As I sped off in search of the coach, I still wasn't sure what type of monster lurked within me. Initially, when I transformed into a werewolf, slash, wolf man, whatever, I thought maybe that's what I'd become. But then my upper canines turned into vampire fangs, casting doubt on my predicament. The next day, I had the sun allergy, but later on, even that disappeared. All that seemed to remain was my strength and speed, and sharpened senses. I displayed the strengths of a werewolf and a vampire, but something within kept me from morphing into either again, at least so far. As if there was something about me that differed from everyone else. Something in my genes. Or my nature. It seemed I wasn't a monster in the dark. In fact, I was beginning to believe I wasn't a monster at all. I was something else.

A sense of purpose bloomed inside of me. I had always wanted to help people; now I had the power to do it significantly.

I didn't want to kill Lexa, but I didn't think she would have stopped otherwise. At least now she wouldn't be able to harm another human to satisfy her thirst for blood. As for the coach, he was a newly crowned alpha aiming to start a new pack. That meant he'd start looking for people to turn into werewolves the old-fashioned way by infecting them with his bite. Seeing he didn't have Lexa anymore; his high school brand of team building was no longer an option.

I clutched the silver dagger as I ran.

Overhead, the full moon, having waned a few days, shined down on the wide-open landscape, casting the area beyond the rock crusher with its bright glare. Past this area, the woods and mountains that surrounded the town grew up into a dense forest of mature pines, creating narrow, zigzagging lanes between the trees, making it difficult to hunt the coach down and bring him to justice.

But as I topped the hill, I spotted him seconds before he darted into the tree line. He hadn't changed into a werewolf yet, and I wondered if he could with Agent Smith's version of the silver dust running through his veins. It seemed Lexa had developed a stronger version, which was what put me down for the count and held me there for so long. And since Coach Steele was growing stronger with his alpha status, I expected him to put up one heck of a fight.

Within seconds, I covered the distance to the forest and slipped between the trees, having gained a lot of ground. But I slowed to a jog to see if I could pick up his scent and get a more accurate bead on him since he'd vanished among the towering shadows.

Up above, the forest canopy tangled together to block out most of the moonlight. Before long, I found myself so deep in the woods, darkness became the most distinguishable feature. I waited for my eyes to adjust and finally I could see the bark on the tree trunks, the crisscrossed branches overhead, and the pine needles on the forest floor. I stared in the direction Coach Steele had taken when he first entered the forest, but I knew he could have taken any angle once he entered the tree line. Turning my ear, I strained to hear any noises related to movement like twigs cracking under foot, or his body scraping against bark, but I heard nothing, not the slightest sound. That made me think he was lying in wait, watching me from a hidden location. He could pounce at any moment.

According to Agent Smith, the silver dart he shot Steele with would slow him down, but it wouldn't last much longer because of the coach's increasing strength and new status as an alpha.

Boots padded over pine straw. Deeper in the forest, I spotted the coach sprinting across my field of view, dashing between trees.

He disappeared.

I heard him panting, but soon he was running again. Faster this time, zipping between pines, growing stronger with each stride.

In the distance, he stopped, but now he wasn't breathing heavily.

Up ahead, he flashed by... air from his body racing through the woods, disrupting the surrounding environment, knocking pinecones off limbs. I stood, frozen, peering into the night, seeing little to nothing. Until...

A yellowish pair of eyes flashed and then went dark.

"Are you ready, Evan?" Coach Steele said with an edge to his voice, as if he knew he had the power to fight and win.

"I don't wanna hurt you."

The coach burst into laughter, the harshness making me flinch. "When you came back to life back there," he said, "I got to thinking about how it wasn't possible for a werewolf to heal itself after a lethal dose of silver dust. Lexa designed it that way. One dart was supposed to be enough to put you on your back, which it did. But a second shot had the power to kill. And you popped up like it was nothing."

"Maybe I was lucky."

"No. Luck had nothing to do with it." The outline of his head and shoulders was visible in the darkness between the trees. "You're more than a werewolf. I mean, obviously, you have a little Lycan in you. But you have something else... in you. Something that could heal you, even when your body had succumbed to silver poisoning." The coach grunted. "You're part vampire too. You're a hybrid, a vampire and a werewolf. But I haven't seen you transform into either. Interesting and unheard of. All the players on our team have always been one or the other. Not both or neither."

"I never asked for this."

"Sure, you did. You came crawling to me, wanting to take your game to the next level."

"That's not how I remember it," I said. "You came to me first."

"Doesn't matter. This won't end well for you."

"Guess we're gonna do this." My grip tightened on the silver dagger, holding it pointed down at my waist.

As soon as the words left my mouth, Coach Steele covered the thirty feet between us in a blistering split-second, bulldozing through me and sending me flying backwards through the air. The dagger flew from my grasp as my back slammed into a pine tree. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, pain rocking down my spine as I slid down the trunk and struck the ground hard.

The coach stood over me. "Everything was going good after we beat Central last Friday night. Why'd you have to ruin it?" He reached down, grabbed me by the shirt, and pulled me to my feet. "Things could have been so much better."

With unbelievable strength, he hurled me into another tall pine. My back felt like it had broken in half as I lied on the ground gasping for air.

"You must realize I can't allow any of your friends to leave here alive." His eyes gleamed yellow again, glowing for a few seconds, then fading away. He was growing stronger by the minute. If I didn't put an end to this soon... "Ah. There it is." He breathed in deeply. "I can feel the alpha rising in me."

As he talked, a surge of energy flowed through me, adrenaline flooding my veins and bringing with it renewed strength. My body's ability to heal and recover was phenomenal beyond belief. Feeling stronger, I pushed up from the ground and stood face-to-face with the coach.

"Don't you have a heart?" I scowled at him. "Why are you so bent on winning? On getting what you want at any cost?"

"I used to be a loser like you, Mack. I was a backup quarterback myself, who never got to play, and when I started coaching, my teams couldn't win a game to save a life." He waved a finger at me. "But what makes me different from you is I decided not to stay on the losing side. I got fired from my first coaching gig. My wife left me because I was a failure, among other reasons. No one wanted anything to do with me until... I stumbled upon Principal McCord, who was at Central when I got hired there. He showed me how to access true power. Back then, I only had the werewolf side of the equation." He shook his head. "Central still has werewolves on their team. Why do you think they played us so close, almost beat us? But then I was introduced to the vampire side of things when I followed McCord to Pineville, and we met Lexa Thorn."

"I don't get it. How did Lexa get away with it? Wouldn't people wonder who her parents were?"

"Her fake mom and dad are vampires too, Mack." Coach Steele grimaced like he was in pain. "Are you so naïve? This runs far deeper than you could ever imagine. There are people in this town who are monsters, who are vampires and werewolves, and you never had a clue."

"Well, I'm sorry to say I had to kill Lexa. Guess you'll have to look elsewhere if you want to keep making your pills."

Coach Steele's jawline turned hard like granite. "You'll pay for that, Mack."

"So, I guess only one of us is leaving this forest alive?" I said. "Is that the way it's gonna be?"

"That's the way it's gonna be." Coach Steele grinned like a wolf. "But I'll make it fair. I won't transform if you won't."

I frowned. Not like I could, anyway.

The coach lunged forward and caught me with a jab, knocking me back several feet. My quick reflexes allowed me to backpedal enough to avoid feeling the full force of his punch. I had wondered how this would go. Two superhuman powerhouses throwing haymakers, both who healed at supernatural rates. Both with blazing speed. I learned the answer as soon I had entered the woods, when he first blasted into me and sent me crashing into a tree, then threw me into another one. It hurt. Badly.

I shook off his light punch and lurched forward to throw a hook, but he blocked it and countered with a powerful uppercut. Pain ripped through my face. His fist raised me off the ground and launched me backwards, sending me flying through a cluster of branches, but I missed the surrounding trees and landed with a thud. When I tried to get up, I saw stars. I put my hand down to keep from falling back, and when I did, my fingers raked across a metallic object. Long and slender.

The silver dagger.

I scooped up the weapon and swung it around at the unsuspecting Coach Steele, who dodged to the side. "You said transforming was off the table," I said, "but you said nothing about using a weapon."

"That's why you were my first choice to replace Austin at quarterback. You're cerebral. A thinker. You were slow and didn't have an accurate passing arm... that is, until the pill."

I took a chance and lunged at him with the blade. The coach rushed around me in a super-speed blur, coming up behind me and knocking the dagger from my grasp. We were still using our superhuman powers, so I should have expected that. Before I turned around, he coiled his arm around my neck and clamped down like a python squeezing the life from its prey. Bright lights and spots circled my vision as the noose drew tighter.

Desperation burned through me as he cut off my airway. I had to get out of this sleeper hold and fast.

Gritting my teeth, I bent my arm and drove my elbow back into his abdomen. He groaned from the impact but didn't release me.

I had one more try left in me, feeling like my head would explode from the pressure and lack of air. This time, I mustered all the strength I could find and smashed my elbow into his ribs.

The impact blasted the coach backwards. He had no choice but to let go of me as the sheer force of the blow catapulted him into a tree. I didn't give him time to get up; I walked right up to him, heaved him off the ground, and flung him at another tree. His back struck it with a crack, and he fell to the forest floor in a heap.

I had to finish this while he was reeling, weakened.

I picked up the dagger and started toward him...

Just before I reached him, he vaulted to his feet and leaped toward me, transforming in the blink of an eye into an enormous gray wolf. Seeing the tide turn on him, I guess he wouldn't die over a gentlemen's agreement. His clothes ripped off his body in shreds as he landed on top of me and went straight for my throat. At the last second, I brought my arm up and deflected his snout, forcing his snapping teeth away from my neck and face.

I snatched the wolf by the fur on the side of the head and held him, ready to draw back and plunge the dagger into his neck. He snarled, his yellow eyes glaring at me as he bit down on my arm. His teeth, like pointed spikes, punched through my skin, stabbing my flesh with jagged pain.

I dropped the weapon, and he released me long enough for me to clutch him by the fur on each side of his head. The only reason he let go of me was to go for the kill, to get to my throat. That gave me time to arch my back and thrust my legs up, slinging and kicking him off me. The wolf flipped head over tail, careening through the air and smacking a tree with a yelp.

Stumbling to my feet, I bent down, swiped up the dagger, and turned to face Coach Steele. Blood poured from the gash on my forearm, wooziness running circles in my head as I staggered to stay upright.

Coach Steele—the werewolf—rose from the ground and shook his fur, which was bristling with intensity. His eyes glowed demon yellow, his jaws looking vicious and menacing, saliva visible between his savage teeth. He raised his nose toward the small amount of moonlight peeking through the tree canopy and howled with reckless abandon, as if he was desperate for a pack. For help, but none came.

The wolf charged forward, dead set on putting an end to me, right here and right now.

A few feet away, he left the ground and soared toward me. He crashed into me and drove me back into a tree; the bark digging into my shoulder blades as his jaws lashed out at me. I slid down the trunk, doing all I could to keep my arms in front of my face, the dagger clutched in my grasp. It was like I could read his thoughts. You're weak, Mack! You don't have a will to win! You have no heart. No desire to keep fighting. I'm going to kill you and your friends!

You can't beat me! I'm the alpha...

My heart sank and twisted in on itself as his sharp teeth penetrated my arm and wreaked havoc on my flesh.

But another voice rang out in my head.

It's important for a person to acknowledge the good things in their life. Especially the things that are vital. Always there for them. Things you can't do without.

Layla Robinson was that thing for me! Blake was my best friend too! If I died, Coach Steele wouldn't rest until he killed them. I couldn't allow that to happen.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my body regenerated itself and gained power by the second. Determination and grit rose inside me.

He may be the alpha, but I knew in my heart I was not a monster. I was a hero!

I seized the wolf by the neck and locked down like a vise grip, held him up, ready to drive the dagger into his side as I watched Coach Steele's stamina and fight dwindle under my death grip. I was about to win, squeezing the life out of his windpipe. I roared with power surging through my extremities and plunged the blade into his heart.

The wolf let out a last whimper and then went still; the light leaving his eyes as he fell beside me, lying breathless on the forest floor.

Coach Steele was dead, and he would hurt no one else again.

I lied there, healing and recuperating for a few minutes until a man in a dark suit ran up to me and helped me to my feet. He identified himself as a BSA agent here to get me to safety. Layla and Blake were waiting for me with Agent Smith. They were alright. I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing it was all over, thankful I had the courage to fight back. Thankful I wasn't a monster in the dark, and most of all, grateful I didn't have to fear them anymore.

I realized then the reason I didn't transform into a werewolf or a vampire anymore. Because the good in my heart prevented it. Evil hadn't overcome me, but I had overcome evil with good.

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Chapter 18: 2,915 Words
Story: 37,450 Words