Hidden by Mason Sabre Page B

towards the tiger as the tiger set his eyes on him. Cathy moved, and Malcolm came forward. The Human swung the bat and it caught the animal in the jaw with a crack. The tiger yelped and growled, but it didn’t stop him. He was on the Human in seconds and the man was on the ground with the bat up. The tiger pounced at the Human , landing right on him and holding him down. His paws wrapped around the Human’s head, and his long teeth came down into the man’s face. He bucked and screamed and kicked as the tiger closed his jaw around his head. Blood spurted out from where teeth sank in, until the tiger pressed harder and the skull cracked under the animal’s jaws.
    They were all dead. All gone.
     

Chapter Ten
    A change is as good as a rest? Isn’t that how the saying went? It crossed Cathy’s mind as she stood outside and stared at the new day just beginning. It was a new day for her and a new beginning. The swaddled bundle in her arms fussed softly against her. He was two months old and, god, what a start he had already had in his short life. She stroked his face tenderly as Jeff came outside to stand behind her. He rested his chin on her shoulder and peered down at Sebastian. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” she asked.
    “Keeping him?”
    She nodded slightly, nervous at what he might say.
    She felt his cheeks rise in a smile against her face. “I think it’s the best thing we did.” He pressed her gently against him and breathed in the clear morning air as they stared out to the world below—a new world, miles away from where they once were. A new start in the hills.
    What a mess it had all been. Such carnage. So many dead and for what? Power? Greed? The insanity of the Human condition? Cathy still didn’t know how to process what had happened that night. She had stood there, amidst all of the bodies and the blood and the death and what she had felt was relief—relief that it was them dead and not her and the baby or Jeff.  Three Humans and two shifters, slaughtered. Of course, the Humans cared little for the lives of Others that had been lost, but the three Humans ? It was as if the Others had committed genocide. They had paraded around the body of Stephen Davies like it was some god damn trophy. They’d used him like he was their Guy Fawkes. It was sickening. It was the start of a shift in the world, though. Maybe that was what Sebastian was, the symbol of change.
    Cathy couldn’t help the pangs of guilt for Stephen, though. One man—one boy, a brother, a son, an heir. He had lost everything for the sake of loving his family. He had sacrificed bigger than any of them. He had sacrificed his life. She thought about him daily and knew that she would for a long time.
    Stephen Davies, the name of a hero hailed a murderer.
    He wasn’t dead, though. That was where the Humans were idiots, but still Cathy felt for Malcolm, as hardened by his position as he was, he had still lost his son. Maybe not to death, but to the world.
    Stephen as he was, did not exist any longer. He was the name whispered on the mouths of both Humans and Others. “Do you remember that man, Stephen?” they’d all say. “The one who went crazy and just murdered everyone?”
    The truth about Stephen, though, was only known by three people: Cathy, Jeff and Malcolm. But even they did not know the true whereabouts of him, for now he was called Nick Mason. The fugitive bundled on the bus to Exile. It was a daring plan—brave, or maybe stupid. Time would tell. But he couldn’t take the blame for the deaths of all of those in the clinic and those on the land around. Their cunning plan. Even Cathy and Jeff were dead on paper. A new start for them. But they did not need new names, new identities. They had just taken off with the money Malcolm had gifted them. They had promised him that they would take care of the baby, until it was a new world where he would be welcomed. Maybe one day that would happen. Maybe one day, Others