Chapter 9：The Vault Key and the Hunt
1212 Words
Jack’s laugh screeches through the trees—metal scraping metal—and Alicia’s eardrums curl in on themselves. Her fingers clutch the back of Lucas’s shirt. She accidentally grazes the bandaged wound underneath; the muscle beneath her touch jumps like a bowstring pulled too tight.
“Had enough hiding?”
Jack nudges his father’s corpse with the tip of his shoe. The sole slides across blood like he’s squashing a bug. “Miss Morgan. Your mother’s research notes. Which level of the vault?”
Her throat dries up. The vault. God. She locked more than notes in there three days ago.
The metal box still feels cold in her memory—cold like congealed blood. Her mother’s dying whisper echoes: Don’t trust anyone. Not even your father.
Lucas suddenly yanks Alicia behind him. Half a step. A barrier made of breath and stubbornness. His green eyes catch the faint light like a cornered wolf.
“The notes are with me,” he says. He lies like someone who hates lying—jaw tight, throat bobbing. “Let her go. I’ll hand them over.”
Jack twirls his blade lazily. “Do werewolves wag their tails when they lie?”
He lunges before the sentence even lands. The knife whistles past Lucas’s ear and buries into a tree trunk.
“One—”
Something drops from the top of the truck with a shriek—Rosalind. The shotgun fires as she hits the hood. Pebbles jump. Jack jumps too, but only to dodge.
“Run!” she yells, scrambling for ammo. The bullets spill everywhere. She curses at them like they betrayed her.
Lucas doesn’t wait. He grabs Alicia’s wrist and bolts.
The air turns sharp again—Jack barking orders behind them, Rosalind squeaking like a terrified rabbit. Alicia risks a glance back.
Jack kicks her gun aside; Rosalind folds into herself, arms around her head.
“She’ll be okay?” Alicia gasps.
Lucas doesn’t look. “Safer than us.”
They dive into a narrow alley. Trash bins. Rotting noodles. Something sticky oozing down a wall. Alicia’s heel snags in a drain grate.
She yanks—hard. The heel snaps. She stumbles but Lucas catches her without slowing, basically lifting her the next few steps.
“The key to the vault…” Her breath stabs her lungs. “It’s in my office. Behind the framed photo.”
“We’re going there now?” Lucas shoots her a look like are you kidding me. “Jack’s already guessed that.”
“What choice is there?”
She stops suddenly, chest heaving. She hates how weak her voice sounds. “The box has a tape. My mother… she said it proves my father worked with the Sanctifiers. And she said—”
She doesn’t finish. Footsteps cut her sentence clean.
Jack’s shadow stretches across the wall like a stain. Lucas shoves her—no warning—into an open dumpster. The lid claps shut above her head.
“Hey!” she wants to shout.
But she doesn’t. Not with Jack this close.
Metal clangs. Lucas intentionally kicks over a line of bins.
“This way, you coward!” he taunts.
Alicia curls in on herself. Something wet drips from a bag onto her hair. Smells like expired stew. And humiliation. She presses a hand over her mouth.
Lucas’s bandages flashed across her mind—coming loose—white fur pushing through.
He’s changing? In an alley? Now? Seriously?
Jack’s boots thunder after him.
Alicia climbs out the second the coast feels thin and limps deeper down the alley. Her phone buzzes. Unknown number:
[At the station. Isabella and Lillian are safe. —Officer]
It must be that cop who tipped them off earlier.
She barely starts typing when—
Her phone disappears.
Jack stands next to her, holding it. Smiling like he owns oxygen.
“A cop? Raymond, right? Took the Sanctifiers’ money. Thought no one noticed.”
He smashes her phone against the wall.
Glass bursts.
“Now,” he says softly, too softly, “take me to the vault.”
She retreats until her back hits a rusted metal door. Her fingers sneak behind her, brushing the old latch.
“The key… I—I forgot,” she stammers, pretending to think. “Give me a sec…”
Jack steps closer. “Don’t play—”
She yanks the latch. The door slams forward and clocks him right in the ribs.
Alicia sprints.
Jack’s knife shrieks into the wooden frame a heartbeat later—right where her shoulder had been.
The alley spits her onto a commercial street drowning in people. Evening crowd. Neon reflections. Too many perfumes at once. She slips into a clothing store, grabs the first long coat she sees, and shoves a wig from a mannequin onto her head.
The mirror spits out a stranger with uneven hair. She barely recognizes the panic in her own eyes.
“Ma’am, you need to pay—”
She’s already running toward the back door, stuffing a pair of scissors into the coat pocket.
The parking lot outside feels too open. As she fumbles with a car door handle, someone grabs her. Hard. Hand over her mouth.
She slams an elbow back.
“It’s me,” Lucas hisses.
Up close, his face is a battlefield. Fresh cuts. Dried blood. A weirdly boyish smile. “Nice wig.”
She bites his hand anyway. Reflex. He grunts.
“You didn’t shift?” she mutters.
“Almost did.” He taps his ear. Short black fur bristles there. “Need moonlight.”
He drags her behind a truck.
“Don’t move. Jack’s coming.”
Right on cue, Jack storms into the lot, holding a walkie-talkie.
“Block every road to Morgan Tower. Yes, the tunnels too.”
Alicia’s stomach sinks. The vault entrance sits right under her office.
Lucas nudges her chin toward a building across the lot.
The massive electronic billboard flickers. Breaking news. The police station.
A stretcher being carried out.
A hand slipping from under a white sheet—wearing Lillian’s bracelet. The one she never takes off.
“No…” Alicia whispers. The scissors slide from her pocket to the ground.
Jack materializes behind them like a bad thought.
“Knew you’d see it,” he says. “Raymond lied.”
His knife presses against Lucas’s back.
“Let’s go to the vault. Unless you want to see him on a stretcher next.”
Lucas freezes. His ears twitch—fur spreading. He clenches his fists. Holding himself back. Holding everything back.
Alicia bends down slowly. Picks up the scissors.
Her hands shake, but her jaw doesn’t.
“I’ll take you.”
Lucas turns just enough to flash her a tiny gesture—barely a flick of fingers.
The wolf clan sign he taught her in the abandoned factory.
Stall until midnight.
Midnight. Full moon.
Jack’s walkie hisses.
A whining voice, snake-like:
“Jack. Bring me the box. Or your sister’s medicine stops tonight.”
Sebastian.
Jack pales. Actually pales.
Alicia had never imagined he could look scared.
She tightens her fingers around the scissors.
For the first time tonight, the chessboard shifts.
Not just her life.
Not just Lucas’s.
Jack bleeds too.
And now she knows where.
- Writer
