SOMETHING ROAMS THE NIGHT...

SEVEN

I hurried home, the lady's words still ringing in my head. What was she saying about Ezra and his family? Was she telling the truth? Or was she just plain insane?

If she was telling the truth, that meant that Ezra was still in town, that he never left. That meant that he had just disappeared, but he was still around. Somewhere.

It was getting colder by the second-winter was here, which meant the day was shorter than it originally was. I only had an hour before sunset.

An hour before whatever that hid in the dark emerged to kill.

I began to walk past a deserted alley. The place reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. This was probably the place where thugs and bad people gathered at night.

A wolf whistle coming from somewhere to my left made my heart drop.

No. Whoever that was wasn't whistling to me. He wasn't. He...

"Hey, pretty!" Someone chucked something towards me. It hit the curb, rolled to a stop at my feet. I saw it was a slightly crushed beer can. "Don't be afraid!" The same guy called, and laughed.

Another wolf whistle came about, and I began to panic.

Oh, hell no. This couldn't be happening to me. I was just an innocent girl, making my way home.

"Hey," someone tugged on my arm, and I opened my mouth to shout. But he put a hand over my mouth, silencing my screams. "Don't be afraid," the man, who had an ugly scar running down his left cheek hissed in my ear.

No. Please, no.

He dragged me towards the alley, towards the rest of his mates. I tried kicking and thrashing, but the man was hellishly strong. He held me to him as he approached the men.

My eyes widened when I saw them. There were six of them altogether. Five big and huge men, and one teenager. Three were bald, two had scraggly long hair, and the teenager looked just normal. It was as if he wasn't part of the group.

"Ho, ho," the man with the ugly long hair said. He was the one who had chucked the can at me. "What do we have here..."

The man who had been holding me let me go, and I fell to the ground, wincing in pain. The teenager hadn't moved a muscle. He just stared at me silently, but I could see the hard expression on his face.

"Please," I started to say. "Let me go."

"Not until we get what we want," another man approached me, began to reach for my jacket.

"Leave her alone," someone else said, and I let out a loud gasp.

"Ezra?"