Thrill of the Chase (Hunters & Heartbreakers 1)

II - Wells

^^Above, the Hudson siblings: Ellie Bamber (pictured as Cosette in BBC's Les Miserables) as Naomi, right; Louis Partridge (pictured as Lord Tewkesbury in Netflix's Enola Holmes 2) as Wells, left.

(Note: Words in parentheses and italicised mean a strikethrough, since WP doesn't have this function.)

The Private (and I mean private) Thoughts of Wells Hudson

If you're reading this, and I mean you, Naomi, you've gone too far.

19 March.

Langdon Wilkes is an idiot.

Langdon Wilkes is a fool.

Langdon Wilkes is someone (I love to hate) despise.

(I hope he never sees this) I hope he knows it.

And I guess I need to get on with everything following the vampire attack and stop dwelling on how much I hate Langdon Wilkes.

We got the two of them out of Southwark. Those poor little Institute boys — entitled and well-off, the both of them — didn't know their way around and it was clear they'd gone to the vampire den in King's Bench Street without knowing what they were getting into. Before we'd left, my sister and I had checked to see that it was indeed a feeding night. The workhouse would be empty of the entire family except the mother, the father, and the very young who didn't know how to hunt yet.

"You do realise the King's Bench Family is one of the oldest, don't you?" Naomi had said on the way there. "It's said the father alone is over seven-hundred years old. A knight killed in the Crusades, apparently."

"I know, Naomi," I'd snapped back at her. She was the research end of our hunts, because I could never crack a book to save my life. I was more concerned with things like strategy, technique, weapons. That wasn't to say my sister wasn't a good hunter. She actually was, probably better than me. But just like most other things, the hunting world was another that was mostly men.

After we too left Southwark, and were safely on our way back to our row house in West Hampstead, I sat and stared straight ahead while Naomi wept silently next to me. I couldn't understand why she was crying over that boy. He'd gone in there unprepared. It wasn't her concern, after all.

But she was my sister. I couldn't help but feel a small twinge of sympathy.

"He didn't know what he was getting into," I said. "It's not your fault."

"Yes, but if I could have..." She wiped at her nose, then her eyes. "And poor Langdon, the look on the boy's face..."

"Poor Langdon?" I said sharply. "This is about him?"

"I saw his face, Wells, you didn't." Her voice hardened. "And just because your heart's made of stone, that doesn't mean everybody else's is."

"He is an inexperienced, blundering nitwit," I said, liking the way those words sounded together. "He could have gotten himself killed."

"His friend explained why they were there," Naomi fired back, "in case you care to listen. Or are you too busy thinking of new insults for Langdon?"

"Fine." I scowled and crossed my arms. "What did Wilkes's friend say?"

She tells me the story: that Wilkes, Isham — the friend we got away with — and Gifford — the one we didn't — were going out vampire hunting for supposed practise. They ended up at the King's Bench Street Family's lair on a tip from Wilkes's father, the headmaster of the Institute. I snorted at that, because it confirmed why I didn't like Wilkes. Naomi continued anyway — either the older Wilkes was misinformed and sent them there unknowingly, or he knew they would have no success. No matter what the reason, the fact remained that an Institute student was now in the clutches of the vampires, and there was nothing they could do to get him back. I knew for a fact that the father wouldn't let the boy go. Any negotiation was a non-starter. Nothing would happen.