Rewritten

Chapter 14: Safety

British Hunters Guild (BHG) The British sector of the hunters, located primarily in London and founded soon after the resource wars by Sir Nathan McLean.

From the very first day I had found out I was a rewrite, my father had constantly reinforced one important lesson: the guild was bad news. For the most part, I had done as I was told, making sure to stay far away from the hunters and their home.

Until now.

Now, I was about to walk right into the heart of the very place I had been taught to avoid. A place filled with people trained to kill my kind. I clenched my fists, trying to stop them from shaking in fear as the building slowly came into view.

"We don't bite,  Fee. You'll be fine." Connor slipped his fingers between my own,  trying (and failing) to comfort me.

I wondered if he would have been so nice about it if he knew why I was so scared.

I watched as we drove along the Thames river, getting closer and closer to the mansion of glass and white stone. The building rose in layers, the glass ceilings almost making it appear like a set of stairs built for a giant. As we approached the bridge that led to the headquarters of the Hunters, Connor slowed down for a security guard to see him. I noticed that the guards on the bridge were heavily armed - the Hunters apparently didn't let just anyone walk into the building. 

The man nodded and was about to wave us through, but stopped when he noticed me, choosing instead to approach the car. Connor cursed softly under his breath before rolling down the window. "What do you want, Grant?"

The guard grinned. He couldn't have been much older than us, in his early twenties at most, but when he leered at me I couldn't help but shudder.  "Who's she?"

Connor's eyes narrowed.  "My girlfriend,  who'd I prefer you not leer at." The coldness of his tone made it clear that he wasn't messing around,  and for a moment Grant even looked scared. It didn't matter that we weren't at school - Connor was evidently still the guy in control.

Grant nodded sharply,  then sighed.  "Well she's new here so she has to take the test.  You know the drill."

I froze. If he meant some sort of genetic test, then I may as well just take Grant's gun and shoot myself. It would save the hunters from doing it when they evidently discovered the truth. Without even realising what I was doing, I gripped Connor's hand even tighter, paralyzed with fear.

Once again, being Connor's girlfriend seemed to come with perks. He sat up straighter in the car, fixing Grant with a glare that almost had me cringing, despite not being on the receiving end. "Do you really think that I, Connor Dalton, would be dating one of them?" Grant actually took a step back at the venom in his tone. "I'm late, so if you want to keep your job I suggest you let us through right now."

Grant was practically shaking in his boots. Not that I didn't blame him. Right then Connor looked downright scary. "Y -yes, sir." He nodded at another guard, who began raising the barrier for us to get through.

"And Grant?" The smile Connor gave him was anything but friendly. "Look at my girlfriend like that again, and you can say goodbye to ever having children."

I wasn't sure how much of Connor's behaviour just then had been an act, but his final comment was deadly serious. The fear in Grant's eyes was unmistakeable.

If Connor hadn't been rubbing his thumb lightly over my knuckles in an attempt to reassure me, I would have been freaked out by him too. I wasn't used to seeing him in the role of cold-hearted hunter, and it was seriously scaring me. It made me wonder how much of it had really been an act, especially when he'd referred to altereds as "them". Clearly the hunters didn't even consider us to be human.