Emily flew down the steps faster than Charlotte did when she fell. Her thoughts screamed.

  This is not happening- Jesus Christ! This is not happening- Fuckfuckfuck!! This is not happening- OHMYGOD!!! This is not happening!

  Leaping down to the bottom of the stairs, Emily stood before the two Shoals. Theo instinctively put a hand on Jessie’s chest and pushed her back behind him. He locked his eyes on Emily.

  The trusting look in his eyes was totally gone.

  Jessie could not tear her eyes away from the body on the steps.

  “What happened!?” Theo demanded with grief rising in his voice.

  Emily opened her mouth. But no words came out. Only stutters and sounds protruded instead. “I-It-There-she…” Emily dropped her arms to her sides. “Charlotte followed me. She got angry. She got scared and turned to run back to you. But-…” Emily’s eyes stung. She was about to cry. “She slipped and fell.”

  Theo’s eyes widened. “Did you- push her? What did you do? Emily! What did you-”

  Donn appeared beside the three children.

  His presence had a calming effect upon them. He placed a hand on Emily, eyes blazing. “Emily. We have to go. We have what we came for. We have to go. Now.”

  “Hold on there!” Theo stepped towards Donn. He looked up at Donn with a fearlessness that Emily did not expect from the scrawny boy. But that wasn’t fearlessness. It was panic. Wild panic incensed by the body of his girlfriend. “You are staying right here! Jessie, get Mum and Dad! Call an ambulance! Call the police! Call some-”

  An ear-piercing and bloodcurdling scream cut across the group and swiped all accusations and questions aside. It was Jane’s voice.

  Jessie and Theo’s faces lost all colour and turned in the direction of their parents.

  “MUM!” Theo yelled. They started off in a sprint away from Emily and Donn.

  And Emily started off on her own run after the siblings, but she skidded to a stop before she ran right into the tall and morose Hel.

  The Norse death goddess was imposing when she was seated at the table in Death’s house. But standing before Emily and looming over her like a dying sycamore tree, she was down right frightening.

  “Oh! Hel! How-” Emily stumbled to one side as Hel swept past her and towards the dead Charlotte. She didn't pay Emily any heed. “O- Okay then.”

  Emily noticed that the world had changed again. It was the Memento Mori’s power, but she was in control this time. Her head didn't sting.

  And this time, Time had stopped dead. Theo and Jessie was frozen in place, mid-run towards the source of the scream. Birds were pinned to the air. The waves of the sea were of ice. But Emily, Donn and Hel were unaffected.

  This was the true power of a deity. Hel’s power.

  Hel made a curt nod towards Donn as she passed by him. Emily noticed her arrogance that made up for the silence and unassuming personality.

  “What of your progress, Donn?” Hell asked of Donn.

  Donn faced her head on. “We are on schedule. We have the first soul. The next has already announced itself to me.”

  Hell raised an eyebrow as she knelt down to the dead Charlotte. She pinched her thumb and index finger on one strand of hair from the body’s scalp. “On Death’s Schedule?” She tore the hair out with a sharp yank. “Or yours?”

  Donn crossed her arms. “That is none of your concern, Hel. Collect your soul and leave us to our devices.”

  Hel drew back up to her full height (which was higher than Donn) and look down upon him. And to Emily’s surprise, Hel made a slight curl at a corner of her mouth. Is that a smirk?

  “Very well… I wish you luck, Donn.” Hel turned about her foot and double-clicked her tongue.

  Emily felt a nudge by her legs and saw Garmr push past her.

  The grey shaggy hound loped his way up to Hel. Hel side-straddled upon Garmr’s back. And Garmr did not buckle under the weight.

  Hel clicked her tongue again and Garmr turned and rode away over the frozen waves. On they bounded. On and on until their figures became fainter and fainter and then they were gone.

  When they were, Time returned. With that, Emily sprinted after the running siblings.

  Five minutes earlier, David was asleep in the car that was once Karen’s. And he was having a sound sleep, despite the guilt gnawing at him. Fred remained in the backseat and watched all around them like a guard dog. The jeep was parked in another alley that remained close to the beach. David reasoned that if they saw Emily at the beach, then it would stand to reason that Emily would return there. Fred expressed to act. But David demanded that he’d rest. David operated on his timeline. Not Michael’s, nor Fred’s.

  He was enjoying his rest when the sharpest pain in his right eye struck. He jolted away and screamed. He clutched his eyes. This pain was different from the discomfort he'd feel when utilising the eye. This was new.

  “What the hell!”

  “It is her. They have found the first soul.” Fred said with an urgency David hadn't heard coming from Fred the Dead before. He heard a car door opening and shutting.

  David opened his eyes and saw Fred opening his door as well.

  David nodded and rolled out from the driver’s seat and onto the ground. “Alright! Alright now. Follow me.”

  David slapped the door shut, locked it for good measure, and darted down towards the beach. As he moved closer to the beach, the pain in his eyes grew.

  A tracker too, huh? That’s helpful. Thanks Michael.

  Fred was keeping pace with him as they reached the end of the alleyway and arrived onto the promenade. They rushed along it.

  “Don’t hurt any women!” David ordered under his breath. “We just want Emily! No killing!”

  Fred didn't hear him. Or did he ignore him?

  “No killing!” David repeated.

  “Oi!” came a man’s voice from behind him. “Watch it!”

  He turned his head around to look behind and saw two figures appear from the crowd. He recognised their hair colours instantly. Peroxide blonde and grass green. It was Karen, the woman he had accidentally killed. And Runt, the mugger that he deliberately did. Runt looked the same as Karen and Fred. Zombies, bound to Michael’s will.

  Runt suddenly exploded with movement and dipped through the crowd. He swerved past Karen, then Fred and then David. Thanks to his scrawny physique, he outpaced them all. David’s face whitened. In Runt’s hand, David saw the mugger’s knife. His eyes widened and his mind conjured up terrible imagery of murdered women and children.

  “No killing!” he screamed. He pounded his feet upon the pavement and prayed he could stop what was about to happen.

  Theo’s mind raced as he rushed back towards the picnic and his parents. He could hear Jessie panting after him. And he didn't care what Emily was doing. He did not know what he could think of her. He did not know what to do, except to get to his parents.

  People were running away in the opposite direction. All of them yelling and screaming. Not a good sign.

  He could see his mother first, lying there with her hands over her throat. And standing by her was a young man - only a few years older than him - a stranger he did not recognise. The boy had scars and cuts and bruises all over his face. His hair was as green as grass. His eyes were dulled and glassy. What was worst was the single deep gash that stretched over his open neck that did not bleed blood.

  Theo dove for his mother. His mother looked to her. And she looked back.

  Theo lurched back in horror.

  Her throat was cut. Bright fresh blood pumped from the wound. Jane stared into her son’s eyes.

  She coughed a gargled yell and suddenly collapsed in his arms.

  Theo held onto her. He shook her. “Mum? Mum? MUM!” He shook her again. But she did not react. She was already dead.

  Something substantial gave way in his body. Strength seemed to seep from him.

  Theo looked up at the ruined boy who easily holding up a larger man by his throat. And that man was-

  “DAD!” Theo screeched. His strength was renewed and he rose up to do something.

  His father was throwing punches at the attacker. But no matter how many punches he landed, none made the man loosen his grip.

  “NO!” Emily screamed.

  Theo stared as Emily made a running leap and grabbed the attacker’s hand. She planted her feet and tugged at them. To pull them away from Arthur’s throat. But that did nothing.

  The attacker simply drew back his free fist and drove it into her stomach. Emily coughed and fell backwards.

  “Theo!” his father growled through a crushing throat. “Get your sister! Run! GOD DAMN IT! RUN! RUUU-”

  His cry of plea to Theo was literally cut short by the attacker, who wielded a bloody knife from his hands and summarily slit Theo’s father throat just like his mother.

  Blood sprayed. The man dropped Theo’s dying father upon the stones and stepped over the twitching body. Theo cried out a strangled voice that held no words. Which was drowned out by another voice.

  “THEO!” Jessie’s voice cried out.

  Theo turned to see Jessie reaching him. Jessie. Oh god, Jessie.

  Jessie was staring at their parents. She was dumbfounded and silent. She was seeing it all.

  Their parents’ killer stared down at Emily. “The child… I have found her.” he uttered. He started making his way towards her.

  “Emily!” Theo barked. “Get up!”

  Theo laid his mother upon the stones and stood to face the man with green hair. The man paid Theo no heed as he moved forwards.

  Theo looked at his parents, dead before him. But his sister was alive. Emily was alive. All that mattered was keeping them safe.

  His eyes snapped at the killer’s face. The sadness and grief, all these gut-wrenching emotions that clawed at his stomach, were shoved aside momentarily for another emotion.

  A pure, deep, skin-burning rage. Rage at the person who had just killed his parents.

  “You motherFUCKER!!” Theo screamed, his voice tearing at his throat.

  With a roar summoned from the depths of his gut, Theo ran right for the man. With both hands, he latched onto the man’s knife handle. Only that mattered. If he could just get the knife out of his hand…

  He dug his feet into the beach and pulled hard. Away from Emily and Jessie. It had to be enough. But the young man had a strength that was unnatural. He just kept on walking and walking. He had completely ignored Theo.

  Theo looked towards his targets. Emily had stumbled away, still reeling from the pain in her belly, but she took Jessie by the hand and was trying to pull her away. But Jessie was not moving. She was standing there, staring at their parents. Her face was frozen horror.

  “Jessie! Just get out of here! Run!” Theo shouted and released one of his hands to land a fist into the man’s face.

  But the man did not react at all. And his face was as hard as stone. Theo brought back his hand with a pained shout. Had he broken his hand? Maybe not, but-

  The man’s ignorance for Theo had subsided. His free hand shot out and clamped his cold fingers around Theo’s throat. And began to squeeze. "I'll kill you for that." the murdered said coldly.

  Theo froze.

  Air trapped in his lungs and air could not reach in to reprieve his lungs. He was suffocating. Theo’s eyes bulged and he kicked out violently.

  And as Theo grabbed onto the man’s wrist to keep from lynching himself, he watched with fear as the man brought up his bloody knife towards his face.

  An image of his father dying jumped into his mind, still fresh from the quickly filling well of terror in his subconscious.

  Jesus Christ- Oh my god. I’m going to die. I’m going to die!

  A howling yowl and a flash of white fur brushed past Theo’s face.

  The young man lurched back. His grip upon Theo’s neck loosened and he fell to the ground. He gasped, grabbing onto his neck and looked up at the struggle.

  It was Fresca, Emily’s cat.

  The white feline had appeared out of nowhere and had latched herself onto the man’s face, using her white claws to tear into the man’s face. And unlike Theo’s attempt to hurt the killer, Fresca was successful.

  Strips of old flesh fell away like torn ribbons of linen, but no blood came from the woundings. The man made no noise of pain while Fresca screeched and attacked.

  Suddenly, the man grabbed Fresca by the scruff of the neck and yanked her off his face. And with one vile movement, he easily twisted her neck with a sickening crackle.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Oh god!” Theo watched on fresh despair as the dead cat was flung down to the ground.

  Wasting none of the time that Fresca had bought him with her life, Theo scrabbled to his feet and sprinted after Emily and Jessie, which both were far ahead of him. They made their way up of the flights of steps and waited for him.

  Sprinting up the stairs, Theo saw that Donn was waiting for them.

  Donn shot Emily a look. “Why are they with us? Leave them!” He gestured at the siblings.

  Emily looked back at him. “Are you serious? Their parents just died! And Fresca’s dead too! We have to go! Now!”

  Donn choked on his breath.

  What? The Shoal parents are dead? But how? They weren't supposed to have died! Why are they dead? Why haven't I noticed this? Is this the imbalance? Are people dying without me even knowing? This is all wrong. This is going against everything I know.

  Donn narrowed his eyes at Emily. “They are not coming with us.”

  “Donn!”

  Donn looked at Jessie and at Theo. Theo stared as Donn’s eyes clouded over with a milky white substance. He watched Donn stare at the top of his head and Jessie’s as well. He then frowned as his eyes returned to a normal colour.

  “Emily! Leave them. I will not ask again.”

  “Donn. I will not! Come on, back to the field!”

  With that, Emily took Jessie by her hand and led her and Theo across the road.

  “Damn.” Donn cursed and quickly pursued them.

  Theo and Jessie didn't reply nor complain. They were simply led and allowed it. Neither sibling could even speak.

  The group made it across the road and marched quickly onwards through the city. People were running from the beach, all yelling and babbling and crying.

  “It was a stabbing!”

  “It’s an attack!”

  “Oh my God! Not again!”

  “Terrorists! I’m telling you, man! Fucking terrorists!”

  “This bloody country’s gone to hell!”

  The group paid them no mind as they continued rushing onwards.

  Theo realised from the geography of the route they were taking, that they were heading out of Brighton. And into the countryside.

  “Where are we going?” he demanded with shock creeping into his voice. He pushed past Emily and rushed alongside Donn and Jessie. Jessie was barely able to keep up, so was now Donn carrying her. She was starting to sob.

  Donn did to give Theo a glance. “We are heading out of Brighton. To my mode of transport.”

  “But- but- but- Why aren’t we going to the p-police? That guy just-” Theo paused.

  My parents are dead. Oh Jesus.

  He had not had time to understand that. To access it. To process it. His parents, Jessie’s parents, were dead. They were dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

  “The police will do nothing. They cannot do anything.” Donn tutted as they pushed on. Theo looked to Emily.

  Theo couldn't feel anything. There was nothing in him. He couldn’t summon anger or fear.

  Only confusion. “Emily, what’s- what’s going on?”

  Emily shook her head. “We haven't the time to explain. Look, when we’re safe I will. I promise. But not now. We need to get out of here. Come on!”

  Theo bit his lip and summoned all the strength he had to keep himself from screaming.

  A hour ago, all was well. He had a girlfriend and parents.

  Now… His life was ruined. Jessie’s life was ruined.

  David saw people screaming all around him as he skidded to a halt and saw the remains of two adults around a picturesque picnic. Oh Jesus Christ…

  Both with their throats slashed and blood was everywhere. He looked up at Runt who brushed away the loose strips of skin from his face and slid the knife back into his pocket. He too was covered in blood.

  Oh fuck me. Oh fucking God no...

  David looked down at the dead woman. She looked pretty and now she was dead. Her eyes were wide with terror. The man, no doubt her husband, also shared that fear on his face.

  Another woman dead. God damn it.

  David breathed raggedly and looked away from the dead woman’s face.

  He couldn't do it, he couldn't look at her. He was going to throw up from the shame if he did.

  “Where’s Emily?” he asked without turning to Runt.

  “She evaded us.” he replied.

  The pain in his eyes remained. Emily was moving. But the pain was fading. The trail was starting to grow cold. Fred and Karen reached David and didn't react to the deaths either.

  How could these things not react, like at all? Is there anything inside those bodies?

  David nodded and headed away from the grisly scene. He had to get away from it. He felt sickened. “Right. Come on. This way.”

  Runt rushed with them. David exchanged a look with the young zombie mugger. Runt looked back at David without so much as a spark of emotion. Not even pride or remorse.

  You fucking animal. David cursed in his head. This is all on you. This is all your fault.

  And David wasn’t cursing Runt.

  ******

  Emily estimated that it took forty long minutes of frantic walking and fearful looks over their shoulders down abandoned streets and quiet alleyways to reach the field in which Donn had left his train.

  Emily was eager to get out of Brighton. It was such a peaceful place. Full of sun and people and laughter. But now it was replaced with death and danger. Not so alluring now. And she couldn't help to feel in her heart that somehow, it was all her fault.

  Charlotte was dead. Fresca too. And the Shoals parents. All because of her. Four lives taken in such a short succession. Lives so easily snuffed out. All because of her- Emily shook her head.

  Now was not the time for bullshit. Jessie and Theo were alive. To her, that alone mattered.

  They brushed a path through the tree line and stepped onto the field. To see a bright fire ablaze before them.

  Donn stopped dead in his tracks. As did the others.

  Where the carriage once stood, now stood a tall ten metre high tower of yellow and red flames. The metal walls of the carriage was charred and melting.

  The windows were all cracked and marred by the fire. It creaked and croaked a dying voice as it was consumed by the heat.

  And standing before the flames, facing the group was a person with a silent expression and dull eyes. In that person’s hands, they held two metal petrol canisters.

  Donn stepped in front of the group and made his way towards the arsonist. Upon closer inspection, it was a middle-aged man with a face that was pale and sunken.

  He had a pudgy form about him with brown hair styled as a mullet. He looked normal. But Donn felt it in his mind that the arsonist, someone who had somehow found and incinerated his hidden carriage that couldn't be found by any thing, was anything but.

  “Who are you?” Donn barked.

  The arsonist opened his mouths and spoke with such dead emotion to make corpses envious. “We are the Husks…The will of our Master.”

  Donn looked back at Emily. She shrugged. So he turned back at the so-called Husk. “Ok. What do you want?”

  He pointed pointed past Donn. “The child.”

  Emily. Of course, it had to be Emily. Pieces of a great puzzle had started to fall into place for Donn. His mind searched for answers within his millennia’s time of knowledge for answers. But none came…yet. “Right, well… you know who I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what I am capable of?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if I tell you that I am not letting you anywhere near this child, does that make you doubt your decision?”

  “We have lost the ability to doubt. Stand aside, Gaelic deity of yesteryear… or we will strike you dead.”

  Donn snorted. “That’s hilarious.”

  The Husk took a single step, towards the group. He dropped the canisters as he walked.

  Donn nodded and stepped towards him with clenched fists. “Alright.”

  Emily watched Donn step towards the Husk. And as soon as he did that, the Husk suddenly broke into a terrifyingly fast sprint that belied his unfit physique.

  He closed the distance between him and Donn in seconds and slammed into Donn with such a force that only a bull could rival.

  But Donn, not to Emily’s surprise, stood his ground. He skidded along the ground, pushed back by the force of the charge and finally held his own. His hand was on the neck of the Husk.

  His fingers tensed with such a vice like grip that Emily watched on as Donn’s fingers tore into the flesh of the Husk.

  Emily expected to see heaps of blood. But none came. Just simple flesh, torn away from muscle and bone like putty rubber from a pencil.

  Panic rose in Emily’s voice. “They’re not dying… Donn! They’re not dying! We have to get out of here!”

  Emily made to take a step to help Donn.

  But a shout from Jessie, “WATCH OUT!”, made Emily turn around. Only to be punched hard in the face.

  Emily fell backwards and bashed the back of her head against the root of a tree. Stars sparkled in her blurred vision and she struggled to find her feet. She felt wetness at the back of her head. She did know if it was the tree’s mud or her blood-

  Her balance was stolen from her as she was hoisted up by her shirt by rough hands.

  She looked up through her stupor to be face by another Husk. This time a boy of her age, with a clean face but a great slit wound upon his neck. Emily blinked in terror.

  This man was the one who had just killed Arthur and Jane and Fresca.

  His dead eyes stared into hers. “Stop resisting…” he hissed through with an older voice that surely did not belong to him. “Your body is valuable, we must not harm you until then…”

  Donn could not believe that the Husk he stopped was not dying. He had at least expected something akin to a refusal to go down, but this… this was beyond him. The Husk refused to stop. It didn't stop.

  Donn heard a scream. It was Jessie. “WATCH OUT” she cried. Donn whipped his head back and saw Emily and the children being attacked by figures in the darkness.

  “No!” he yelled. He closed his eyes and willed Time to stop.

  Freeze!

  It didn’t.

  Donn opened his eyes. He willed his coin again.

  Freeze!

  It didn’t. It refused to work.

  Donn’s lungs froze… in fear. It was impossible. He had no power over time.

  Emily looked past the Husk and she could see two other Husks struggling with Theo and Jessie.

  One Husk was a shorter woman with very blonde hair. She had Theo by his throat and was holding him against a tree. She made no sound of exertion. She remained strong like stone and held the scrabbling Theo in place.

  The man fighting a wriggling and angry Jessie was lean and tall like Donn. He was chiselled and had a loping gait to his posture. But his skin was not sunken and his eyes were not dull. He was not a Husk. He was alive.

  “Stop it!” the living man barked. “I’m trying to keep you alive here!”

  “Get off me!” Jessie yelled. She landed a back-kick into his shin. The man grunted in pain and then cuffed Jessie around the side of her head to make her compliant. Theo yelled a tortured shout.

  “I’ll kill you!”

  “No, you won’t.” the man snapped back. Then he looked at Emily. His eyes was faded, but alive. He looked tired in both a mental and physical sense. And relief appeared upon his face. “Emily… Finally, I found you.” He uttered a short laugh that could have been mistaken for a sob.

  “Like hell you have!” Emily retorted and, recalling Fresca’s tactics on the beach, jabbed both of her thumbs into the young Husk’s eyes.

  It was like pressing her thumbs into wet pottery clay. The smell was utterly atrocious. But it had the desired effect. The Husk let go of Emily and she fell back against a tree. The back of her head smacked against the tree again and she saw more stars.

  Her vision was starting to get hazier. A concussion could be on the way. Her body had taken enough punishment. She wouldn't much room to react. The blinded Husk was already coming for her. She just needed time to think. Time to get to Donn and the others. Time to-

  Emily blinked.

  Of course! Time! She dug into her pocket and pulled out the Memento Mori coin and held it in her hand. The stinging sensation returned to her head. “Please work! Please work! FREEZE THEM!”

  In the distance, between the waking world and her creeping slumber, Emily heard a voice.

  “David! You fool! Stop her!”

  And she swore that it sounded like her dad…?

  The voice screeched out. “Stop her before she-”

  The man called David released Jessie and lunged for Emily. “Hey! What are you-” he yelled.

  Emily closed her eyes. And focused hard.

  ******

  From David’s perspective, he had released Jessie as per to what Fred yelled. Fred was catching up with the rest of them as they had pursued Emily. They reached them and David faced Emily for the first time.

  It was his chance. Joy had burst into his heart and his hope for the wished reunion gave him renewed energy after forty minutes of running.

  He dove for Emily. As he charged for her, he saw her take out a coin from her pocket and hold in it her hand.

  What happened next was as quick as blinking.

  One moment she, the two children and the undying man were all there before his eyes. The next moment, they were all gone.

  Except the tree that Emily leant against.

  Unable to stop himself, David drove himself face-first, then his body, into the tree.

  His arms and legs jutted out past on both sides of the tree, then he slid down the tree’s bark to the forest floor.

  He fell onto his back and lay there, feeling the stinging pain all over his body and face.

  He did not move. He just lay there.

  Emily was gone. Again.

  He had failed to take her. Again.

  And now he was in pain. Again.

  He wondered if all the pain and tribulations were worth it. He was dragged out of London, out of a life that was understandably shitty. But it was his life. He made his own choices and decisions. He was (somewhat) content and (somewhat) happy.

  But now I’m in Brighton, dragged a third way across the country by undead arseholes that I killed.

  He sat up and looked at the Husks, so they called themselves, as they recovered quickly from the inertia that they were seemingly subjected to.

  Yeah… Arseholes I killed…

  In that moment of seeing the literal sins returning to haunt his sorry hide, David’s memory flicked back to his first…

  It was Malcolm.

  David knew Malcolm from his time in the orphanage before he was fostered by Father Daniels. Malcolm was a leering young man who spent the majority of his time watching girls. He made no distinction between race, age or size. Any and all girls were ‘game’ for him. When David had mentioned this to him as a note of criticism, Malcolm laughed it off and said it was sport. David had then quickly decided to dislike Malcolm. David was then released from the orphanage, as was Malcolm. But while David stayed away and did not keep in contact with many of the people who reminded him of his childhood, Malcolm continued to stay in his life like a splinter in his finger.

  David relented and the two became acquaintances. Then one fateful night, David and Malcolm were drinking in a pub in South London. David had been careful with the alcohol, fully aware of what the drink does to grown men.

  But Malcolm threw caution to the wind.

  He downed pint after pint. He started babbling about a man’s right to things he desires. He went on about philosophers he read about who shared the same sexist views he did and that he admired this views. He even criticised David’s foster parents, stating that men, - not women and especially dykes at that - must be in the house to bring up children.

  Woman are only there to feed, clean and to fuck.

  David sat there in the corner of the pub, watching and judging Malcolm. And the more he listened to Malcolm's increasingly vile comments and ideas to enjoy his so-called rights as a man, David became ever more aware of what he must do. What he had to do.

  So he stood up, paid for drinks and took the inebriated Malcolm outside. He spun a story to Malcolm about how he wanted to take him to a club to pick up some girls.

  Malcolm whooped and laughed, clapping a hand on David’s back.

  David had wrinkled his nose. He stank of beer. Just like his father…

  David then took Malcolm by the arm and led him away.

  Four hours later, David stumbled away from the grisly sight, gasping. He looked at his hands. They were bloody. He rushed home - being careful to not wake up his foster parents - and headed for the bathroom to shower.

  He shivered despite the hot water pounding his back. He had killed. He had murdered.

  It was the first murder he had committed. The fish in the Islington canal would be well fed.

  Looking back on it, David had regretted the haphazard way he had done it. He was so close to being caught.

  But somehow he was not. And after that night, David had his epiphany.

  Men were the enemy. They had to be stopped. They needed to be stopped.

  Of course, if there were good men, he wouldn't hurt them. But as far as he knew, from experience and from watching people in the streets of London, men were worse than rabid dogs.

  They had to be put down.

  Karen, Runt and Wolf lined up together, hands behind their backs like soldiers. Awaiting for instructions.

  “Stand up.” came Fred’s voice from the dark.

  David looked up.

  There was a crack of branches underfoot. Fred appeared from the brush. And he looked angered. If one could somewhat fake the emotion, then that would be how he presented it.

  Fred had not arrived with the group because David ordered him to get Karen’s car and bring it to them. They needed a quick getaway if things worked out well or not.

  Fred stalked directly for David and before David could say a word, Fred grabbed his shirt collar and slammed his back against the same tree.

  Using his inhuman strength, he lifted David a foot from the ground and stared him down with his glassy eyes.

  “What happened?” Fred snarled.

  David grabbed a hold of Fred’s fists, trying his damnedest to free himself, to no avail. “Let go of me!”

  “You had the girl within your grasp! Your grasp! And you let her slip through our fingers. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Hmm… Oh I don’t know. How about letting me know that the girl could fucking freeze time or teleport or whatever the hell that was? Maybe that little tidbit could have provided so much needed support, hmmm?”

  Fred and David locked eyes with eachother. There was a moment for David when he really believed that Fred would kill him right there and then. But as soon as David thought that, his phone rang out from his jacket pocket. The ringtone echoed through the forest.

  They both knew who was calling. Neither wanted to answer it.

  David glanced downwards then back at Fred. “You gonna get that?” he asked.