Everything around him smelled of stale and dank. He groaned and lifted his head, a strand of saliva hanging from his mouth. He quickly wiped it away with his hand, disgusted that his open mouth had even touched the mildewed cot he found himself on. The previous night came back to him in a sudden rush and he started to his feet. It was a rusted metal room he was in. The far wall had a row of small-paned windows starting about halfway up, but they were so caked with grim that only the vestiges of daylight peeked through. He ran to the rusted iron door and heaved his weight against it to no avail. He braced his feet and strained his arm muscles, until he slid to the floor, panting, hands stained orange from the rust. Looking down though, he found a deep groove eroded into the floor.

            Rising to his feet again, Elliot searched the walls on either side of the door until he found a small rusted hatch. The hinges squeaked stiffly and then disintegrated as he forced it open. Peering through the hatch, he could make out a small window of the interior of what looked like an abandoned factory. He reached his arm through, mindful of the jagged, rusty edges and felt blindly with his hand. His fingers brushed the rim of something and he strained, pushing forwards until the sharp edges of the hatch bit into his shoulder. Stretching his fingers out, they crested a metal ledge to touch something rubber and soft. He pressed his shoulder further, gritting his teeth against the pain. His fingers curled and he heard a buzzer sound and the door slid sideways. His arm twitched and he pulled it back quickly. He hissed as he grazed his arm, but he cut himself short as something crashed outside of the room, making the walls shake.

            He peered around the door into the hall. One of the metal catwalks that crossed the hall above him had given way. The metal structure hung against the wall covering the now crumpled hatch and door button.

            He took a brief look in each direction before heading away from the fallen catwalk at a run. Following the corridor around a turn, he crashed through a set of fire doors and burst out into the daylight. He squinted and shielded his eyes at the sudden glare and then raced towards the metal front gate on the other side of the compound. He pushed on them desperately, but they were chained shut. The fire doors slammed behind him, echoing around the walled-in area. Elliot started and looked about. Weeds pushed up green tendrils between the cracked concrete flagstones. The building itself was an abandoned shambles, windows blackened-out and a heavy lock set on the main entrance.

            Turning back to the gate, he pulled them inwards this time. They parted slightly, and then the chain shifted. The gap widened and he bent, squeezing through the gate. He stumbled onto the street and looked both ways, not recognizing his surroundings. He chose a direction and ran. It was another twenty minutes before he saw something he recognized and managed to get his bearings.

            Elliot’s first port of call was a police station, although it did him little good.

            As he sat in the cold, steel room, one-way mirror to his left, he had the distinct sensation that they simply didn’t give a fuck. Once he explained to the overweight deputies with too much time on their hands and coffee stains on their shirts, that it had been his twenty-first birthday, and that he’d been drinking, he could practically see their attention flick off. One of the officers taking his statement even stopped making notes and began to fill his notepaper with doodles.

            They switched at some point to interrogating him on how he had broken into the factory and if he was aware of the legal ramifications of trespassing on private property. Never mind that he’d woken up in a room locked from the outside. He ground his teeth together and sat through another forty-five minutes of mock-interrogation, before he left feeling fraudulent and degraded. He took a taxi back to his apartment where he promptly climbed into a shower, still fully clothed, and sat crying as the water soaked through to his skin, cleansing him of his night.  He rubbed his wet hair and neck and winced slightly as his fingers passed over a bruise on his throat.

            When he spoke to his friends the next day, they were more annoyed that he’d left the club without telling them, than concerned about where he’d woken up.  The important thing was that he was ok, but still, he might have told them he was leaving. And that was that. No-one else seemed as bothered as he was by the incident. Not that they didn’t care about him. It was just that, well… nothing had happened, so why worry?

            It was several weeks before Elliot felt comfortable enough to go out clubbing again. In the meantime, his body had been developing, though he hadn’t changed his workout routine. His shirts had begun to take on an almost too-tight look. And he certainly seemed to be attracting more than a few of those now. Finally, at the age of twenty-one, he was growing out of his teenager’s body, and into his man’s body. His hair looked glossier too and his skin was clearer, but he’d heard they were adding something to the water now. He couldn’t attribute everything to his genes.

            The club was one of the newer ones, and was still packed from the opening buzz, men and women grinding their bodies together—all but having sex with their clothes still on. The drinks were cheap too, and he was briefly tempted to throw it all to hell and just get trashed like everyone else. He was well on his way to drunkenness, when someone caught his eye. Two people actually.

            They were standing side by side at the bar, flipping shot glasses as they emptied each one in a line. Both their arms were covered in twisting black tattoos that wound up their shoulders and then disappeared provocatively down their shirts. There was no doubt about it. It was the same two from his birthday night. As if he’d said it out loud, the man turned and looked across the club, through the grind of people and his eyes fixed on Elliot. He stopped, and they stared at one another. Elliot felt his pulse start to pick up speed. Someone stumbled and passed in front of him, cutting off his view. He moved around them, but the couple at the bar was gone.

            He searched for them, but couldn’t find them anywhere. He re-located his friends where they’d drifted to in the sea of dancers, but he stopped drinking, and kept his eyes open for the pair, though he didn’t see them again. Girls and boys both tried to dance with him, but he was too put off to reciprocate with more than dancing and they soon gave him up in favor of more playful encounters. When they finally left in the small hours of the morning, he was the only one sober enough to find a taxi and see everyone safely home.

            Justin and Alyssa hissed at each other outside of Byron’s room.

            She was insisting that it didn’t matter, and he shouldn’t bother Byron with it, but he wasn’t listening. Every time he tried to knock on the door, she’d grab his hand and hold it back until he lowered it again.

            Byron himself finally opened the door, annoyed by the furtive whispers and sounds of struggle. He looked at them, Alyssa firmly gripping both of Justin’s wrists, and one of her feet angled out, holding his from knocking on the door that way. He cleared his throat.

            Alyssa dropped her hands and stalked off, swatting Justin meanly on the back of the head as she passed.

            ‘What’s going on Justin?’ Byron asked.

            ‘You remember a couple of weeks ago, when I brought that boy home—’

            ‘And we had to move out of a perfectly nice living space into this decrepit little hell-hole?’ Byron finished for him. ‘No, we can’t move back. We can look for somewhere else if you want.’

            Justin shook his head. ‘That’s not it. I saw him today.’

            Byron grunted. ‘So he made it on his own. Lucky him.’

            ‘I don’t think he did.’

            ‘Look, Justin, if another gang wants to take in someone like him, that’s fine. But not in my family.’

            ‘That’s not what I meant either,’ Justin stopped him. ‘I don’t think he’s anything at all.’

            Byron looked at him, his black brow furrowed as he tried to understand what the boy was getting at. ‘You’re sure about this?’

            He nodded. ‘We were in a club tonight and I felt like someone was watching me, and when I turned around, there he was, staring right at us. He recognized us from the other night. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t respond.’

            ‘Maybe he just didn’t want to talk.’

            Justin shook his head. ‘It was like talking at a wall of fog. I wasn’t even getting through.’

            Byron looked at him hard. ‘And you’re sure he was bitten before?’

            ‘I closed the holes myself!’

            ‘Alright. I’m sure it’s nothing, but you were right to come to me about this. I’ll find Cassandra tomorrow and see if she knows anything.’ Byron said goodnight to the boy and closed his door, before moving to his bookshelf and pulling down a large black tome. He set it on his desk and opened the cracked pages, flicking through it in the gloom.