Alice and I looked at each other in surprise, both of us caught off-guard by the other’s sudden appearance.

Then she rushed towards me and did something unexpected.

She gave me a big hug.

“Uh, what?” Dee said.

We both ignored him.

Alice broke the hug after a few seconds.

“Ethan? Thank god I’ve found you. The Pryces have gone mad. We have to stop them.”

I’d been wondering what had happened to Alice. I’d half-expected to find her imprisoned, like the rest of us.

“Wait, you knew about this place?” I said, stepping back. I was suspicious. The last time I’d seen Alice she’d behaved like Victoria’s best friend, and now here she was switching sides?

It wasn’t easy for me to trust anyone by that point, hug or no hug.

The non-metaphorical blood on her hands wasn’t inspiring a lot of confidence, either. Noticing my look, Alice did a double take at her bloodied hands and swiftly wiped them on her jeans.

“No, not exactly,” Alice replied. “I knew there was something down here, but Victoria never allowed me access. I swear I didn’t know about this part of the underground.”

“Go on,” I said. Wary.

“Ethan,” Dee said, pulling me to one side, “that’s a vampire.”

“I know. I told you about her, remember?”

“Yeah, the hot one who probably put a glamour on you to make you like her. You can’t trust a vampire, period.”

“A glamour?” Alice said, “Oh please, I wouldn’t have the first clue how to do that. I don’t even know if vampires can do that.”

“Yeah, right,” Dee scoffed. “How old are you?”

“I’m seventeen, thank you very much. You?”

Dee scowled.

I pulled away from Dee and turned back to Alice. “Explain.”

“I was investigating the Pryces. I knew something was going on here, but wasn’t sure what. When I first got here, I needed sanctuary. But over the last few weeks I began to get suspicious.”

“Why didn’t they lock you up with everyone else?” I pressed on.

“Honestly? I think Victoria just likes me. You know what she can be like. She takes a shine to certain people when it suits her.”

“So, wait, she trusted you. Now you’re betraying her, but now we should trust you?” Dee said.

“Or perhaps she didn’t lock me up because she didn’t trust me,” Alice backtracked. “I don’t honestly know. I think maybe she was suspicious of me, underneath everything. Wasn’t sure if I’d been sent as a mole or not. It doesn’t matter right now. The point is, I saw you getting taken away and found my way down here to get you out.”

“Why?”

“I owe you one, remember?”

“Oh no,” Dee said. “Ethan, whatever she’s selling, don’t buy it. She’s a vampire, not to be trusted.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Alice replied. “Don’t mind me rescuing you and stuff.”

“We were doing fine without you. Ethan, seriously: Vampire.”

“Yeah, Dee, I know, but tonight we’re all making strange allies, okay? Alice is okay. And we need all the help we can get to stop the Pryces and rescue Jess. Get the others, tell them the coast is clear.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Dee scowled again but did as I told him, running back along the gantry to Major Wilson and Balthazar, who in the meantime had kept their truce.

“There’s a control room along the corridor,” Alice replied. “There were only three guards. Victoria has taken the rest to Avebury. They’re evacuating the village with some bogus story about a gas leak. She’s gone manic, Ethan. I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Yeah, I’d noticed. Have you seen Jess?”

“Jess?”

“Redheaded girl, my age. Cute freckles.”

“No.”

“She’s in trouble. Victoria has her locked up somewhere in the mansion.”

“I don’t think so,” Alice replied. “There’s no-one left in the mansion. Everyone has gone to the stones. She didn’t leave anyone behind, apart from three guards down here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. We were all told to go to the standing stones.”

“How come you didn’t go?”

“I slipped away. Easy for me.”

I wasn’t entirely buying what Alice was telling me. Maybe I was being paranoid, or maybe I was wising up. I’d been lied to so many times in the last few weeks that I was finding it impossible to take anything at face value. My gut told me that there was more to this than Alice was letting on, something she was hiding.

On the other hand, she had just busted me out of prison, so I couldn’t be too hard on her.

“Ethan, we have to stop them.”

“I know. Look, we have a plan, but...”

“Who is ‘we’?” Alice asked. Her eyes widened with rage as Major Wilson stepped into the room, and she vamped out, “YOU!”

I grabbed Alice before she could try to tear out Major Wilson’s throat and slammed her against the wall, pressing against her chest with my forearm. Alice looked startled at the speed and strength I’d displayed. Her face was a sudden mask of fury and teeth.

“Alice, stop, right now. He’s on our side until this is over. Okay?”

“Are you serious?” Alice hissed. “He nearly killed me!”

“Yeah, you and me both. Right now we need him and until this is over. Afterwards, you can do whatever you want, but there are bigger things to deal with right now.”

Alice thought about it, then shifted back to her human form. Held up her hands.

“Okay, Ethan. You’re the boss,” she said. Her tone was borderline flirtatious.

I let her go. She turned to Major Wilson. “When this is over, I’m coming for you.”

“Join the queue,” Major Wilson snapped back.

“Actually, I’m first in line,” Balthazar said.

“Why don’t we make it a three-way?” Alice glowered.

“Seriously, there is no time for this,” I said. “Alice, show us the way to the control room.”

With a final dirty glare at Wilson and Balthazar, Alice led the way. We followed her to the prison’s control room. The bodies of three guards lay on the floor.

“You killed them?”

“What did you expect me to do? They tried to shoot me as soon as I showed up. It was self-defence.”

I looked at the three dead bodies.

One of them had been shot, another had a broken neck, while the third was sitting in a pool of blood, a surprised expression on her face.

I tried to feel something, tried to square it with my conscience. Easy divides between right and wrong weren’t straightforward anymore. If Alice hadn’t killed the guards, we’d still be trapped in the prison, could have spent the rest of our lives there. I remembered the shock with which I’d seen my first dead body three weeks earlier, in the attack on Section 13, my fury with Wilson for his execution of Brooks.

Now I felt numb. Three people had died, and it barely affected me.

Was this what it felt like to be a soldier? Was this what I was turning into? Someone, something, as unfeeling as Major Wilson?

“Save the ethics debate for later, Ethan,” Alice said, as if she’d read my mind. “I killed them because they gave me no choice.”

My expression must have given more away than I’d intended.

“And that’s all I did to them,” Alice said. “I didn’t feed on them. That’s a line I’ll never cross.”

I sighed, nodded, turned my head away. Avoided eye contact with the attractive vampire who’d just brutally murdered three people.

Major Wilson picked up an assault rifle from one of the corpses. Checked the ammo, checked down the sight. Satisfied, he strapped it over his shoulder.

“I already told you, Ethan,” he said. “People are going to die tonight. You’d better get used to that idea right now or walk away.”

“And you’re okay with that? Actual humans dying instead of supernaturals?”

“Right now, there’s worse out there than the creatures in here. I might not like it, but stopping the Pryces is the mission. It always has been my mission, remember? And now the stakes are higher than I thought possible. If beating Victoria and Vincent means working with these vermin, then so be it. The soldiers out there have sided with the Pryces and made their choices.”

For a few minutes I’d thought perhaps Major Wilson had softened his stance on supernaturals. He hadn’t. He was just working tactically with what was at his disposal to neutralise a bigger threat. I had no doubt that if he thought he could finish this on his own, he would have executed every single supernatural imprisoned here without hesitation.

I wasn’t sure if he’d have included me in that category. I wasn’t sure if he’d include himself in that category, as I still didn’t know what effect the werewolf serum had had on him.

As for the prisoners; none of them knew who Major Wilson was, apart from being the new governor. Things could well have been very different if they’d known he was the former head of Section 13.

Wilson went to the control panel and flipped a switch. Through the observation window, we saw all the lights in the prison switch on. Major Wilson flicked more switches. Containment units unlocked. Cell doors swung open. Figures stepped out of their cells into the light, confused and disorientated at their sudden awakening.

Major Wilson switched on the tannoy.

“This is your governor speaking...” he began.