I KNEW MY brother was going to be mad at me when he found out I’d gone, but part of me hoped that he knew me well enough to understand my reasons. Since finding my way back to him, I’d battled with those feelings of being an outsider. Not because I hadn’t turned, although I knew that was an issue for Zak, but because I wasn’t what everyone expected. They had listened to the tales of my violent life with Frank when Terry had spied on me at Zak’s request, and then the stories I told them about Hood Academy. They listened, scowled, shook their heads in disgust, and welcomed me into the sanctuary of their home, but I think they were expecting me to be a weak, timid victim. I wasn’t a victim. I refused to live my life in fear.

They hadn’t been prepared for the survivor in me to be so strong and so I was left on the edges of their lives, circling like the runt of the litter trying to fight its way to the dinner bowl.

Maybe Zak thought he was getting his little sister back, the one who wore pigtails and pleats in her skirt. The little girl who had idolised her big brother before he abandoned her to a life of terror. Instead, he got a teenager with uncontrollable rage and trust issues.

Now wasn’t the time to mope about not fitting in. As the daughter of a werewolf and a hunter, it was inevitable that I would be odd, but even I couldn’t have guessed how peculiar my situation would be.

Elizabeth stopped suddenly in front of me, and I bumped into her, snapping out of my inner musings.

‘What is it?’ I hissed.

She pointed ahead, and I saw the flickering porch light above the nurse’s office door. The windows to the main reception area were dark, and no sound came from the surrounding area.

‘Just a short run across the car park and we’re in.’

I manoeuvred my way in front of Elizabeth and assessed the area. The main school building loomed up on the right; no lights shone on the dormitory floors. In the distance, across the large expanse of lawn, I saw the patio doors leading to Adam’s old room. The door had been blocked off with heavy timber strips following Elizabeth’s rescue.

Ari tugged on my sleeve and nodded in the direction of the car park. Felicity and her father pushed their way through the nurse’s office door and onto the gravel. As Mr Parker pressed something in his palm, a long black car lit up like a Christmas tree, the lights flashing in time to the loud beeps that bounced off the cold stone of the academy.

Felicity wore a tight bandage around her throat and nursed her arm in a sling. She hobbled as she followed her father to the car. Within minutes the engine roared to life, and they drove off down the winding driveway and out through the gates on to the main road into town.

The three of us let out a collective breath and then giggled.

‘At least we know Parker and my arch-nemesis aren’t home now.’

‘That’s a relief. I don’t think I could cope with seeing you…’ Elizabeth’s words trickled to a stop, and she looked up at me with glassy eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Mia. I didn’t want to bring up, you know, that fight.’

I understood her trepidation. Losing it completely and nearly killing someone wasn’t a high point in my life and I didn’t want to discuss it with her any more than she did with me.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Let’s get on with finding Sebastian.’

We made sure the area was secure and sprinted across the gravel car park until we stood underneath the porch light. I reached up and unhooked the casing around the bulb, tapping it with my torch until it flickered out. Darkness was our friend.

Elizabeth tried the door; it was unlocked. I mulled this over as we entered the deserted reception area of the nurse’s office. If the door was left unlocked, that meant Sebastian was free to leave at any point but chose to stay. Self-doubt bubbled in my gut as I wondered if Sebastian would be willing to help me or if his preference was to lock me up for his experiments.

Visions of my mum rushed forward: her smile, her perfume, her devotion to a man who I wasn’t even aware was my father. She’d kept it a secret, even from Sebastian himself, choosing only to tell her best friend, Miss Ross. The experiments Sebastian had done on my mother were done with her blessing. She’d wanted a cure for lycanthropy, not just for herself, but for Zak and me too. She didn’t want us to turn. She’d wanted a different kind of life for her children.

That decision cost her everything, but even until the bitter end she still believed Sebastian was doing something good. How then had his work become so twisted that he was injecting young girls like Ari and either killing them or forcing an early turn?

The school hospital wing was exactly as I remembered it. There was a reception area with a small office for the doctor, a storeroom, and four patient rooms. All the areas fed off a large circular space with direct access to the school through the office. To any unsuspecting visitor, it was a mundane hospital wing, but the seventh door, set into a dark alcove, led to another part of the school that only a select few knew existed. The laboratories.

For generations, these secret rooms had been used to experiment on werewolves. Sebastian’s reason was to find a cure, but for the scientists who had come before him, the wolves were merely a tool and there to be violated, often killed in the process. Death clung to the walls.

I closed in on the seventh door, turning the handle slowly. Putting my shoulder against the metal, I pushed it open. As we had discovered during our time at Hood Academy, the laboratories were a row of single rooms each leading off one another. Like the rest of the nurse’s area, the room we entered was in total darkness, but a sliver of light escaped from under the next door along.

Ari pointed at the floor, and I nodded to confirm I’d seen it. We had no way of knowing who or what lay beyond. It could be Sebastian, or it could be a room full of the Governors’ Agency members.

‘What do you want to do?’ Elizabeth pressed close to ask the question, her fingers tightening around my arm as she spoke.

‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ I said, and took a step towards the door.

Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath and grabbed Ari, wrapping an arm protectively around the child.

THE LIGHT WAS harsh against my eyes as I strode into the room. I didn’t have any carefully laid-out plan about what to do next. I decided to adopt Miss Ross’s fiery attitude and hope it paid off. As it turned out, the room was empty, and my attempt to look in control was wasted.

‘It’s okay, guys, you can come in.’

Elizabeth and Ari slid into the room behind me keeping to the edges as they took in the wall-to-ceiling shelving units filled with boxes upon boxes of pharmaceutical products. The logo we’d come across earlier was stamped on the side of every container.

The shelves took up all the wall space with smaller units dotted through the centre of the room. As far as I could tell, all the boxes were sealed and ready for shipping.

‘Look at this!’ Elizabeth motioned for me to join her.

She’d pulled one of the boxes out and was studying the label printed on the top.

‘Its postal address is Cornwall. Miss Ross and Adam worked at the Cornish Academy before coming here.’

I took the small penknife I carried out of my pocket and slid the blade down the centre of the box. The label peeled apart as the box sprang open to reveal its contents.

Short silver tubes were bundled together in elastic bands. I pulled one free and lifted it up to the light. There was a tiny button on one end and when pushed a needle popped out from the opposite side.

Ari gasped and took a step back.

‘That’s what they gave my sister and me,’ she said, a quiver in her voice.

I pushed the button and a green liquid ejected from the needle, spraying all over the floor. So this was Sebastian’s serum. These tiny vials could kill, or destroy a child’s life with the press of one button. I felt sick.

A loud crash from beyond the next door caused us all to yelp. The blood screamed in my ears as my heart thundered in my chest. Ari flew behind Elizabeth, and I once again doubted my decision to bring her along.

The door handle squealed as I turned it, giving away our position to whoever stood on the other side. It was too late to back out now, so I pushed on the door and let it swing wide.

THE COLOUR DRAINED from my face as I looked around the room. Elizabeth mumbled under her breath as she pushed Ari behind her.

There were five gurneys on either side of the room, ten beds in total, and each one contained a child, some no older than five or six. All wore brightly coloured pyjamas as if this was some upbeat children’s ward. I fought against the rising nausea as I moved into the room. Behind the door, a silver tray lay upturned on the floor, its contents spilling out under the nearest bed. A young girl wriggled and squirmed, the terror in her eyes catching me off guard.

I held my hands up as I approached.

‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ I said. ‘We’re here to help.’

I nodded at Elizabeth, and we both set to work checking each child for needle marks. Ari darted around the room connecting with each child and calming their distress. Seeing someone of their own age seemed to work and all ten captives gathered in the centre of the room looking up at me with an air of expectation.

‘What are we going to do with them?’

Elizabeth’s question vocalised the thoughts whirling through my head. What the hell were we going to do with them all? Had they been injected? Were they a danger to anyone, or themselves? Damn Sebastian for doing this.

The young girl who had knocked the tray over stepped forward like a pint-sized spokesperson.

‘The doctor told us we would be cured if we behaved.’ She spoke so quietly I had to lean forward to catch her words. ‘He was lying, wasn’t he?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘They took us away from our families in the middle of the night. You don’t do that if you want to cure someone.’

I couldn’t argue with her logic, and I wondered if Sebastian had considered this approach.

‘Who took you?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know who they were; we’d never seen them before. The men wore black jumpers.’

‘Men?’ Elizabeth stepped forward. ‘Not girls in grey jumpsuits?’

The girl shook her little blonde head.

Elizabeth turned her back to the group and leaned in to whisper, ‘It wasn’t Felicity or her goons then. Maybe Parker is using the GA to do his dirty work now.’

‘We need to dig a bit deeper,’ I said. ‘There will be files in Sebastian’s office. We need to get upstairs.’

We both looked over at the grubby faces of the children, their floaty hospital gowns making them look like a gaggle of ghosts at a Halloween party.

Before either of us could come up with an appropriate answer, Ari stepped forward and cleared her throat. ‘Right you lot, it’s time for us to leave. My friends need to stay and find the bad doctor, so you need to follow me.’

I was once again astounded at the resilience and strength of someone so young. I knelt down and pulled her into a tight hug.

‘Thank you, Ari,’ I whispered.

‘Aye, aye, Captain.’

Elizabeth giggled and circled Ari into another embrace.

‘Be careful, keep to the shadows, and follow the scent straight to the Mills farm. Zak will know what to do.’

The children followed Ari out of the door without question, their backs straight and senses tuned to their surroundings. I had no doubt in my mind that they would get home safely under Ari’s supervision.

IT WAS JUST Elizabeth and me now. We knew there were no answers in the rooms we’d been through so the only route to take was forward.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

It didn’t take us long to make it through to the room containing Hood Academy’s secret filing cabinets. It was here I discovered the details about my mother’s death, and that Sebastian was responsible for the death of Cody’s family. It wasn’t somewhere I ever thought I’d return to, but here we were digging through mounds of papers and drawers of notes.

I wished we knew what we were looking for. Evidence of Parker’s diabolical scheme, Sebastian’s involvement, the traitorous actions of the Governors’ Agency, anything.

We were both so involved in our search that neither of us heard the door open until it was too late.

‘What are you girls doing in here?’

I swung towards the voice, scattering papers across the floor as I went. Sebastian stood in the doorway, his face partly hidden in the shadows. He wore suit trousers and a pale blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Once upon a time his sheer presence would have filled the doorframe and radiated into any room filling it with his powerful energy. He didn’t seem to be such an imposing figure as I once remembered. What had happened to break him? There was an ache in my chest as I took in the sight of the man standing before us, the man who studied me now with concern in his eyes.

‘Mia, you came back.’