Chris

I was surprised Charlie finally agreed to let the humans stay, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. Everyone waited for me inside and I didn't want to waste any more time. The room seemed even more packed than it was a few minutes ago. Was I really going to get anywhere having to teach all these people?

"Oh, good! You're finally back," Mary called as she made her way through the room towards me. Relief washed over me when I noticed her. At least I wouldn't have to do this alone.

"Yeah, sorry for taking so long. You know how Charlie can be," I said sheepishly. Turning my attention to the loud crowd of people crammed inside here, I clapped as loud as I could in hopes I could gather all of their attention. In just seconds, all eyes were trained on me. Perfect. "So we're going to start the lesson off on handling weapons you all seem to use a lot - daggers."

Mary and I started pulling out the training dummies from the closets where they're stored. After pulling out all fifteen, I had her help me arrange them into a large circle. Everyone gathered around the circle of dummies and I made my way into the center of the circle holding a dagger in each hand. I flipped them mid-air a few times, always managing to catch them by the hilt in my skilled hands. I wasn't originally planning on showing off to the humans, but if an opportunity such as this one is given to me, of course I have to take it.

"Watch and learn," I told them all with a smirk. Counting down from three in my head, I unleashed a volley of attacks once I hit zero. I made my way around the whole circle of dummies stabbing and slashing each one as I went by. In less than a minute, each dummy had a new, deep hole in it. Panting heavily, I couldn't help but grin at the applause the humans were giving me.

Who ever said showing off was a sin?

Mary shook her head at me as she walked over, but even she couldn't restrain a smile at my little show. Grabbing the training dummies once again, we arranged them into a neat line side by side to each other. It was their turn now.

I skimmed my eyes across the humans standing in the room and noticed that some of them didn't have a weapon visible on them. I quickly made my way to the back of the room and pulled out the drawer which held an array of spare daggers used for practice.

"Anyone who doesn't have a weapon on them can grab one here," I called to them.

Several people made their way over to me to grab a weapon for themselves. I couldn't help but notice one guy who had his eyes trained on a sword that was on display.

"The swords are for later," I told him, motioning my head towards the others to tell him to go back to the crowd. I couldn't blame the guy for being curious, though. After all, swords were my favorite weapon, too.

Once everyone had a dagger, I walked back over to the dummies until I was standing in front of them and facing the crowd of people.

"Alright, guys," I said with a clap of my hands. "I want you all to practice taking turns with stabbing the dummies. Everyone make a small line in front of each dummy."

It took a minute or so, but eventually, everyone was in a line of six or seven in front of each dummy. On my command, they began taking turns stabbing their assigned dummy. Mary took the left side to watch while I watched the right. It honestly dumbfounded me how these people have been able to survive the Hunters this long. They were so awful.

Most people couldn't even get their dagger to sink half way into the dummy, let alone make it all the way to the hilt like I could. I understand the materials the dummies were made out of made it difficult to cut through, but I expected a lot more people to manage to do it. Boy, was I disappointed.

Impatience flared up in me as I watched one girl struggle to sink her blade deeper into the dummies neck. Releasing an exasperated sigh, I walked up to her and pulled the dagger out of her hands causing a look of fear to appear on her face.

"Look, your opponent isn't just going to calmly stand there and wait for you to stab them correctly. How do you expect to go up against the Hunters if your physical strength is lacking?"

The girl's mouth quivered as she desperately tried to think of something to say back to me. It wasn't my intention to frighten her, but she just needed to hear the truth. I'm teaching them how to fight - not performing miracles. Although, a miracle is what these people needed in order to be able to survive the Hunters.

"Hey, it's okay," Mary said, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder. "This is why everyone is here. We'll make sure you get better."

After making the girl feel better, Mary pulled me to the side with a frown on her face. A frown was an extremely rare thing to see from her. That's how I knew I was in trouble.

"You can't be so hard on them!" she told me, looking disappointed in me. Ugh, I hate that look she gives me whenever I've done something wrong.

"I'm sorry, okay? It's just a little frustrating teaching people who have little to no experience whatsoever," I replied back as I pushed my hair back.

"You have to remember that they didn't grow up learning to fight like we did. This is a completely new experience for them."

"Yeah. An experience that their life depends on..." I muttered.

Her face immediately softened and she gave me a sympathetic look. I may be harsh, but in the end, the one thing I wanted most was for them to all survive.

"You'll teach them well. I know it."

With those words said, she walked back over to her side of the room. Taking a deep breath, I walked back over to the girl and muttered a quick apology before watching the others at work. It took some time, but after about twenty minutes of them rotating their turns, nearly everyone was able to sink their blade half way into the dummies. A proud smile made its way onto my face. Perhaps they weren't so helpless after all.

Reaching the group where Izzy and Austin were, I watched the other four people take their turn. Most of them got it halfway, but Alyssa still struggled with it. Next was Izzy's turn. She easily managed to sink the blade into the dummy's chest, even being able to get it a little past the halfway mark. Not bad at all.

I was about to make my way to the next group when Austin was up next, but the dark look on his face made me stop. I hadn't seen that look on his face since early that morning when Liam died...

Raising his arm up high, he swung it in an arc causing the dagger to plunge into the side of the dummy's neck. What shocked me the most was the fact he managed to sink the blade in all the way to the hilt. He was the first person who managed to do that all day.

"Well, shit, Austin," I said with a laugh. "I hope for my sake that you weren't thinking of me when you stabbed the dummy."

"Trust me, it wasn't you I was thinking of," he mumbled.

My laughter quickly faded away at his remark. It didn't take a genius to realize who he really was thinking of. He wanted revenge on David for murdering his brother. I could only hope that one day, he would get his revenge.

After watching the rest of the groups, I decided it was time to move onto the next lesson. Everyone had improved greatly - far more than I expected from any of them, really. If only they'll be able to excel at the next few lessons up ahead. I was thinking of just saving hand-to-hand combat for later on and just starting the lesson on handling swords right then. As necessary as it was, I wasn't so eager to get into combat training. I couldn't see that lesson ending well at all.

Before I could gather everyone's attention once again, someone else beat me to it and it wasn't exactly a person I was happy to see there.

"Gather around, everyone. I'm going to be your instructor for combat training," Drew called from where he stood on the training mat.

Everyone froze, staring up at him with terrified looks. I couldn't blame them. Even I knew he had no intention on actually teaching them something useful. No, Drew had already made it crystal clear he despised the humans.

"You're not supposed to be here, Drew," I told him coldly. He may be my best friend, but I wasn't going to have him interfere in the training when these humans' lives depended on it.

"I got permission from your brother, himself, though," he replied, a little too cocky for my liking. Of course, Charlie told him he could come here. He probably did it just to spite me for bringing the humans here. Were Mary and Dakota the only one's not angry at me for doing that?

With a scowl on my face, I raised my hands in defeat and took a few steps back where Mary was. I couldn't argue with Drew if Charlie really did give him permission to teach unless I wanted to risk him changing his mind about their stay here. Even so, if Drew got too rough with them, Mary and I were both here to stop him.

"I have a really bad feeling about this," Mary whispered to me. All I could do was nod in response. I kept seeing this situation go bad in so many different scenarios.

"You and you," Drew said, pointing to two different humans. "Go put the dummies away. They're in my way."

Mary and I stepped in quickly, taking the dummies from the two humans and putting them away ourselves. For their sakes, I hoped Drew got tired of teaching soon. He certainly wasn't going to make it easy for them. I made my way over to the sidelines with Mary close behind me as Drew stepped up onto the training mat. The humans crowded around the mat like they were told, but none of them dared to get too close to him.

He opened his mouth to start speaking once again, but he was interrupted before he could. The doors to the training room flung open and running in came Dakota.

"Dammit, Drew. So this is where you went running off to. You promised me you wouldn't bother them!" he said. Drew refused to look at him or any of us to be exact. He knew we were all disappointed in him for doing this.

"Don't interfere," he told us in a steely voice.

Dakota moved to walk towards him, but I grabbed his arm before he could. I knew he meant well, but he could end up causing more harm than good.

"Don't," I warned him, causing him to give me a look of shock. "I don't want him hurting them either, but Charlie could tell him he could teach to get back at me. If we stop him from doing so, he might not let the humans stay. We only stop Drew if he goes too far and injures one of them."

He didn't look too happy about this, but he nodded in agreement anyway. I definitely wasn't too pleased with this course of action either, but it was the only one we had at the moment.

"Enough with the distractions; let's finally get on with the teaching," Drew said, his lips twisting into an ugly smirk. "So who wants to try fighting me first?"

"Oh, no," Mary said softly.

I was afraid he would do this. Still, I couldn't do anything about it until he actually injured someone. I could only hope he wouldn't take it that far.

Everyone was silent. No one dared to move or even utter a single word in fear of getting chosen themselves. Almost twenty seconds passed by when he finally lost his patience in waiting for someone to volunteer themselves to getting beat down.

"No one? Really? Fine then, I'll choose. I want the smart-ass up here," he said as he pointed his finger directly at Austin.

"Who? Me?" he asked sheepishly, holding his hands up in the air. "It's okay, I'll pass on this lesson. I'm more of a lover than a fighter."

"Get up here. Now."

Austin froze. Everyone had their eyes locked on him, including me. That kid may have been good with the daggers earlier, but he didn't have any weapon now. I couldn't see this going well for him even if he wasn't going up against a werewolf. Compared to Drew's well-built body, Austin looked like a twig.

Taking a quick glance over at Mary, she looked terrified. She definitely didn't like how this was looking. "Drew, please, his arm only just healed-"

"Stop interfering!" Drew screamed, cutting her off. I clenched my fists to stop me from marching up there and fighting him myself. I knew why he despised humans so much, but he had no reason to get so mad at Mary over it.

He was staring down Austin, just waiting for him to refuse again. Even Austin knew better than to try getting out of this again. It would only make him angrier and therefore, make it worse for himself. He took a step forward, but before he could move any further, someone else spoke up.

"I'll fight you."

My breath hitched in my chest. Everyone's eyes immediately turned away from Austin and landed on Izzy who stood in front of him. What the hell was she thinking? I know that he wouldn't go easy on her just because she's a girl. Hell, even she had to have known that. His hatred of humans far surpassed whatever small amount of manners he had.

Drew began to laugh loudly, almost as hard as he did when he and Dakota scared the humans earlier. "So the princess wants to fight, huh?"

"Drew-" I tried to say, but my warning got cut short from him.

"Are we seriously going to keep going back and forth like this, Chris?" he asked angrily, throwing his hands up in the air for show. "The princess wants to have a fight so I'm going to give her a fight."

I opened my mouth to say something, but this time Izzy cut me off. She looked over at me and smiled, her face completely relaxed. Either she was a champ at hiding fear, or she was just overly cocky about this.

"Don't worry about me," she said before stepping onto the mat with Drew.

Somehow that just made me worry even more. I kept trying to think of different scenarios of how she could win, but none of the odds in any of scenarios were in her favor. If she was faster than Drew, then maybe she could stand a chance, but I knew he was superior to her in both strength and speed. She was outmatched and nothing could change that.

I wanted to look away before they began to fight, but boy am I glad that I didn't. I was expecting Drew to take a cheap shot at Izzy to end the match quickly. To my surprise, he never did. It was Izzy who did so. Before he could utter even a single word, she kicked out her leg and swept his feet from right under him. In less than a second, he landed on his back with a loud thud.

The room exploded in laughter; even I had trouble containing mine. Mary released a few giggles of her own while Dakota looked a concerned for a few seconds before laughing about it himself. On the other hand, Drew was roaring in anger. Moving my eyes away from him, I tried to find Izzy, but she was nowhere in sight. Even she knew she was screwed after pulling that little stunt.

"Where is she?" Drew screamed as he got back onto his feet. "I'm going to kill that bitch!"

The three of us stepped in immediately knowing that Drew wouldn't hesitate to go through with his threat, but we didn't even get the chance to hold him back from doing so. Before we could even reach the mat, the door to the training room opened to reveal the one person I dreaded the most; my father.