hundred men poured into the room.

“Aly, Mark, Kat, run!” Chris yelled to us from across the room.

Kat and Mark turned and started running for the side entrance. I stared in shock and confusion at the men moving quickly through the room, guns in their hands, grabbing students and shoving them through the doors. I saw one of them grab Chris and start to drag him through the door, he fought and I heard a gun go off and saw Chris fall to the floor. I was terrified by what I had just seen.

I started toward him, hindered by my dress, I had to help him, had to stop them from hurting him. “Chris!” I yelled.

I reached him in seconds and knelt beside him.

“Aly, get out of here,” he said urgently. “They’re after you, they want you dead.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, tears and makeup streaming down my face.

“Mark… Kat… you… me… so many others…”

“Why?” I asked.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun around, afraid that  I was next. I was going to die too.

“Aly, we have to get out of here,” Mark whispered urgently.

“But, Chris…” I turned to look at him, lying behind me.

He started to cough up blood.

“There’s nothing you can do for him,” Mark answered sadly, tears glistening in his own eyes as he looked at his friend. “There’s nothing anyone can do for him.”

“No!” I cried. “We have to help him.”

“Believe me, Aly, if there were anything I could do for him, I’d be doing it right now.”

“Go,” Chris gasped. “Now. Go. Save yourselves.”

“No, I can’t,” I sobbed. I couldn’t leave him here to die, not this way.

Mark pulled me to my feet and toward the door. “Come on,” he said urgently. “We have to get out of here. They’ll kill us too.”

I looked back at Chris one last time before turning and running for the door with Mark.

This couldn’t be happening. I’d been here all of a week and already one of my friends had died, been murdered in cold blood, and I didn’t even know why. I needed an explanation. I had to know what was going on. Who were those men who came charging into the dance, grabbing students and dragging them outside to be killed? Why were they doing that? What did they want? What had these people done to anger them, to deserve such a horrible and bloody death?

We raced out the door nearly crashing into Kat, who was standing just outside of the door, looking panicked.

“Aly, Mark!” she exclaimed in relief. She looked around quickly. “Where’s Chris?”

I didn’t want to have to be the one to say it. I couldn’t tell her that her boyfriend, her mate in our world, had been brutally shot and killed.

“We couldn’t help him,” Mark told her, the tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

“What… what happened?” she asked, her knees buckling under her.

Mark grabbed her arms gently and held her up. “He was shot.”

His statement seemed so cold and uncaring. How could he be so calm about all of this.

“Why?” Kat asked.

Mark looked to me, the only one who had seen what happened.

“One of them grabbed him and he fought,” I managed to say through the tears.

“No!” she cried, trying to pull away from Mark.

He turned her gently toward him and pulled her tightly into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could’ve done something to help him.”

“We have to get him,” she sobbed.

“We will. As soon as it’s safe, we’ll get him. I promise.”

“I’ll kill whoever did this to him,” she vowed.

“Kat…” I started.

Mark shook his head at me.

I fell silent immediately, wondering why he had stopped me but sure he had his own plan.

“Kat,” he said quietly. “That won’t help anything, you’ll end up getting hurt. Chris wouldn’t want that.”

I glared at him; he’d stopped me from saying anything just so he could say the same thing I was going to? That infuriated me.

She looked up at him and nodded. “You’re right, I guess,” she admitted.

“I know, Kat, I know, we all do,” Mark said quietly. “But right now, we need to get out of  here.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. I could hate him later, but right now, we needed to stick together.

Kat nodded and we ran towards Mark’s car.

“No!” I hissed. “They’ll hear your car, it’s too close.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “But how do we get out of here?” He looked at my dress and I knew that I was the real problem, if it wasn’t for the stupid dress, I’d be able to run faster and we could get away.

“Leave me behind,” I answered instantly. “I’ll just slow you down in this stupid dress.”

“No,” Mark said angrily. “We leave no one behind unless we have too.”

“You have to,” I argued. “If it wasn’t for me, ya’ll could run fast enough to get away. Just go!”

“No! You’re coming with us. Let’s get going, now!”

I started to run after him and stumbled. He turned back and extended his hand to me, I grabbed it and let him help me stand up.

“Thanks,” I said, gasping for breath.

“Save your breath,” he answered. “You’re going to need it, we have a long way to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Never mind that, just come on.”

I quit asking questions and we kept running.

 

 

♠♠♠

 

 

It felt like we had been running for hours when we finally came to a cottage in the middle of the woods. It looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years and might fall down on us any second.

“Nice,” I muttered.

“It’s stable.. It just looks bad on the outside to keep people away, it’s our hideout in case anything like this ever happened.”

“Anything like what?” I asked.

“These people finding out what we are and coming after us. That’s what all the murders have been about. They find one of our kind and kill them. Evidently, they discovered a lot of us and crashed our party to take us prisoner and kill those who were unwilling to co-operate.”

“Like Chris,” Kat said quietly.

“Yes,” Mark agreed. “Like Chris. I regret that we could nothing to save him.”

“I know,” Kat nodded. “So am I.”

I wanted to say something, but I was afraid I would make it worse.

“Come on,” Mark said, opening the door for us. “We need to get inside.”

Kat ran in ahead of me. I hung back a minute to talk to Mark.

“Hey, sorry about not letting you talk before,” he said quietly. “I just really didn’t think you would be able to help much. I’ve know Kat for years, she’s more likely to listen to me.”

“Yeah, I understand,” I answered, looking down in shame. I wished now I hadn’t let that anger me. I should have known it was something like that. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For letting it bother me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged. “I would have reacted the same way, had the situation been reversed.”

“Thanks,” I smiled.

“For what?”

“For understanding.”

He shrugged. “Let’s go inside.”

I nodded and walked in ahead of him.

Mark was quick to close and lock the door behind us and check all the windows to be sure no light would escape before turning and lighting the three kerosene lamps scattered through the small cottage.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “It’s kinda small, but it was the only way we could keep it hidden.”

Kat just looked at him blankly, like she hadn’t even heard him speak. She must still be in shock.

“That’s fine,” I replied quietly. So quietly it was almost a whisper. “You didn’t have to bring us with you.”

He smiled a little. “Wrong, I promised Kat and her family that I would always protect her, no matter what it might cost me.”

“Then you didn’t have to bring me,” I murmured, not daring to look at him, afraid he might be regretting his decision. “I only slowed you down and you hate me anyway. Easy way to be rid of me forever, right?.”

He laughed and Kat jumped.

“Sorry, Kat,” he apologized quickly, hardly sparing her a glance.

She nodded and curled up on the one small bed in the corner, sobbing.

“I didn’t have to bring you, that’s true,” he agreed with me. “But it hardly seemed right to know I could save at least one more life and decide not to just because you’re supposed to be my enemy. I couldn’t just leave you there to die. I couldn’t leave anyone I knew was one of us to die. That’s part of what being alpha is all about, protecting your pack. And as for easy ways to be rid of you, what kind of fun is that?”

“I would have done the same thing,” I snapped, stupidly taking my fear and anger out on him and ignoring his joke.

“I know,” he admitted. “You proved that by trying to stay with Chris, even when there was nothing anyone could do for him. It was a bad choice, but you had good intentions. You can’t let your emotions take the place of your common sense and instinct if you want to lead. They count on the alpha to show them the right path to take and to protect them. If you allow your emotions to get in the way of that, the entire pack will be slaughtered. You need to work on that, emotion is good, but common sense has to take control sometimes or you’ll die and take others with you.”

I nodded. I knew he was right, but I was exhausted from our escape and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I just wanted to collapse and cry, the way Kat had, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to be ok. I couldn’t let this bother me too much, not visibly. And definitely not in front of Mark, he would think I was a ridiculous, incapable girl.

“Try and get some sleep,” he suggested, gently pushing me toward a small door in the back wall. “There’s another bed through there.”

“You go ahead,” I said. “It’s your place.”

He glared at me. “Never,” he said quickly. “Go on, I’m standing guard.”

“Wake me up in a few hours,” I said. “I’ll take over then so you can sleep.”

“Sure, sure,” he agreed. Somehow I got the feeling he wasn’t really going to wake me. At least I’d offered. I wouldn’t feel so bad if he was tired in the morning. Or so I thought.

 

 

♠♠♠

 

 

I woke feeling well rested and surprisingly calm considering everything that had happened the previous night.

I jumped at the light tap on the door to the bedroom.

“Come in,” I called.

“Morning,” Mark smiled, carrying a tray with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast on it. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Thanks,” I smiled back. He was bringing me breakfast in bed? That was odd. “Is Kat ok?”

“As ok as we could expect, considering,” he answered, the smile disappearing instantly.

I nodded and took the tray he’d extended to me.

“Sorry about your dress,” he said, gesturing toward the skirt of my gown. I glanced down and saw what he meant. The skirt was muddy and had a long tear in it. The tear came up the skirt in the center of the front, I frowned thoughtfully. I might be able to work that to my advantage. I could cut the skirt so it was only knee length, get the length out of my way at least. The tear wouldn’t show any more and I’d be able to move more freely.

“It’s just as well,” I sighed. “You have any scissors around here? Or something else I can cut this with?”

“Cut it?” he asked.

“Yeah, make the skirt shorter, more convenient and easier to move around in.” Duh. Why did he seem so surprised by my ridiculously simple solution.

“Makes sense,” he agreed. “I think there are some scissors in that nightstand.”

“Thanks.” I walked over and started digging through the only drawer in the small nightstand. “Here they are.”

He turned to walk out of the room.

“Wait,” I called after him.

He turned and looked me in confusion. “Why?”

“You gotta help me,” I said. I figured that was pretty obvious, I couldn’t cut it all the way around the massive skirt by myself.

He raised an eyebrow. “How? Why?”

“Well obviously I can’t cut it myself,” I answered, rolling my eyes at him.

He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Ask Kat to help you.”

I laughed at him. “Afraid to cut the skirt?”

“No.” He glared at me and I only laughed harder. He could be ridiculous sometimes. “Kat can probably cut it better than I can.”

“Oh, get over it and help me already.”

He glared at me but walked over and took the scissors from my hand. He knelt in front of me. “Where do you want it cut?” he asked.

“About where the tear ends,” I shrugged indifferently.

He nodded and started cutting. Ten minutes later I looked at the heap of fabric and tulle that had once been a part of my dress. I had to admit, he’d done an excellent job cutting it, I couldn’t have got it much straighter if I’d been trying to shorten it at home.

“Thanks,” I smiled.

“No problem,” he answered, setting the scissors on the nightstand.

“What do we do from here?” I asked. I was so lost and confused. What could we do?

“You stay here with Kat, I go get Chris and look for any survivors,” he answered swiftly.

“Nuh uh,” I frowned. “You’re not going back there by yourself. You’ll need backup, let me come.”

“Someone has to stay with Kat,” he insisted.

“She’s still asleep, she’ll be fine,” I disagreed, determined to go with him.

He rolled his eyes at me. “No.”

“I’m coming,” I said, glaring at him.

He shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“Let’s go.”

He started toward the front door of the cottage and I followed close behind him. I didn’t think I could bear to see all the damage that had been done at the school, all the people who’d been killed, but I had to. I couldn’t let Mark down. He needed my help right now. Kat couldn’t help him; she was too torn up by the loss of her mate.