Flying would have been so much easier, I secretly thought.

Halfway across, the branch began to sway, then creak. I stopped and gripped the branch until my knuckles were gleaming white through my skin.

“What you waiting for?” Sam hissed, balancing on top of the wall.

I looked down, and the ground seemed miles away. “The branch is gonna break!” I said through gritted teeth.

“If you stopped swinging on the thing like some demented monkey, then you might get across without it snapping. Now quit messing about and get over here!” Sam moaned.

Closing my eyes, I crawled the last few feet, using my hands to feel my way across the branch. Then, just as I reached the end of it, Sam leapt into the field on the other side of the wall. I peered over the edge and could see him waving up at me, a huge grin nearly cutting the lower half of his face in two.

“C’mon! Jump, Kayla!” Sam said.

Shutting my eyes, I threw myself from the branch. I hit the ground and rolled onto my back. Air belched from my lungs and up my throat. Sam stood above me, his hand outstretched.

“C’mon, this way!” Sam said, pulling me to my feet. Then, holding hands, we charged across the field and headed towards a large wooded area in the distance.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kayla

We raced across the field, tiny white plumes of breath escaping from Sam’s mouth and floating like tiny clouds up in to the cold sky. As we neared the woods, Sam let go of my hand and disappeared amongst the trees.

I left the field and darted after him. The woods were dark, and slanted shafts of grey light cut through the branches overhead and formed patterns on the leaf-covered ground. The woods were quiet and the trees stood close together, twisted and moss-covered. The only sound was the branches creaking above and the odd flutter of wings, as birds swooped between the trees. There was an oppressive atmosphere inside the woods and I began to feel claustrophobic. I looked between the trees for Sam, and called out.

“Sam? Sam? Where are you?”

Silence.

I went further into the woods, the sound of twigs breaking beneath my shoes.

“Sam, are you there?”

Silence.

What was he playing at? I wondered.

“Sam, if this is your idea of a -”

But before I’d had a chance to finish, something had clattered into me from behind, knocking me from my feet and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

“Gotchya!” Sam grinned, standing over me.

I rolled over and looked up at him.

Laughing, Sam said, “You’ve got that look on your face again!”

“What look?” I groaned, brushing damp leaves and fern needles from my blazer.

“Like you’re gonna shit in your pants!” Sam laughed.

“You dickhead,” I moaned, getting to my feet.

Holding his sides, Sam continued to laugh, tears welling in his eyes as he watched me pluck twigs and leaves from my hair.

“Ha-Ha, how very amusing!” I said. “I nearly wet myself, thanks to you!”

“Don’t…please…stop…please…” Sam said through his tears.

I glared at him and said, “Freaking jerk.”

“Oh c’mon, Kayla, I was just trying to have some fun with you,” he said. “We could both do with having some laughs.”

Then, seeing the funny side of what had happened, I began to laugh too. It felt good to be laughing again. We stood spraying laughter into the quietness of the woods – sounding like a couple of honking donkeys. But it wasn’t just the laughter that felt so good – it was being out of Ravenwood. It felt fantastic.

It was freedom!

Giggling like a couple of little kids, Sam led me deeper into the woods. The further we went, the darker it grew, as if the light filtering through the branches was being turned down with a dimmer switch. And although it was January, the air inside the wood felt warm and clammy. Sam loosened his tie and opened his shirt at the throat.

“How come you know these woods?” I asked him.

“I grew up in this area. I used to come down to the woods with my mate, John. We made a camp in some bushes over there somewhere,” Sam said, pointing in the direction of a thick shrubby area that sat on the bank of a bubbling stream.

“Who is John?” I asked.

“You mean, who was John.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“I knew John all my life. When the wolves came to Wood Hill and we became prisoners at Ravenwood, it didn’t seem so bad because I had John with me. We used to share a room. He was my best mate. But he got chosen for matching within a few weeks, and I’ve not seen him since,” Sam said.

“Where do you think he is now?”

“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “He went into that old chapel and that was it. I’ve heard that you never know if you’re going to the chapel to be matched or released.”

“But if you were going to be released, why go to the chapel?” I asked him.

“Either way, McCain throws a party in there,” Sam explained. “The party is meant to celebrate your freedom or your matching.”

“It sounds a bit sick to me,” I said. “How can anyone celebrate being matched with a werewolf – Skin-walker?”

“I don’t think it’s the humans that are celebrating - it’s the wolves,” he said. “After all, they’ve got a lot to celebrate. They’ve just got themselves a human skin to walk around in.”

We walked in silence, ducking low-hanging branches and climbing over fallen tree trunks. Sam wiped his face with the back of his hand, his damp black hair sticking to his forehead in dark lines. I felt as if there was something on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. Glancing at Sam, I said, “What are you thinking?”

Sam looked over his shoulder as if someone might be listening. Then, in a voice just above a whisper, he said, “We don’t have to stay at Ravenwood, we could run away. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

To hear this upset me, because if I was in his position, I would’ve wanted to run away, too. But I wasn’t in the same situation as him. I wouldn’t be around for any matching ceremony. I would be gone as soon as we had the evidence against McCain. I would be leaving Sam behind. It hurt me to say what I said next, I felt like I was cheating him in some way, and I hated myself for it.

“Sam, I understand what you’re saying, but you need to get those crazy thoughts out of your head.”

“How come?” Sam asked, looking confused. “I thought you would feel the same. I thought we could escape together.”

“Okay, so we escape, but where we gonna go? We can’t go back to friends and family because that’s the first place the wolves would come looking. We’ve got no money. We’d probably last for a couple of days until the wolves caught up with us. Then what? They’d bring us straight back here!” I said.

“But we could tell the police what it’s like here, all the weird things that go on,” Sam insisted, and I could tell that Sam was desperate for me to go along with his plan – but it wasn’t my plan.

“Do you really think they’d believe us?” I asked him.

“It’s worth a…” Sam started.

“Sam, it’s not gonna be forever. And who knows, we might not even get chosen for matching,” I tried to convince him.

Looking at me, Sam said, “Ravenwood might not be forever, Kayla, but having your soul taken over by a wolf will be.” Then, as if knowing that he wasn’t going to change my mind, he said, “I’ll show you the camp where me and John used to hang out as kids. It would be nice to see it again.”

Hating myself for convincing Sam to stay at Ravenwood, whereas I knew I wouldn’t be, I watched him stride towards the bushes by the stream. At first, neither of us noticed the swarm of flies that hovered around the entrance to Sam’s camp. Crouching on all fours, Sam crawled in amongst the branches and leaves and I followed. This isn’t what I’d had planned. By now I had hoped to have hidden the camera for Isidor and be back at Ravenwood before McCain noticed that I had vanished. But I felt like I had to see where Sam and his friend, John had hung out. It seemed important to him and it was the least that I could do.

We worked our way amongst the barbs and nettles until we came out into a small clearing. Almost at once, I was struck by a putrid smell. Covering his nose with his hand, Sam gagged at the stench. It smelt of rotten meat that had been left out too long in the sun. I looked at Sam, who had shoved his fist into his mouth, as if fighting the urge to puke. Even in the shadowy light of the bush, I could see that Sam’s face had drained to the colour of soap. His eyes were bulging in their sockets as he looked at something ahead in the clearing.

I followed his gaze and looked at whatever it was which stank so much. Lying on its side in the middle of the camp was a dead body.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Kiera

My iPod didn’t leave my hand all day. I paced up and down, waiting for Kayla to get in contact with me as to the location of the camera. She had done well to find it, but I wanted her out of that school as soon as possible. I hadn’t been happy about her going in there in the first place. As soon as I knew what was on the camera, she was coming out.

From what little Kayla had managed to relay to us, the school sounded weird, to say the least. What were these “Greys” that Kayla had mentioned? Were they the wolves, waiting to be matched, or something more sinister? But what could be more sinister than that? And why did they hide their faces? But it was McCain; the more I heard about the guy, the more I sensed that Kayla and the other kids at the school were in danger. Why terrorise the kids with cattle prods, or sizzle-sticks, as Kayla had called them? That was no way of keeping control. It was cruel and barbaric.

As I paced through the kitchen and the living room, Potter sat quietly in a chair by the fire and smoked. Once he had finished one, he threw the end into the fire and lit another. He had told me once that the craving for nicotine masked his cravings for blood. I could understand that in some small way, as my own cravings for the red stuff where always there. Taking blood from Potter helped but I knew that wasn’t the answer. Even if I resorted to drinking Lot 13, there was only so much of that left at the manor, and it would soon run out as Isidor and Kayla were drinking it every day. I’d rather them have it than me. I didn’t want them resorting to drinking blood – not ever.