The Night Walkers

Chapter Three

  THE NIGHT WALKERS

      CHAPTER THREE 

          PERPLEXITY

 The stillness of the room began invading Kit's mind as she opened her eyes from the blazing sun that shone through a crack in the window. She frowned as she rubbed sleep from her eyes and looked around. Levi was nowhere to be seen as she peered around the empty room. It was quiet – she'd never minded the quiet – but right now it just made her wish there was someone else around. Someone like Levi who she could talk to.

She stood up, running her hands through her hair as she swept it back over her shoulders, watching the way it cascaded past her shoulders with the slightest wave between each singular strand.

"Levi?" she whispered. The darkness quietness regarded her with nothing but a slight shatter from the window as the sharp wind outside whispered against the crack. "Levi?" she called once more.

Kit sighed. She'd always hated the feeling of not knowing what was going on. It reminded her of the time that Debra had snuck out of their dorm window to meet up with a guy named Sam Walters after curfew. Debra and Sam got caught after half an hour of seeing each other.

"Focus Kit, focus," she told herself as she looked around the room. In a few shorts strides she had made her way to her backpack. 

It was still so silent and it wasn't even the good type of silent. It made everything edgy and made Kit's heart pace begin to pick up. She noticed how everything looked slightly out of place.

Why would Levi have left her alone? He hadn't planned to go anywhere had he? Maybe he was fooling around or he was just getting something he needed.

Still, Kit was left with this inevitable feeling that something bad was happening. She hadn't remembered anything, but couldn't think back to whether or not Levi had snuck out. At the bottom of the flight of stairs stood the man who had given Kit and Levi the room last night. He was smoking a cigarette and looking lazily at the ground as if there was nothing better he could do and there probably wasn't.

As Kit approached him, she kept trying her best not to cough. "Hi," she began, watching the way his slow expression moved around to look at her. "I was wondering whether you've seen my friend. He was that guy I was next to and he-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. He came right through here." The man's look began shaping into an uncomfortable one as he looked around the room. "He was following something, couldn't say what..." he trailed off as if just realizing the armour Kit was wearing.

"Oh," Kit replied, "do you know what it was he was following?"

"Nope. Sorry, good bye and I hope you, ah, find what you're looking for." He looked away as if hiding something. After quite a long time at living in an Academy where all they teach you is how to fight, see whether someone's lying, kill people and feel nothing whilst doing so, Kit knew how to read people. In other circumstances she could even take to calling herself a pro at doing just that.

"I think you're hiding something," she whispered menacingly, keeping her voice low and cool. The man looked away and started coughing as he inhaled the cigarette smoke.

"I think you better go-"

She cut him off as she drew the knife from the sheath at her waist. In one fast motion she had it at his throat and as she pressed it to his skin she watched as his face begun to cower.

"Now," she breathed, "are you going to tell me? Or will I need to slit your throat because believe me, I will make a mess if I need to." She pressed it a tiny bit more – not enough to draw blood but enough to make a reddish mark.