“Do you hate yours?” he shot back.

“It’s different for me,” I told him. And keeping up the pretence, I said, “My parents both died in a boating accident so I had little choice.”

“I’m sorry that your mum and dad died,” he said. “My parents died too.”

To hear him say that made me wonder how much longer I could keep lying like this to him. I had no idea how he was really feeling. I wondered what the penalty would have been if the parents refused to let their child go, but I couldn’t ask for fear of blowing my cover. I was meant to know all this stuff if I’d grown up in this world just like him. So I said, “When the wolves turned up in Wood Hill, did some of the parents try and hide their children or smuggle them away?"

“What would’ve been the point?” he asked, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “The wolves know exactly who does and doesn’t have children in town – the government gives them access to the census. Anyway, a few weeks before McCain arrives in town, everyone knows that he sends spies, wolves that have previously been matched and look human. You must have heard that?”

“Something like that,” I nodded briefly.

“And you must have heard what happened years ago in that town...what was it called now?” he said scratching his head and looking at me as if I might know the answer. But of course I didn’t. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, some parents did try and resist and the wolves did that thing with their eyes. They looked into those parents’ eyes and drove them half mad. They were never the same again, like vegetables I heard.”

As I sat and listened to Sam talk, I remembered the people of Wood Hill and understood why they tried so hard not to make eye contact with those who passed them on the street. Then, I thought of the woman I had seen with the pram and the doll which had had its eyes removed. As if reading my thoughts, Sam started talking again.

“If any of the kids resisted being taken, the wolves would just stare into their eyes and they would be driven half mad with what they saw in them,” he said. “I heard about this woman from one town, I think it was some years ago now, who was so desperate for her child not to be taken, that she cut her son’s eyes out then removed her own, so neither of them could be brainwashed. How bad is that?”

“Awful,” I whispered, feeling numb as I finally began to understand the devastation that the wolves – Skin-walkers – were causing to these people.

“Some of the teachers at Ravenwood tried to object to what was happening,” Sam told me.

“What, the matching?”

“No, not that,” he said, coming away from the window to sit next to me on the edge of the bed. “Like our parents, most of them realise that they don’t have a choice in matching, but it’s the way that McCain goes about it – that’s what some of the teachers objected to. The brutality of the man, that’s what the teachers didn’t like. Isn’t the matching bad enough, why does he have to be so cruel about it? Look what he did to you this morning.”

I glanced down at my hands and was surprised to see that they had almost healed. There were a few black scabs where McCain had stuck his Taser, but nothing more. The purple swelling had gone and so had the streams of liquid-fat. Sitting on my hands, I looked at Sam and said, “Did you know a teacher by the name of Emily Clarke?”

“Yeah, why?” he asked me, sounding surprised.

“Oh no reason,” I said, breaking his stare. “I just heard a few girls talking about her in the bathroom this morning. They were saying what a great teacher she was and how much they missed her.”

Accepting my lie, Sam said, “She was a nice lady and a good teacher. She wasn’t cruel like the others. Miss Clarke stood up for us. McCain hated her. But now she’s gone, just like the other teachers.”

“What do you think happened to her?” I asked, trying to make my questioning sound as casual as possible.

“McCain probably killed her,” Sam shrugged.

“You’re kidding me?” I said, again trying to sound as laid back as possible.

“Yeah, I’m just messing about,” he said staring at me with those blue eyes, which in the fading light looked almost turquoise. “I don’t mean this in a sick way, but part of me wished that he had murdered her.”

“Why?” I asked him, surprised by what he had just said.

“Because he would have broken the conditions of the treaty, don’t you see?”

“Would he?” I said.

With his eyes open wide, Sam looked at me, and said, “Kayla are you from this planet or what? You must know that if just one wolf kills – murders – a human, then the treaty is broken. And if that happens then the matching comes to an end and we’re free!”

“What if McCain did murder Miss Clarke and the other teachers?” I whispered, not taking my eyes from his.

“McCain wouldn’t be that stupid,” Sam said.

“What if he’s not stupid?” I said. “What if McCain is a killer?”

“You’d never prove it,” Sam sighed.

Then, thinking of how Elizabeth Clarke had told Kiera how her sister had hidden a secret camera in her room, I looked at Sam and said, “We’ll never know if we don’t look.”

“Look for what?” he asked, frowning at me.

“Clues,” I said back.

“And where are you going to start looking for clues?”

“Do you know where Miss Clarke’s room was?” I pressed.

“Yeah, why?” he said and the look of fear I could see in his eyes told me he had guessed what I was going to say next.

“We go and check it out tonight,” I whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kiera

The store where Emily Clarke had supposedly used her credit card to buy chocolate, amongst other items, was on a road which lay about two miles north of Wood Hill. We didn’t go straight to the counter and speak with the staff. Instead, Potter and I wandered around the store and looked to see what CCTV they had, if any. The only camera I could see was positioned behind the counter and looked out into the store and down at the cash registers. I looked at Potter, and we didn’t have to speak to one another to know that if Emily had been in the store the previous morning, she would be on camera.

I threw some items into a basket, junk food mainly, and went to the cash register with it. The spotty youth who was working began to process my groceries. Once he had placed everything into a bag, Potter asked for a pack of cigarettes.

The guy working the cash register threw them into the bag and said, “That will be thirteen pounds twenty, mister.”

Potter rummaged through his jeans pockets and pulled out a roll of twenties. At the same time I took my warrant card from my jacket pocket, opened it, and realised that I hadn’t any money. I looked at the cash in Potter’s fist. My savings? I wondered and looked at him. Potter shrugged his shoulders at me with a guilty grin.

I looked at the spotty youth behind the counter and I could see that he was eyeing my badge “Sorry, but my boss says I can’t give discounts to the law anymore – not since one of you guys issued him that ticket for running a red.”

“What?” I asked surprised. “I don’t expect any discount.”

“You can’t be from around here, then,” he said back.

“No, we’re not,” Potter cut in.

What kinda police department are they running down here? I wondered. Potter handed over the money and looking at the CCTV camera above his head, he looked back at the clerk and asked, “is there any chance we could take a look at the CCTV footage for yesterday?”

“No, you can’t,” he said.

“How come?” I asked him.

“Doesn’t work. It’s been broken for months,” The clerk explained. “The boss says it costs too much to get fixed. He’ll be screwed if we ever have a robbery, insurance company will never pay out.”

“Do you have any other cameras in store?” I asked.

“Nope, just that broken one. Why you want to know?” he asked, looking at me, then at Potter.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, picking up the groceries and leaving the store.

I threw the bag onto the backseat of the car and slammed the door shut in frustration. Potter popped one of the cigarettes between his lips, lit it, and inhaled deeply.

“When are we going to get a half-decent break?” I asked him.

Potter looked at me and blew a lungful of smoke into the air.

“We’re running around in circles,” I said, more to myself than him.

“Something will turn up,” he said, leaning against the side of the car and enjoying his smoke.

“And what if it doesn’t?” I snapped, sounding more frustrated than cross. “Kayla is inside that school, werewolves are free to take children at will, we’ve got a young woman who has suddenly vanished or worse, and the local cop couldn’t give a crap because he’s too busy screwing the local Seven-Eleven for a discount!”

Potter didn’t say anything back, he just puffed on the cigarette and squirted jets of smoke out through his nostrils. When he had finished, he flicked the cigarette into the gutter and got into the car. I climbed in next to him, feeling more frustrated than ever. Potter started the engine and it spluttered and wheezed to life.

“We need some petrol. We’re nearly empty,” he said.

On the other side of the road, there was a small petrol station with two pumps on the tiny forecourt. “Over there,” I said, jabbing my finger in the direction of the petrol station.

Potter swung the car out of the car park and crossed the road to the petrol station which stood opposite the Seven-Eleven. He drew level with a pump, got out, and began to fill the tank. I watched him through the car window, and it was then that I saw it. There was a CCTV camera attached to the underside of the petrol station canopy facing out across the forecourt.