Louis pov

We woke up in the same room where we had "died". Our clothes were stretched and torn in the weirdest places. I kicked at the door in a senseless rampage. The gun I had was gone, and so were Lilac and Kimmi.

"Louis," Harry touched my arm gently, "don't hurt yourself."

"They hurt you." I punched the door.

"Way to make the rest of us feel invisible," Aurora snickered.

"Your knuckles are red." Harry pulled my hands to where he could see them. He blew gently against the raw skin.

"Ah," I gasped. Harry looked at me worriedly. "Pain," I said.

Harry shook his head.

"I shouldn't have led us here," I sighed.

"You didn't know," Harry tried to console me. Even Zayn did not try to argue.

I was so mad at myself, putting all of us in danger. In a fit of rage, I slammed myself against the door. This time I fell right through and into the shop.

"Louis," Harry cried. I stood up, knocking over a display. The glass shattered on the floor. Oops!

"What the fuck is that?" Kimmi shrieked, pointing at me.

I lunged at her. Harry tried to hold me, ripping tufts of fur from my back. Lilac ran in between Kimmi and me, directing her blade at me once again. With an effortless swipe, the blade was whipped out of Lilac's hand and lodged in the wall across the room.

Kimmi jumped up on the counter and drove her foot into my jaw. I fell back, tipping over shelves like dominoes. I was on the ground. Kimmi loomed over me, pinning me down. Once again, wrong girl wrong weapon. I just did not expect the weapon to be a pastel rainbow-coloured boot.

Harry tried to swing at Kimmi but she pushed him away. My fur had receded under my skin. I grabbed Kimmi's ankle, tipping her over onto the ground. Thank goodness for opposable thumbs or that would have been hard to pull off.

I stood up. I was practically growling at Kimmi. "Why did you kill us?"

"You're alive, aren't you?" Kimmi retorted.

"We needed to know if you truly were werewolves," Lilac answered for Kimmi.

"I feel like there are better ways to draw that conclusion," Zayn said what the rest of us were thinking.

"Name one," Kimmi quipped.

"Watching us change," Zayn said.

"You're assuming that we're human. We won't see you change if we're changing too." Lilac shot down the idea.

"CCTV," Liam pitched.

"Yea, and give you the upper hand while we're wolves? No, thank you!"

"CCTV and a cage," Harry posited.

"Yea, because you'd willingly get locked in a cage." Lilac raised her brow. Her expression was tainted in skepticism and disagreement.

"Look, we've thought this through forEVER," Kimmi insisted that this was the best way. She pointed out that none of us were permanently harmed. "No harm, no foul."

I shuddered at the thought that Niall wanted to join us.

"Do you want the cursebreaker or not?" Lilac asked rhetorically. Of course, we did. With that, she held us compliant. "Now help us tidy the shop."

"What?" I was in disbelief.

"You wrecked it. You clean it." Lilac pointed at the mess of broken shelves on the floor.

"You are lucky we would help you," Kimmi hissed, tossing me a broom. Knowing her, I flinched as if she was going to drive it through my heart. The broom fell onto the floor, wood knocking on wood. "You need better hand eye coordination."

Rolling my eyes, I picked up the broom and swept the shards off the ground into a dustpan. The pack helped to collect all the salvageable artefacts and put them in a box. We put up what was left of the display cases. If it were not shattered, it probably had crack lines running down the glass like spiderwebs.

Shaking her head, Lilac dusted the broken pieces of glass off the shelves. When she was done, Kimmi arranged the artefacts neatly in the displays. She was very meticulous about it to make it perfect but also to avoid cutting her hand on the sharp edges.

While clearing up, I came across a wooden box with "Truth Serums" engraved across the front. It was small, about the size of a ring box. I opened it to find 2 tiny bottles. Clutching the box tightly, I snuck into a corner and skimmed over the instruction booklet inside. The truth serums allow you to ask one question per dose. I think two questions would be enough, provided I took some time to properly hypothesise our potential traitors.

"Lou, whatcha looking at?" Harry asked.

"Nothing!" I shut the box and shoved it into my pocket with haste.

"Really?" Harry looked at me expectantly.

"It's really nothing."

"This is the most cleaning I've ever seen from you," Harry teased, changing the subject.

"I don't sweep the floors but I can sweep you off your feet."

"You sure can." Harry kissed me sweetly.

"When you two are done canoodling," Lilac scolded across the shop, "put this box in the back. Then, we'll discuss the cursebreaker."

Audibly and audaciously, Harry sneered, "Cockblock!"

Kimmi put her heart in my hands. She literally gave me her heart, encapsulated in a transparent case. The glass trembled with each heartbeat. It felt like it could crack open at any time.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"You'll need it for the ritual," Kimmi said. Where have I heard that before?

I raised an eyebrow, staring her down in skepticism.

"Really this time," Lilac reassured, though it was not all that reassuring.

"This is the heart of my wolf," Kimmi explained. "You will need it to break the curse. Only open it during the ritual or it will fade into dust."

"What do you mean by this is the heart of your wolf?" Aurora questioned.

"We had a pack once," Lilac smiled in nostalgia, "just like you have. My brother, the only human, had to take out my heart to perform the ritual. You can't break the curse if your heart is taken out so I knew I would remain a werewolf. Kimmi decided to join me and store her heart instead of turning herself human." Lilac looked endearingly at Kimmi.

"You must be very careful with this," Kimmi warned. Her hand touched her chest and breathed heavily. "You only get one. We've been cut open. We don't have hearts anymore."

"Wait, if you don't have hearts, how are you guys alive?" Harry questioned.

"We turn into wolves nightly and never age or die and your concern is our lack of hearts?" Lilac asked rhetorically.

"Touché," Harry acknowledged.

"Where is the cursebreaker?" I was getting impatient.

"Ah yes!" Kimmi turned around. "Let me just get you a copy of the map-"

"I'm sorry, did you say map?" Zayn butt in just as I was about to as well. He sounded as aggravated as I felt. "The cursebreaker is not here?"

"Yea, you have to find it," Kimmi unrolled a map on the table.

"Oh bother!" Zayn lamented. I do not fault him for feeling so. We were not expecting this to be another wild goose chase. At the very least, we were closer to finding the cursebreaker and ending this once and for all.

"X marks the spot." Kimmi pointed at the bright red letter on the map in the middle of the ocean.

"There are no islands there. What should we be looking for?" I brought up.

"This is all we can tell you," Lilac said. She handed me a laminated photocopy of some handwritten notes. "Here are the instructions for the ritual."

"Why do all your papers look like they are a hundred years old?" Harry taunted lightheartedly.

"Because I wrote these a hundred years ago," Lilac answered monotonously.

"One more thing," I added, telling them about the Lawrences and their plot to avenge Emilia. "I just don't know what to do."

"Kill them!" Kimmi cheered, clapping her hands in excitement.

Lilac looked at her distraught. "Kimmi, no."

Kimmi's eyes lit up as she exclaimed, "Kimmi, yes!"

Lilac ignored Kimmi and turned back to me. "But they can't actually kill you, right?"

"They know about silver," I told her.

"How did they find out about that?"

Embarrassed, I confessed about the ring, how I threw it away, and inadvertently compromised all of us.

"What if we put a spell on you?" Lilac suggested.

"Sorry, what?" I remarked.

Lilac flipped through a magic book with a thick wooden cover but pages that looked flimsy enough to fall apart at any moment. "We used it to keep people away from us while we were practicing social distancing."

"And when Lilac gets her anxiety," Kimmi added with a cheeky grin.

"I just don't like strangers standing close to me!" Lilac huffed. "Okay?"

"Yes, dear."

"This will effectively keep them at least 2 metres away from you." Lilac waved a hand over each of us, chanting in a whisper.

"Only 2?" Zayn asked. "You can't do any more?"

"Unfortunately not." Lilac frowned. "That's the best I can do."

"And if we ever need to break the spell?" Alex asked. I cannot say that question did not make me feel at least a little uncomfortable. Regardless, I remained silent.

"Just recite this once." Lilac showed us the book where the spell breaker was written, "Kimmi & Lilac".

"Don't be fooled by her cringing. It was her idea." Kimmi smirked.

"Shut up!" Lilac scolded in banter.

I took out my smartphone to take a photograph of the map.

"That won't work," Kimmi said as she noticed what I was doing. She was right. In the picture, the paper was nothing more than a blank sheet. Seeing my discombobulation, she explained, "We don't want copies of the map circulating."

"For the protection of our kind," Lilac added. I nodded in understanding.

There was a loud bang, turning all our heads to face the front door. Kimmi checked her phone for footage from a security camera.

"Are they-?" Kimmi stammered, showing us her screen.

"Yes," I answered.

"Everybody follow me," Lilac ordered. "Kimmi will handle them."

"They have silver swords," I warned. "They could kill you!"

"I'd love to see them try!" Kimmi retorted.

"We're immune to silver since we removed our hearts," Lilac explained. She urged us to move quickly. We shuffled through doorways out of sight from the shop.

"Do we have a way out?" Aurora asked.

"No, we'll have to wait for them to leave," Lilac told her.

"See, this is where a secret passageway comes in real handy!"