Page 85 of After Darkness Falls

“If you want to help your friend, let’s clear the beasts,” Levi told her.

She seemed to agree.

The woman launched herself at them with a battle cry. Levi was no less brutal. He hated losing lives, even those he didn’t know. Hence why he remained on his hill, in his tower, behind a red door. Out here, people died, or worse.

One head ripped off. A knife through a heart. A kick so hard it cracked a skull. One after the next, they fell, until there was silence.

Levi turned to the huntsman. Bash.

He’d given up standing and was now panting hard.

His friends were approaching.

“Stay away,” Bash said before Levi could caution them against getting too close. “I feel…”

Levi knew how he felt.

He took one step. Right away, four weapons were unsheathed as the huntsmen focused on him.

They knew what his kind did to those who were turned when they wished to be kind. Give them a quick death.

He held his hands up in the air.

“I won’t hurt him. I can make him sleep, however. He won’t feel pain through the change.”

“Is that a euphemism for death? Try, bloodsucker. We’ll see who’ll go to sleep.”

They certainly didn’t lack guts.

“Children, quiet. I don’t intend to dispense with a perfectly good test subject.”

Cold, but true. And hopefully, it would get the point across.

“I keep ferals for observation while I work on a cure. If we take him to my lab…”

“Is there one?” Tris asked, her voice breaking. “A cure?”

Levi shook his head. “Not yet.”

He wished he could give a different answer, but he wasn’t one to lie.

“I want to go. In the lab. I want to go,” Bash said, proving to be the wisest of the five.

Levi walked forward again, pulling one of Alexius’s potions out of his jacket, glad he’d taken to keeping the sleeping draught with him.

“Drink this.”

The huntsman obeyed, and faded almost right away.

Now that this immediate potential threat was dealt with, Levi listened to his surroundings. No more large groups, but he heard and felt plenty of intruders.

He pulled keys out of his pocket and threw them at the fledgling.

“You should be able to slip out now, if you take the ravine west. Head to Night Hill, last house before Skyhall. When you go in, there’s a study to the right. You’ll find suitable restraints in the chest of drawers. Do not leave him without chains.”

The girl nodded. He hoped she obeyed. Students turning feral en masse was the last thing he needed right now.

One huntsman carried each of Bash’s arms, a third walked in front, and the fourth closed the circle as they walked away. Levi started to hunt.

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