Night Guardians

Chapter Twelve- Hide and Seek

*Ash's POV*

The girl stopped at the end of the hall. A pair of wooden double doors stood in front of us.

I could hear voices faintly on the other side of the door.

I leaned slightly forward to so I could hear better, but the girl put a firm hand in front of me to keep me back.

She pressed one finger to her lips, signalling me to keep silent and crouched low to the ground, gesturing for me to do the same.

After I had followed her instructions, she slowly edged the doors open.

The doors led into a wide landing. With my body close to the floor, I could see that beneath the wooden railings was a grand foyer. And it wasn’t empty.

Standing in the centre of the floor below, facing the banister where we were, was Beth. And she wasn’t alone. In front of her stood a tall dark haired man dressed in all black clothing. A flash of recognition hit me.

It was him. The guy from the bike shed at school. He was the one who had attacked Beth, before he had disappeared in that thick, black smoke. He looked exactly the same as he when I saw him at the school, dressed completely in black right down to the black leather boots on his feet. Now I could see him closer, although I could only see the back of his head. I noticed that he wore a leather glove only on his right hand, also in black.

Something flickered in my mind. I had seen a glove like that before, yesterday in Mrs Lampas’ class. My gaze switched to Beth.

Yes. She was wearing the same black glove on the exact same hand as the guy was. She didn’t wear a matching one on her left. She only wore one glove on her right hand, as he did.

That had to have meant something. Although I very much doubted it to be a symbol of friendship, they looked just as hostile with each other as they had been earlier today. To be truthful, Beth looked even worse, almost on edge.

The guy was facing the opposite direction to where the girl and I were on the landing above. Beth still hadn’t registered that we were there so it was doubtful that he had.

I felt the girl tug gruffly at my sleeve, telling me to keep moving.

We both quickly scurried across the landing to the other side. We stopped at the end, hidden by the wall leading round the corner into the next hall.

The girl must’ve wanted to listen to them talking as much as I did.

Beth spoke first.

“I’m flattered.” she said in an extra sarcastic tone. “It’s not like you to pay me a visit twice in one day. I have to say I’m almost touched.”

The guy answered with menacing growl that seemed to resemble the sound of a lion’s roar.

His voice maintained the growl effect. “Believe me, I wish I could avoid this.”

“I understand.” Beth sighed, bored. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. And the reason this time would be...” She let her voice trail off suggestively.

“They want an update on the attack last night.”

I gulped.

The attack, he meant the werewolf attack at the library. Where I had been, where I saw them feeding off of that poor man’s mangled body.

Bile rose up my throat. Re-seeing that image in my mind made me physically sick.

Crap, just how much did that guy know about what happened? It was doubtful Beth had mentioned me exactly, but what if she had just said a human was there? Maybe he would figure out who the human was, if that happened...