12 The Werewolf and Unah

"Hey! Merribelle! Are you still awake?" Unah whispered to me from her light blue bed with soaking light blue sheets and light blue silk pillowcases (which matched mine).

"Yes." I told her, because I had been having trouble falling asleep, even though I was tired, because I am in a place I don't trust, and feel as if I need to stay alert.

"I think Ausu likes you." Unah told me, and I could feel her smile through the dark.

I immediately went red, and was happy that it was dark so Unah couldn't notice.

There was a long silence, but it wasn't awkward because it was the kind of silence you have when you're tired and want to sleep, but can't and you want to talk to someone, but don't know what to say.

Then Unah broke the silence: "It's a full moon tonight. What if Lord Haundrake sends the werewolf after s… to kill us? maybe we should stay up all night to see if... To watch out for ourselves." She finished.

"No. We should spy and see if we can find out who it is."I told her. when she agreed, we both slowly got out of bed and crossed the room to the door.

Unah reached the door first, and put her hand out, telling me to stay where I was as she slowly opened the door to our room, and peeked out. "Okay. Coast is clear." She whispered, and tiptoed out into the hallway.

I followed her out, and shut our door as silently as I could behind me. For a second I wondered how the rest of the tribe was doing with Haruna as their leader, but I quickly put that thought out of my mind, knowing that I had to focus on the mission ahead of me.

Unah motion for me to follow her down the hallway, so I followed her as quickly as I could without making too much noise.

First Unah led me to the classroom where we had met Hanu, but it was empty. Then we checked the dining room and the entrance hall, but still nothing.

Once we had checked all the rooms Ono had shown us on her tour, and found no one, we went back to our room to talk things over.

"There must be some rooms she didn't show us." Unah whispered thoughtfully.

"Yeah, like secret rooms?" I asked.

"Like secret meeting rooms… ." She enforced, and at first I didn't know what she was talking about, but then remember: Ono hadn't shown us the room with bean bag chairs in it! The one where WE had had our secret meeting four hours ago! (I knew because we had had our meeting at 10 p.m., and now it was 2 a.m. in the morning, but I felt as awake as if it were day).

So, sure that the werewolf must be in that room, me and Unah snuck out for a second time. We ducked below the doors window, but then saw that someone had hung a red cloth over it.

Hearing a snaro from inside told us that whoever the werewolf was, had already transformed.

Then, abruptly the door opened, and instinctively we both ran back to our room and shut the door. "That was way to close." Unah whispered.

"Y-yeah." I agreed, my voice shaking a little as I tried to catch my breath, and my heart was pounding so hard, I felt as if I might faint, but I needed to stay focused. This was a mission, my first mission, and I couldn't mess it up, at least any more than I already have.

I looked through the peephole, and saw a party of people I recognized following Lord Haundrake out of the room: There was Ono, Hanu, a werewolf and… Unah?

I quickly tore my eyes away from the door, and saw Unah behind me.

Oh no! Has Unah been captured by Lord Haundrake this whole time?! And I didn't notice? Then who have I been with all night?

"Who is it? Who's the werewolf?" Unah asked.

If it's not Lord Haundrake, Hanu, or Ono, then it must be… Hanu's teacher Icuna Jasuki!

Panic-stricken with fear and tiredness I raced out of the room without thinking, and smashed into Lord Haundrake, and fell to the floor.

"Oh look who it is? Merribelle Kisumi! Have you come for your sister?" Lord Haundrake asked with an evil smile, his teeth gleaming red, and then everything went dark.