Reveille (The Hybrid Disasters, Book One)

Chapter 10: Demons

I woke to find a petite girl with shoulder-length raven hair and chunky blue highlights staring at me. Her brown eyes lit up with excitement as I slowly sat up.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You're in your new room!" She smiled. "I'm your roommate."

"I wasn't aware I was moving in anywhere," I said cautiously as I examined the small room. 

There were two twin-sized beds with hospital-grade bedding; the one I was on and the one across from it where she sat cross-legged in baby blue pajamas decorated by dozens of cartoon-like skulls with various facial expressions. Other than the two beds, the only other furniture in the room were two, small wooden desks accompanied by matching desk chairs and two, large rectangular frames hanging above each desk that were half-cork and half-dry erase. Lolly's frame had "Howl's it going?" scrawled across the dry erase portion. Her desk was cluttered with various writing utensils, books, and magazines. The room reminded me of a college dorm-room, and I frowned, wondering if I was even going to be able to go to college at this point.

"They brought you in last night. I thought you might be in some sort of coma because I've tried to wake you multiple times, but you wouldn't budge."

"Did they say anything when they brought me in?" I asked. "What time is it?"

"It's eight in the morning. I was directed to bring you to the training hall when you woke up. They were expecting you to be out for a while, but I wanted to meet you. I'm glad you finally woke up."

"What's your name?" I asked. This girl was seriously too excited for eight in the morning.

"I'm Lolly Ward," she smiled.

"It's nice to meet you, Lolly. I'm—"

"You're Adeleigh Harper, but you like to be called Addy. Adam told me. You're practically famous throughout DPO. They've been talking about you since the attack," she informed me. "It must be so cool being made up of three different supes. I bet you're really powerful. We heard you shattered bulletproof glass with a single punch. That's insane."

"Yeah, it didn't feel too good after," I replied. I stood and stretched. My muscles were a little sore, but other than that I felt a thousand times better than I did last night.

"I was so happy they picked me to be your roommate. They said I was the best candidate because I'm the only Lycan here without a pack. We're basically going to be sisters," she cheered.

"Lycanthrope without a pack?" I asked curiously. Sisters? This girl was jumping the gun a bit.

"Yes, I'm a Lycanthrope like you. Well, maybe not exactly like you. I'm just a Lycan. I'm not mixed with anything else. Also, Lycans don't really say Lycanthrope. It's too technical. If you're gonna be one of us, you have to get with the lingo."

I laughed. She was a wolf. I should have guessed from the welcome joke on her dry erase board. "Thanks for the heads up. I hope you don't mind me asking, but why don't you have a pack?"

"My pack was killed by a Nightwalker coven when I was four."

"I'm sorry," I replied. I couldn't imagine how horrifying that must have been for her. I was still haunted by what happened at Club Dread. Nightwalkers were awful creatures. I hated that the media portrayed vampires with redeemable qualities. There was nothing redeemable about them. Modern fiction was way off target.

"It's okay. I don't really remember much. My pack was small and reclusive, so there was no documentation on me or my family. A human hunter found me and brought me to some local authorities, who then turned me over to social services. A week later I ended up in DPO's care after going all Lycan-eyed on a social worker for taking my lollipop away," she chuckled at her story. "DPO gave me the name Lolly for that incident, but all orphaned supes get the last name Ward. Anyhow, I've been with DPO for twelve years now. They tried to reintegrate me with several different packs throughout the years, but I acted up intentionally so that I would be sent back here. All my friends are here. I like it here."