Link holds the door open for us as we all file into the house. Our schoolbooks are spread out across the living room, covering a majority of the carpet and all of the coffee table. Our final exams start tomorrow, and then we are graduating next Friday, a little over a week away.
"Okay, enough of the silence," Quinn says, pulling off the purple beanie he had been wearing. Running his fingers through his tousled black hair, he makes his way over to our couch and flops down in the middle. We trail behind him, pulling off our own coats and hats before sitting on the large sectional couch. There is just enough room for all of us to sit comfortably, and the angle of the couch allows all of us to see each other. "I want to know what happened with you the other day, Henley, and why the mayor has been acting so weird lately."
"Wait, what?" Lena says, looking over at me with a confused expression on her face. "What happened to you?"
Everyone turns their head towards me, waiting for me to answer Lena's question. I slouch into the couch and look at the empty stairs, trying to collect my thoughts. A hand runs through my hair, calming down my over imaginative brain. Fingers brush against my ears, and I know that it has to be Braeden running his fingers through my hair. He is one of the only hybrids who I would allow to touch my ears.
"It's okay, they'll believe you," Braeden says. Turning my head, I see the reassuring smile on his face, but it doesn't help me to form the words I have to say. I shake my head before returning my gaze to the stairs.
"Henley, come on," Quinn says, sliding off the couch and kneeling in front of me. He rests his hands on my knees, making me look away from the stairs and into his green eyes. "You can tell us."
"We've been friends since kindergarten, of course you can tell us," Lena says from beside me. I hadn't even noticed her moving from her spot next to Lottie. I look away from Quinn and lock my eyes onto Lena's concerned ones.
"Fine, fine," I mumble, sitting up from my slouch and pulling my feet off the ground before tucking them under my legs. Grabbing Quinn's hand, I pull him up onto the couch, sitting him in between me and Lena. We sit there for a couple of minutes, the only sound coming from the crickets chirping outside.
"Well?" Link says from the other side of the couch, an eyebrow raised in a questioning manner.
Braeden stands up and smacks him on the back of the head before returning to his vacated seat. Link just shrugs his shoulders, but as soon as his eyes meet Quinn's glare, the indifferent expression drops off his face. Well, it seems as if Link is terrified of making his mate upset. Good.
I take a deep breath before I tell them what I had seen two weeks ago. "When I was working at the medical clinic a couple weeks ago, I was in charge of filing all the current patients' records. Before I could go home, I had to take them down to the basement, where the records room is."
Looking up from my lap, I see that everyone is staring at me. Braeden pulls me against his side and wraps his arm around my waist, giving me a squeeze to continue.
"I had finished putting everything away and was about to go upstairs when I heard a really strange noise. There wasn't supposed to be anything down there, that was why I was so surprised when I heard it. It sounded like an animal in distress, so I went to investigate. That's when I saw it." The mangled face of the mutant I had seen in that room comes to the front of my thoughts, and no matter how hard I try to think of something else, the image won't leave my head.
"What was it?" Lena questions softly, leaning forward so that she can see around Quinn's body.
"It... It was like those beasts that attacked our neighborhood last week. It was in a locked room with minimal lighting, just enough that it was able to cast a shadow. It looked like it was crazy. But the thing that frightened me the most was how it looked like a hybrid but with more animal features than human."
"What do you mean?" Quinn asks, his head cocked to the side. "We never got a chance to see the beast that attacked us up close. It only had enough time to go after you and Braeden before the police arrived."
I nod my head, understanding that they were lucky enough not to have an up close and personal experience with the mutant.
"Um, well, it had the body of an animal, but it was too mangled for me to be able to see what species. The hands and feet were human, but they were so badly deformed I could barely recognize them. But its face, that was the worst part." I grind my teeth in frustration once the image plays through my head again. "It had human eyes and teeth, but the muzzle of an animal. The teeth were broken and bloody, and bodily fluids were running from every opening."
I don't say anything else, not wanting to relive that experience again. The room is silent, and I can see that everyone is trying to take in what I had just said. Luckily, I have Braeden behind me. The steady rise and fall of his chest helps me to calm my racing heart. Every time I think of that mutant or of the one that tried to attack us in our own home, I feel as though my heart is about to beat out of my chest.
"If you saw the beast in the medical clinic over two weeks ago, then the mayor knew about these beasts before the attack even happened," Link says, his brow furrowed as he talks.
"Well, on the news they have been saying that some kind of virus seems to be passing throughout the hybrid population, but they never explained the symptoms of the disease," Lottie says. We all look over at her and she just shrugs her shoulders in response. "He has been acting weird whenever he is in his office, always so secretive about everything. I guess this explains why."
"He knew about the virus before any of us did," Quinn adds to the conversation, "and he's been keeping it hidden from us. Instead of warning us about it, or explaining how to slow the spread, he has kept it a secret," Quinn says from beside me. He has his arms crossed and is sitting back on the couch as if that position would help him to think better.
"I bet he knows where it came from, too," Braeden says from behind me, his chest vibrating with every word he says. I remain quiet and let them try and figure out what is going on. Eventually, they start talking over each other, arguing about how much the mayor had known before hand about the virus and its spread.
I tune them out, laying my head back against Braeden's chest and closing my eyes. The crickets outside help me to concentrate on getting my erratic breathing and racing heartbeat under control. Their melodious chirping is the only thing I hear, clearing my mind of everything I had been thinking just a couple minutes ago. That's why I am the only one to notice when they suddenly stop chirping.
Blinking open my tired eyes, I look over at the sliding glass door. It looks over the meadow that is our backyard, where the crickets live. Something is out there or else the crickets wouldn't have stopped their chirping. I sit up from my mate's chest, trying to get a better view of the meadow outside our house.
Something stumbles into the yard, but I can't tell what it is. After only a few steps, it stumbles and falls into the tall grass, out of view from where I am sitting.
"Henley?" someone questions. I don't break my gaze from the sliding glass door. Instead, I stand up and walk through the kitchen, opening the door once I reach it.
"What are you doing?" the voice questions again. Reluctantly, I look away from the spot where the figure had fallen and turn my gaze towards Quinn. All of them are behind me, watching me with worried expressions as I don't say anything and just walk over to the spot.
I hear them behind me, following me, even though they don't know where I am going. It takes me a few minutes to walk through the tall grass, having to walk slow so that I don't trip over anything. Eventually, I make it to the spot, and there, lying face down in the grass is a small body.
"What the hell?" Link mumbles from behind me. I kneel beside the small frail thing and reach out a hesitant hand.
"Maybe you shouldn't touch it," Lena says, but I ignore her. The thing is too fragile to hurt any of us. It looks like us, but there are no ears on the top of its head and no tail at the base of its back. Gently, I touch its arm and push it over so that it is laying on its back.
"Wait, where are the ears and tail?" Lottie says as she kneels down beside me.
"I-I think it's a human," I say, breaking my silence. The face of the small human is so fragile, and its body is dangerously thin. Mud and blood cake every inch of visible skin, and threadbare clothes are the only things protecting it from the elements. From the look of the human, it seems to be a male, approximately our age but severely underweight.
Brown eyes of the human blink open, and he stares at us. His chest rises and falls rapidly as he stares at our ears and then at our tails. Tears start to fall down his mud caked face, and he scoots away from us as much as he can.
"P-please, d-don't hurt m-me," he says in a scratchy voice. His arms tremble as he backs away from us, and I can tell that he is about to pass out. Probably from lack of proper nutrition, dehydration, and exhaustion.
"Why would we hurt you?" I question softly, trying not to frighten him more than he already is. But, before he can answer, he passes out, leaving us to stare at his motionless body, questions going unanswered.