Burnt Blood: The Werewolf Within

Thirty Two

'1.30 pm Fairfield Rd,'

I had been dwelling on my thoughts. My mentor, in waiting, slept the entire journey, which, for me, was dangerous. So much so that I was on the edge of being sick. I was riddled with anger towards the puppeteer bastard that turned everything on its head. Yet, there is also sadness for him; behind the games and cryptic comments, there's a message riddled with pain, and he is hell-bent on inflicting some. By now, I would've hoped to get a better insight and size him up like most suspects. Yet, I feel he's not like most. There were a few minutes to spare.

The skies were greying, and the road had died to an occasional flow of cars coming and going. We stopped across the street from looming ten-foot-high walls—charcoal brown with a slimy trail from low gutter pipes. The entrance couldn't be missed; I faced two extra-large blue metal gates. Not the railing type; these were solid sheets, with a smaller, normal door to the bottom left.

We sat momentarily; I didn't have the heart to wake Dalton after being blindfolded, gagged, and nearly beheaded. Yeah, they shot me, which I will digest at some point. When that is, I don't know; life has been a dysfunctional and unusual whirlwind. Everything outside looked normal; even the number eight bus was chugging its way past without a care.

Knowing that even if we survive this task, there's one more to go didn't fill me with joy. I couldn't determine the end game if the puppeteer gets us in check or if we can pull it off and save the following two. What happens, then? I was missing something, and not for the first time.

"Urggghhhhh, we there yet?" Dalton stirred; I would love to say no, but it wasn't to be.

"Yep, I guess there's no time like the present," I cut the engine and scrambled my way out, met by a wall of smog.

"So, any ideas?" Dalton's tired face looked clueless, contrasting to when he interviewed me.

"Dalton, I was about to ask you the same thing,"

"So, this is it?"

"Yeah, apparently so,"

"No, this is where your foster mother worked when you entered her world." There was another connection to me. All the talk of lifetime planning could be true; if that's the case, our luck was about to go from bad to worse.

"Whoever this arsehole is must know a lot about me and all of us. I don't remember how old I was when I went to Mother."

"That's no surprise; it was a traumatic start. As for the 'whoever', I'm stumped; Andy told me about the bug at your place. There's no telling how long that's been going on. Perhaps we should assume that if this guy has planned as well as he thinks, then the listening could've been on all of us for some time."

"Or at least long enough to hear anything of use. I don't know about you, but I feel so violated. My flat, my car. Integrated into my life,"

I shook my head in disgust, trying to throw the horrible thought away. There was no point hanging around; we only had a few minutes left and still had to find the game in what looked like a large factory. Crossing the road once the coast was clear, the blue gates were far more daunting up close. They looked seamless until I saw the crack around the edge of the smaller door.

"I guess that's our way in."

Dalton noticed it, too. I reached out tentatively, still a little shaky from earlier. We didn't have time to stop for anything, so I was a little weak. My finger caught the cold metal to prise it open. A grating squeak came first, and the hinged sheet was four feet high by two to three feet wide—heavier than I expected. Sure enough, we were in the right place.