The early morning spring sun dangled overhead, its rays spilling into the house—as if in a strange contest of might. Kevin came and stood at the entrance. He rested his hand on the rough paintwork that coated the door and pushed.
The room, partially illuminated, was warm, and the warmth found his face. Far across, away from the reach of the sunlight, on a leather couch next to the curtained door, sat Cedric. His attention was fixed wholly on a magazine that he held.
Kevin walked into the room and shut the door, sealing off every trace of sunlight. It became dark in the room. He walked past Cedric without so much as a glance.
“Where have you been?” Cedric demanded, eyes still fixed on the magazine.
He stopped in his path, turned to look at him and said nothing.
“You didn’t come home last night,” he finally took his eyes off the magazine and fixed them on him. “Why?”
“There was something I needed to take care of.”
“You mean this?” He threw the magazine on the table in front of him.
The slaughter of Pittsburgh gang still under investigation, the headline read in bold letters.
Kevin glanced over it, his eyes widening at the headline. His expression became numb.
“Why did you do it?” His voice was calm and controlled.
“Those guys are maniacs, sex predators and drug addicts.”
“That’s why we have the police.”
“Do you know how many women have fallen prey to these assholes?”
“Doesn’t matter. Let the cops do their job!”
It turned into an intense argument.
“I couldn’t let this one go. Those assholes messed with someone I care about. And besides, I did the cops a favour—ridding them of those vermin.”
“Did you stop for a moment to think what your actions could do to us?” he mused, before raising his voice. “Because of this, they will intensify effort to hunt us down and put an end to all our kind here in this city.” Cedric stood up and walked to him. “Do you really want to be burnt alive if you are discovered?”
After a long silence between them, Kevin said, “One of them already knows.”
“What?” he exclaimed. “How could you let that happen?”
“His name’s Derik, and he works with TCU.”
“Then we need to do what must be done before it’s too late.” Cedric, ill at ease, spat.
“No!” he immediately rebuked him. “We will not kill him. That’s not what we are. We do not kill people! Right now I need him by my side if I’m going to put down T-Murek, and he’s promised to help.”
“You asked for his help?” Cedric barked.
He let out a self-depreciating chuckle and said, “Would you rather I kill him?”
He stifled a groan. “You are willing to risk your neck by trusting this Derik?”
Kevin said nothing. He knew if this conversation continued, it would erupt into a more intense argument, and he was not about to let that happen.
“There is something I need to tell you,” he deviated from the subject. “And promise me your absolute discretion.”
A line appeared between his brows. “What is it?”
“Just promise you won’t tell a soul about it.”
Cedric stifled a groan and made a gesture with his fingers. “It’s a promise.”
In the silence that followed, he said, “There is a secret shifter society I asked Derik to investigate. They call themselves Beocraft. I believe T-Murek is also a member.”
Cedric recoiled in shock, eyes widening. “Beocraft?” he mouthed, voice deepening. “How did you find out about that? Have you been sneaking into my room?” he snarled at him. Eyes grew fierce and his mood became foul.
Kevin, puzzled by Cedric’s sudden outburst, bristled at the accusation. “No!” he denied, momentarily confused.
Cedric’s hardened face gave no clue of the cause of his rage. “How then did you find out about Beocraft?” he squeezed his shirt, dragging him close, voice getting louder. “Who told you about it!?” he fumed, feeling nettled by Kevin’s snoopiness.
Kevin, taken aback by this rage, saw how pissed he was and became vulnerable in his awkwardness. “Leonard,” he immediately answered out of fear of what Cedric might do to him. “His name’s Leonard. He was the detective assigned to Loretta's case.”
Cedric, only just realizing that he was overreacting, let go of him, his rage subsiding, then he walked away from him, struggling to calm his rapidly heaving chest.
Kevin, dumbfounded, stared with confused eyes, his breathing apace. He still couldn’t understand what had just happened. What had caused him to react in that way?
“You know Beocraft?”
His question was met with a blank stare.
Suddenly his stomach knotted with dread, and Kevin blinked in surprise when he finally figured it out. “You are one of them, aren’t you?”
Cedric said nothing.
Oh my God.
His body stiffened as he sucked back a deep, quick breath. An icy shiver raced down his spine. “You are a member of Beocraft,” he said it this time with absolute certainty.
Cedric turned to look at him coldly, without uttering a word. He held his gaze for a moment. The silence grew overwhelming.
Kevin, panic-stricken, shuffled away from him. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked in a quivering voice.
Cedric took a seat, and after a long silence, he finally spoke. “If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you a long time ago.”
He swallowed hard at the response.
“Tell me, what do you already know about us?” His words were calm and harmless—made Kevin feel he had nothing to fear from him.
“Leonard said Beocraft is a community of dangerous, high-profiled shifters who keep their activities secret from the public. But I'd like to believe they are more than that. Why do you belong to such a dangerous organization, anyway?”
“We are not dangerous; we are something far from that. We are visionaries,” he started off.
They killed Murphy, he reminded himself, but hesitated to say it aloud.
Cedric went on. “Beocraft is a community of high profiled male and female shifters who have distinguished themselves in the society as icons. By this I mean famous and wealthy individuals such as doctors, mayors, professors as well as those vested with political or military power.”
“I’ve never known you to be a man of high profile. How is it you are a member of this organisation?”
“There is a lot you still do not know about me,” he cast a momentary glance at him, then turned away. “Long time ago, before I met you, I served as a provost marshal general in Fallout’s military force, but now I’m retired.”
Kevin was shocked. “How is it that I never knew of this?” he wanted to say, but then another thought formed in his restless mind. “Wait a minute… is Mayor Ramsey also a member?” It would make perfect sense if Ramsey was also a part of this organisation since he seats at the peak of power in Burnout.
Cedric waved a smile at his ignorance. “Only a shifter can become a part of us, and the mayor just isn’t a shifter.”
###
Kevin quickly took out his laptop and placed it open in front of him. He surfed the internet with ‘Beocraft’ as his search word. The search result showed nothing related to what he was looking for. It only made him frustrated and kept his curiosity growing.
Kevin knew there was something Cedric wasn’t telling him. The way Cedric had reacted earlier made him feel even more suspicious of him. He closed the laptop and reminisced over his earlier conversation with Cedric—particularly about the way he’d reacted when he had wrongly accused him of sneaking into his room.
There was no doubt Cedric was hiding something in his room, but what? Whatever it was, it had to be huge—something he did not want him to know about. His empty hand thrummed nervously over his laptop. He knew he wouldn’t get any peace of mind until he figured out what it was he was hiding in his room.
Cedric’s words rattled in his mind.
There is a lot you still do not know about me.
Then he realized he’d never been to Cedric’s room. Not once. Cedric never allow him enter his room, and he wondered why?
No kidding—there is still a lot I do not know about him.
Shady, dressed in prison uniform, sat on an old, beat-up bench, glaring at Frank, who sat directly opposite. He sat with his arms cuffed, watching as Frank scatter several registers on the desk which separated them; he was searching for a particular file. They have been this way for the past ten minutes since he was pulled out of his prison cell.Shady groaned with impatience. “How much longer do I have to wait?” he said impatiently, keeping the heat in his voice at a low simmer. “It’s been like forever.”Frank ignored him, then singled out a card stock sheet from the bunch and glanced through it, nodding in satisfaction when he confirmed it is the file he had been searching for. Then he read the name on the file aloud, “Mr Shade Casper…”“Shady,” the thug corrected him.Frank read again, glancing at him momentarily, “Mr Shady…”He stifled a groan. “Just Shady is
The figure, clad in a black baggy garment, sauntered down the passageway. Something about the way he walked struck Kevin as odd—he walked as if his feet were controlled. This inspired horror in Kevin. He felt an unnatural energy engulfing him. The fear spiralled through every nerve in his body, and he wondered what was going on. What is that thing? Thereafter, he heard the door open, then clang! All was calm again. After the hooded figure had vanished through the main door, he quickly ran to Cedric’s room to see if he was ok. Standing in the doorway, he called out Cedric’s name in a hushed voice but found that he wasn’t in his room. No one was. Kevin’s eyes were drawn to an empty suitcase lying on the table close beside the bed. He blanched, and his eyes became wide as though he’d seen a ghost. Then he returned his horror-stricken gaze to the passageway, and it all began to piece together. The hooded figure… is Cedric. He felt his heart pounding as he stood there in a dilemma. Now
Gasping, Kevin bolted away from the door to the side and pressed his back against the wall, heart throbbing within his chest, legs trembling. After a minute, he stooped to steal a peek through the keyhole. When he did, he found himself staring into the bloodshot eyes of the hideous creature. It stood behind the door, peeking through the keyhole, watching him.Kevin trembled as he stared into the creature’s deeply colored eyes. Gasping, he fell backward, his body frozen all over in fear. He dropped to the cold floor—chest heaving, shuffling away from the door. Glancing upward at the keyhole, he saw the large, red eyeball move to focus its gaze on him.Kevin was alarmed and immediately sensed danger. The creature kept staring at him through the keyhole with fierce eyes. That wasn’t right. Why is he just standing there, behind the door, doing nothing—only staring?The answer didn’t come quickly, but the voices in his head told him to r
Kevin was dumbstruck, and his eyes went round as he turned to meet his gaze. He is also a shifter? He could never have guessed. Derik went on, “My mom and dad died a few years after I was born.” His body stiffened as he sucked back a deep, quick breath. “They were shifters too.” Kevin felt a pang of sympathy for him and said, “My heart goes out to them.” Derik said nothing. Tears threatened to form in his eyes. “I didn’t even get to know my parents.” Kevin thought sharing his own story might let him see that his own case wasn’t unique. “T-Murek killed them before I came of age, and he is out to torture me the same way he’d tortured them. He is just waiting until my twenty-fifth birthday to do it. He wants to fulfil a promise he made to my mother several years ago.” Suddenly, they heard a car horning ahead, and Derik looked up at the road, his eyes widening at the approaching truck. He quickly realized he was driving in t
Leonard’s body was covered in cuts and bruises, his mouth frozen in an open scream. Strands of veins were visible across his neck, and his bloodshot eyes were wide open, staring at the crowd in a way that made most of the people that gathered there uncomfortable. Just like Murphy, his chest was torn open, and his ribs were visible. His heart hung from his chest. The corpse appeared pale from losing too much blood. Struck with revulsion, Kevin quickly turned to look away, tears forming in his eyes. He never could have believed this would happen to Leonard barely two days after discovering Murphy’s corpse in that warehouse. Several seconds later, having made peace with the fact that Leonard was truly gone, he slowly turned to look at the body which lie in the same spot Mirabel’s body had once lay. His fingers folded into a tight fist as he forced himself to look away. But he couldn’t. His gaze remained fixed on the corpse, tears sliding down his cheek, lips trembling.
He stood from the bench and trudged towards the birds. And as he neared, he noticed they were the same crows from his dream. Only inches away, the crows stopped to stare at Kevin in a way that struck him as odd.He quivered at the sight of their scary red eyes looking up at him and stopped dead in his track. They let out loud caws, as though they perceived him as a threat. Then they spread their wings and found flight.Almost immediately, a flurry breeze blew in his direction, brisk, cool. Kevin heard a voice from the wind call out Natasha’s name in a faint whisper. The voice was clear as day. He’d heard the same voice last night—in his dream. There was no mistake.Kevin’s eyes widened when he suddenly realized he was reliving a moment—a moment that had already happened in his dream. Suddenly, he realised what was going to happen next. Heart pounding against his chest, he took out his phone to call Derik.“Derik&h
They rushed William to the hospital, and the doctors immediately started operating on him upon arrival. While Derik and Kevin sat outside the operating room, waiting nervously with their fingers crossed, some security men stood in the background, keeping an eye on them.Kevin sat on a bench, gently tapping his feet against the floor. He squinted uneasily at Natasha who paced the room nervously. Her lips were restless as she said silent prayers for her dad’s quick recovery. He felt an urge to put his arms around her.But if he did, what would it lead to?Derik turned to gaze at her as she paced, then clutched her arm. “Don’t fret over it. Worrying won’t make your dad get better any faster,” he said. “Try to relax. It will help calm your nerves.”Natasha took a seat beside him—directly opposite Kevin. But that didn’t stop her worries; she fidgeted in her seat still. And her gaze found Kevin. They e
“T-Murek had also targeted Natasha’s dad,” Derik pointed out, looking over an unmarked photograph of William that hung on the wall. “But why?”“Warn him of the grave danger he’s in.”Derik took out his phone to capture the photograph of William on the wall, then made a video recording with his phone of every photograph in the room.Another photograph caught Kevin’s eyes. His stomach knotted with dread when he saw it was a picture of himself. It was placed alongside Natasha’s. Both were unmarked. He took down his photograph from its frame and stared with confused eyes. He tried to recall when he had taken this picture—eyes widened when it finally hit him.A week ago.Back there in principal Mac Georgery’s office, when he’d signed the enrolment form, his photograph had been taken and stored in the school register. He felt a shiver race down his spine when he