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Who: Chloe
Where: Her crappy apartment
When: Just after the Lycanthrope broadcast.

Chloe had been in town since Thursday, mostly hiding indoors. She was miserable and frightened, but sort of coping. Sure, she was too scared to go out in case she was spotted, but at the same time she wanted to look for Drew. She'd been smart and lucky, and acting on impulse had gotten her this far, hadn't it? So now everything was pegged on finding him. Everything.

She'd registered at MHS under the name of Grace Shepherd, her first day would be Monday, as a Junior. She had made the Principal believe that she was 17 (and actually a real person rather than an escaped mental patient named Chloe Spinner) and had missed a year of school due to illness (but not the mental kind, the glandular fever kind). She had convinced him that she was living with her Grandmother, who was housebound, and her big brother, who was out of town on a work a lot. That had been a provision for Drew, when she found him. Not if. When.

Maybe it had been stupid to take his last name as her alias - but Chloe had been thinking off the cuff, and it had made her feel more confident, somehow, using his name. It had been hard getting the principal to believe all of this without any proof, she was just a skinny teenage girl with puppy eyes after all. But one who knew exactly what he needed to hear and could make him think he'd seen paperwork just by thinking it hard enough. She'd had a thumping, blinding headache for all of Friday, what with nudging the principal, and of course, her new landlord.

Chloe had no money. She had a sleeping bag, a very meagre collection of clothes, a photo strip of her and Drew making goofy faces from one of those dumb photo booths, and the stuffed rabbit he'd given her for her 17th birthday. She looked younger in the pictures - happier. As happy as she'd ever been, anyway. Not like a girl who would go on to kill people. That had changed - now she carried a knife with her. Everything else she'd left behind. Her parents had abandoned her years ago anyway - well, not officially, they'd still visited in a half-hearted sort of fashion, but she'd always felt like they'd just given up on her - so it wasn't even like she missed their presence in her little collection of memories. Her album of family photos along with countless other stupid mementos had been left to burn. All she had now was herself, and of course, Drew.

Her apartment was a damp underground shoebox. The landlord was old and Greek and pretty stupid. He'd been thinking about her figure a lot - something Chloe had gotten used to with all the truckers she'd had pick her up on the way here, but that didn't mean she liked it - and what he was going to have for dinner. She didn't peg him as a threat, not yet. There were upstairs neighbours, too, but they were old and their thoughts were muddled and harmless, just background noise mostly - so Chloe found the place pleasantly quiet, if nothing else.

The bathroom was full of mildew, and the only other room was a kitchen/living room with cheap nasty furniture and a fold-out sofa bed. There was a radio that didn't work at all and a black and white TV that buzzed with white noise every couple of minutes. Chloe watched the news without fail, though. She watched to see if her face (or his) were being broadcast. Was she officially a wanted criminal yet?

Chloe had no bedding apart from her sleeping bag, so she was curled in that on the sofa in front of the TV, ignoring how hungry she was and paying close attention to the news. Earlier that morning she'd scurried out to a little cafe, and had simply nudged the waitress into believing she had paid, but she couldn't go grocery shopping. It was too hard, with the crowds, all those voices, all those people she'd have to convince that she wasn't stealing. It would be no good. She'd have to think of a way to get some cash - but that would come. Right now, there was news. And it may not be about her, but it was still jaw-dropping.

Werewolves. Although only one of them really looked wolfy. Chloe felt her stomach lurch. Watching those people change like that kind of made her feel sick. It was sort of disgusting, the way their flesh contorted and became fur. But she didn't think it was a hoax or anything like that - the thought didn't even occur to her. No-one had ever believed she had been able to read minds, had they? People thought it was fantasy nonsense. So if there were telepaths, and other people with psychic powers like she had been told - why not werewolves? It was weird, sure, but what in life wasn't weird?

No, the thing that upset Chloe about what she had just seen was that the only people who had believed in what she could do, and seemed to have knowledge in that whole...weird science area? They had locked her up and done tests. Kept her believing they thought she was crazy and dangerous as an excuse to keep her shut away. They weren't good people. So these nice folks on the TV, the school teacher and whatever else? Were in for one hell of a shock.

Chloe turned the TV off and curled up tighter with her toy rabbit, a strand of hair in her mouth, trying not to cry. They said they didn't want to hide any more, those werewolf people. They were dumb. Didn't they realise that hiding was the only option?