Chapter 8

The directions that Ariel memorized were harder to follow than she had hoped. This was mainly ly because this was a part of town she didn't know well, and she was here at night. It was not well maintained and a lot of the houses on this side of town looked abandoned, or they belonged to elderly citizens that did not maintain their property well due to their advanced age. This also meant that no one was going to be paying much attention when people slipped past in the shadows and followed the unlit streets down a long winding driveway that ended at a dilapidated house nearly completely covered in wild ivy.

From the driveway, Ariel could see the dim flickering lights of candles though the thick sheet of ivy, meaning there were openings in the walls of this old house. She guessed that it was most likely windows and as she got close and the wall of ivy was pulled back to reveal a doorway, she knew her guest had to be right.

Austin was the one who opened the way for her, and the two of them exchanged nods as she walked inside. It smelled of stale air, stagnant water, and fungus inside the house, though the room they were in was dry and warm. The pale light from many burning candles around the room revealed several others that had already arrived. Sarah, Oscar, and Jane were among those that she knew well, a long with a tall guy with blonde hair named Abraham that she went to school with and a set of twins with black hair and heterochromia. They each had one hazel eye, and one green eye, on opposing sides. It looked as though they simply switched one eye with the other, sharing everything.

Austin stepped back into the room away from the door and Jane sighed. "I guess this is everyone who is attending." She almost muttered, then slipped off the bag she was wearing and began to pull out files.

"When all of us started to get sick at the discontinuation of our medication, our parents told us that it was because of the heavy metal poisoning. It seemed weird to me that's what they were claiming it was, because when I searched it online, the symptoms were not matching up." She began to explain.

"So I dug deeper and deeper, and I could not find anything on a mass heavy metal poisoning. We've all seen the arrivals from our own hometown, but there is nothing from outside out town." She went on.

"That doesn't really prove anything." One of the twins interjected. Her twin and Jane nodding in agreement.

"You're right. So I decided to look more into the incident, but aside from the articles we've all seen, there is nothing else. So I went to the library, but still there was nothing there. You would think that such a large disaster in our town would be well documented, but it's not." Jane laid out the last file as she finished talking.

"What I did find, in the basement of the library, were these files. The basement itself was pretty covered in dust, but the boxes these were in looked brand new. It was as if they were being maintained and used regularly."

Everyone in the room looked at the files, and the words written on the covers. 'Confidential. Authorized use only.' Ariel knew this meant these documents were very important, but what did Jane see that she had to show as many people as she could find.

As if reading her mind, Jane opened the top file and on it in large letter was the truth of the files. 'Werewolf Studies. The best ways to exploit the weaknesses of our enemies.'