Valerie did not go to school that day. She couldn't bear to face her classmates, sure that they would scowl at her, scorn her and blame her for the death of thier friend, and countless others. Though she knew logically that they could not possibly think this way, that they knew as much as she had done three days ago, this logic did not stop Val's imagination, where images of blame and guilt manifested themselves into her mind.
Not to mention that she was busy - she had berely finished writing in the notebook as dusk was falling. She sighed, hopelessly, laying the pen down. It was hopeless, after all. How would she survive tonight? This last night that the moon was full enough to have sway over her and her evil kin. And this was the night that she had a chance to put a stop to it, before any other innocents were killed at werewovles hands, at her hands.
Standing, she readied herself to depart. She knew Nat all too well, he would be here to check up on her soon, worried about her abscence from school. She walked to the window and made to open it. Valerie swore - it was locked. Her memory provided a picture of Net locking it the previous night. She snuck down the hallway to the kitchen, careful not to be seen by her 'mother', who was under the assumption that she was sick. When she arrived, she pulled a steak knife from out of drawer and returned to her room.
Let's hope this works...
She slid the blade in the crack between the window and its pane and began sliding it back and forth until she found the locking machanism. She began to fiddle with the knife, and, after about five minutes worth of prying, she heard it click open. Sliding open the window, she also stowed the knife in her back pocket. It might come in handy, but she feared the consequenses should she ever use it. Crawling through the window she shut it behind her, careful to leave it unlocked for Nat when he came. She needed him to read that notebook, but she wasn't too worried about that. She figured he would turn the room upside-down in an attempt to find the slightest clue to her wherabouts.
The sun was hanging just above the horizon, and a feeling of dusk lingered in the air as she set off. Down the road she followed to school everyday. However, when she reached the forest, she turned off the road and proceeded into its depths.
She was being watched.
The lady of the wolves' lips curled into a tight and sinister smile from where she watched, hidden in the depths of the trees. An amused whisper broke the silence, and she turned around to face her companion.
"You were right - she did come." Ethan said, a smile warping his pale features also. "Well...?"
"Well, hurry up and do as you're told!" The mistress snapped, in an inpatient whisper, the smile sliding of her face to be replaced with a snarl. "You have your orders. Carry them out, and before the moon rises, if you'd be so kind."
*****
"Hello? Val?" His footsteps were muffled in the damp grass as he approached her house. Nathaniel crouched at the window to her room, more trafficed than the front door. It was unlocked. A cold feeling filled the void of his stomach. He had left it locked. She wasn't here. But, she would have locked it if she didn't want intruders. Nat reasoned, as he slid the window open.
Jumping the window pane, he landed on the floor of her room, crouched for extra balance. He straighted up, looking around. "Val?" He whispered, as he always did when he didn't want to alert her 'mother' to his presence. "Hellooo?" He began exploring the room. I'll turn it upside-down if I have to! Valerie knew him too well.
He smiled as his fingertimps ran over all the items on her dresser; her brush, her cd player, her eye makeup. Each one had a certain personality about it that reminded him, lovingly, of her. With a bolt of panic, he remembered her words as he hid her in the alleyway. I'm going to die... He shook his head. As his eyes glanced over everything she loved, he knew he would never allow himself to live to see that happen. He turned away, still searching. Finally, he spotted the notebook on her desk.
His fingers ran over the cover before he resolutely flipped it open. The page was filled with narrow, loopy writing that was Val's. He turned the page, and found that it, too was filled. He sat down - this was going to take awhile.
Nat, I'm going to tell you everything, and I hope you can read fast, because it's a lot, and it's confusing. Hell, I don't even know why I'm doing this. I guess it's to let you know how dangerous this really is, and to get you to stay out of it. Even if mine does, I refuse to allow your life to end on my account...
Nathaniel's eyes grew wide as he read deeper and deeper into the truth. However, though the reading was dotted with her dire warnings and pleas to spare his own life, only one thought cropped up inside Nat's stunned brain, and it was not of himself, it was of her.
He was glad he had brought his switchblade, just it case. It looked like he was going to need it after all.
*****
Valerie walked resolutely through the trees, eyes peeled for any sign of the clan. She wasn't quite sure what her goal was, but if she could take down one of them, just one, before the moon rose, then she would retire to someplace safe where she could wait out tonight. After that, she would consider her chances and options, weither to continue her assault or flee. To flee would give her a higher chance of survival, it was true, but to stay and attempt to defeat the entire clan would keep her close to Nat, something that had become rather prioritized of late.
However, being with him also endangered him...
Her thoughts were interrupted by her eyes stumbling across a shadowy figure in her path. Although his posture did not seem threatening, she readied herself for a fight anyway, pulling out her kitchen knife. She recognized his sillohuette. "Ethan."
He nodded, bowing mockingly in his own sarcastically proper smile. "Out for a walk tonight? I though for sure you would have locked yourself away safely by now." Valerie glared in response. "If I did," she said, venom in her voice, "I would be for other's safety, not for my own."
Ethan sighed. "I always liked you, Valerie." He said, and his tone sounded genuinely sorrowful. "Don't thow your like away like this -" But Val cut across him. "My life's not worth protecting anymore." She said, coldly. She heard him sigh again.
"My orders are to bring you in to the compound alive." Val blinked. "Compound?" Ethan smiled maliciously. "You'll know soon enough, if you're still inclined to see it." Val bent her knees, readying herself. "I'm only inclined to see you dead!" And she spung at him.
With inhuman speed and strength, Ethan lept up, grabbing the lowest branch of the bradford pear tree extending above him, and hoisted himself just high enough that Valerie passed harmlessly beneath him. By the time she had stopped, and in mid-turn, she felt him land behind her, twisting her wrist until she dropped the knife, which didn't take long, and pulling her arms behind her back. Holding them there with one hand as she stuggled, he pulled off on of his gloves more tightly with his teeth, and pulled his own blade, placing the blunt end to her neck. At first she wondered why he hadn't used the bladed side for this, but then searing pain shot down her throat and into her lungs, strangling her.
"Sil - ver..." She coughed. She was weak, and only Ethan's strength was holding her up. "Yes, let's hurry up, before you collapse of it again, eh?" He responed. His voice was weaker than it had been, as was his grip, but his thick gloves seemed to be protecting him from the worst of it. He pushed her onward, and Valerie put up no further fight.
He led her through the trees, until a small mansion came into view. He pressed her, not to the front door, but to a heavy wooden door in the back. The pair decended some stairs, Valerie barely concious. She hadn't even noticed that he had removed the blade from her neck. He stowed it in a thick, leather sheath on the inside of his coat. Finally, he stopped walking and released her. She fell over onto the floor, her breathing ragged.
"Welcome to the compound, the clan's more formal headquarters." He said pacing around her. "To be more accurate," he tittered, "you're in cell 014 of the compound." Her bent down next to her limp form and raised her head. Blinking, Val tried to clear her vision. She was in a room, at the end of a long hallway, which must have connected to the stairs they had decended. It wasn't too deep, for there was a window at ground level in the upper corner of the room, though it was heavily shuttered.
"Don't worry," Ethan said, looking around nerously before attaching metal shackles to her wrists and ankles. "They're firmly embedded into the wall, so don't try and escape, but they're made of iron. You'll recover your strength soon." He stood up, and she blinked helplessly up at him. "The mistress will be here soon, to discuss your alligence." He said, beginning to walk away. "And, I know it's hard to here this coming from someone like me, but every life is worth protecting, even yours." And with that, he locked her in the prison cell.
"If my life is worth protecting...then what about all the people who will die, if I live...?"
Kitani Memori Community Member 
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