HIS WHITE LUNA

Chapter 8 - THE HAND

"Sebastian."

My white eyes were bright enough to make the detective drop his taser. It clattered on the dirt road, sparking.

The radio kept screaming.

"DETECTIVE MILLER! PRINCIPAL VALENTINA IS— STATIC — NEED BACKUP — STUDENTS ATTACKING —"

Then a second voice cut through the static. Not security. Her.

Valentina.

But wrong. Breathing hard. Like she was running.

"—Isla? Isla, can you hear me? Don't come back to the school! Don't—"

A thump. A choked sound.

Then a different voice. Calm. Smiling.

"She can't come to the phone right now."

Sebastian.

The four of us froze. Even Harrison.

It didn't seem like it was good. It seemed like it was already too late.

We instantly regretted leaving her. We had left her in that chapel fog to deal with parents and police and we thought we were saving her from seeing us. We were stupid.

Brayden's hand found mine. Silver blood already at his nostril.

"You know we both need to go," he said, looking at Harrison, not me. Alpha to Seer. That was their thing. The two who had to make the ugly decisions.

Harrison nodded once, gold still blazing, and looked at the detective who was still on the ground where his taser fell.

The detective was staring at us. At my white eyes. At Harrison's gold. At Ethan flickering in and out like a bad signal. At Brayden's silver blood.

He finally found his voice.

"Who are you?" he said. Not cop voice anymore. Just a man voice. Scared man voice.

Brayden stepped forward, wiped his silver blood on his sleeve, and did the thing he does when he wants humans to listen. He made his eyes brown. Normal. He made his voice normal.

"Trust me, I'm just some guy," he said smartly, calm honor-roll voice back on. "But there's someone at Willow High far more dangerous and is causing harm to your kind. The call you just got? That's him. He's not doing gas leak. He's doing... he's changing them."

The detective's eyes snapped to him. "Your kind?" he repeated, more taken aback this time. He looked at his own hands, then at us, like the words themselves were poison. "What does that mean — your kind?"

Harrison groaned, and for a second he was just Harrison, not Alpha, rolling his eyes so hard his gold flickered.

"Not so smart, Bray," he hissed, grabbing Brayden's backpack strap. "We are supposed to keep our cover, not blow it up. My father has spent fifty years making sure humans think 'anomaly' means gas leak and football contacts. You just told him we are not his kind."

Brayden yanked his strap back, silver blood now down his chin, and he wasn't playing honor-roll anymore.

"Don't be stupid," he snapped at Harrison, and that shut Harrison up because Brayden never snaps. "They're not children. They already know we are not normal. He saw your eyes. He saw Ethan go invisible. He heard Valentina. We just have to make them know we are on their side, or he wins. Sebastian wants them to think WE are the monsters turning their kids."

That hit the detective.

He looked at the radio, screaming still. He looked at us — four kids in school uniforms, hands up, scared, bleeding silver, eyes glowing, but standing between him and whatever was at that school.

Slowly, he picked up his taser. And put it down. On safety.

He pressed his radio.

"Miller to dispatch. Cancel backup to dirt road. Redirect all units to Willow High. Possible hostile at school. Principal Valentina in danger. I have four juveniles with me, possible witnesses, bringing them in."

He looked at us. "You get in my SUV. You don't run. If you're lying, I will lock you up myself."

Harrison smiled, sharp. "Fair enough."

Then the detective and his two officers got into their SUV and zoomed off, lights blazing, dirt spraying, sirens screaming for Willow High.

The four of us followed suit. ALPHA1 right behind them, engine roaring like an animal.

---

Willow High was chaos.

Not evacuation chaos. That was orderly. This was nightmare.

The gates were open. Parents' cars abandoned mid-road. The argon fog was gone, burned off, but the air smelled like ozone and copper.

And the humans — the human students — were wrong.

They stood in the courtyard in front of the old chapel, dozens of them, shoulders hunched, faces hideous. Not faces anymore. Skin stretched too tight, veins black like ink rivers, eyes completely black, no white, mouths open too wide with too many teeth. Paranormal. Mind-controlled. All facing the chapel like soldiers waiting for command.

Sebastian's army.

Harrison slammed the car door and his claws came out without him meaning to, scraping the door.

"That freak," he said as they ran, gold eyes full, "he won't even let the people keep their pretty face. Has to make them ugly because he feels ugly inside."

We had to help somehow. Even though we knew we were part of something bigger now and realized we were no longer human — not really — we knew this used to be our school for a very long time. I had math in Room 3. Ethan had eaten lunch on those steps. Brayden had won debate here. Harrison had been crowned Alpha here.

We couldn't watch them wear our friends.

A girl — Maya, from chemistry, who once lent me a pencil — turned her head 180 degrees too far and shrieked and lunged at us.

Ethan went fully invisible and tackled her mid-air. They rolled. He reappeared, bleeding from his lip, but Maya stood up like it was nothing. Strong. Hideous but strong. Ten times human strength.

We tried to pull them back, to hold them. Brayden grabbed a boy and tried to talk to him, Seer voice calm, but the boy's black eyes didn't clear. He punched Brayden so hard Brayden flew back, silver blood spraying from his mouth now too.

"Don't hurt them!" I screamed, white eyes flashing, my hands glowing. "They're still in there!"

"They're not!" Harrison shouted, wrestling two boys at once, pinned against the chapel wall, teeth bared, but he wouldn't bite. He wouldn't. Because if he bit a human kid, he'd turn him. "Sebastian hollowed them! They're empty!"

And Sebastian was nowhere to be found. No suit. No smile on air. Just his work.

We were losing. Four against sixty and they didn't feel pain.

I ran to help Ethan, who was pinned under Maya, her black-nailed hands around his throat. I grabbed her shoulders — my white light burned her skin and she shrieked, black smoke — but another boy grabbed me from behind.

I fell. Hard. Palms scraping, knees bleeding, same spot as before.

Harrison was pinned down somewhere far, shouting my name, gold eyes wild, but three hideous football players held his arms and legs.

Brayden was on his knees, silver blood pouring from nose and eyes, overloaded.

Ethan was choking.

The others weren't close.

A hand grabbed my ankle. Cold. Black veins. Maya again. Nails digging.

She pulled me.

I gasped. Eyes shut awaiting my fate. I waited for teeth in my throat. For the black to take me too.

Then I heard a hit.

THWACK.

Wet. Hard. Like a bat hitting meat.

The hand let go.

My eyes opened.

A woman in a torn blazer, hair wild, lipstick smeared, knuckles bleeding and raw, standing over Maya's twitching body, holding a broken piece of chapel pew like a baseball bat. Breathing hard. Gold eyes blazing.

"Teenagers," she said, voice shaking with rage, not fear, looking down at me on the ground, "Take my hand before I change my mind."

I followed the extended hand to the face.

Alive. Bruised. Furious.

Valentina.

Behind her, the entire courtyard of sixty black-eyed students turned as one, in perfect, silent sync, to stare at me on the ground.