The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I was ignored, which allowed me to get to my four classes, hand in all assignments, and even eat lunch in peace. My back and chest stopped hurting after a while, and if it weren’t for the memories of their assault, I’d almost have felt normal.
The violent thoughts tended to linger for longer than the pain.
“You know Victor won’t let you go,” Simone said as we stood outside the school, watching the cars zoom off. The weekly pack meeting was on Mondays, so they’d all be heading out to the alpha’s land soon.
I didn’t bother to answer. It was a circular argument that we’d had many times.
“No one leaves Victor’s pack, Mera! Not permanently. He won’t allow it. I suggest we ask for a vacation away and then just see how long we can take before they order us back.”
I shot her a smile. “He’ll let me go,” I said assuredly, stepping off the path now that the parking lot was clear. Surely, Victor would accept it was better not to have a “tainted” wolf like me in the pack.
“He changed his last name to Wolfe,” she called after me. “He’s an egomaniac who requires control and power over everyone.”
I waved once before setting off, backpack in hand and an ache in my chest. Simone was trying to save me from making a big mistake, I got it, but she hadn’t lived my life.
Sometimes, the harder choice wasn’t really that hard at all.
The heaviness in my body faded as I got closer to the downtown area. I was heading to my afterschool job, the one lifeline I had—and the key to my escape from here.
The town of Torma had about ten thousand shifters, with a bustling main street, where my workplace was located. “Good afternoon, dearie,” Dannie called from the back room as I stepped inside, the bell tinkling above the door.
“Hey, Dan,” I called, dropping my bag in the drawer behind the counter.
Dannie, the wanderer, was a newish recruit into our pack. She’d shown up here ten years ago, just after my father’s murder, and had somehow gotten herself added to our register faster than anyone in pack history. She didn’t have family here, at least none that she admitted to, and was one of the few not to treat me and my mother like lepers.
“Oh, darling, what happened to your chest?” she asked, breezing out with a box in hand, wild, blond curls piled on top of her head. Dannie was of indeterminate age, with only a few lines around her blue eyes. She also fancied herself a bit of a fortuneteller, and even though I wasn’t a believer, the lady often knew things that she shouldn’t have.
Like the fact that I was sporting some tender spots between my breasts, despite new clothing covering the evidence.
“Just Jaxson and Torin putting me in my place,” I said, leaning forward on the counter. “I’m fine, though. It’s only a graze and barely hurts now.”
For a second, her eyes were no longer sky-blue; instead, they were a murky purple that reminded me of potions and midnight-kissed lagoons.
“I’ve traveled to many lands in my lifetime,” she said. “Met more alphas than I could count. Torin is rising among the list of my least favorite, and that’s saying something.”
Turning my head to the door, I double-checked that no pack members were entering. Dannie said shit like this all the time, and in this pack, that sort of “treason” was a highly punishable offense. Thankfully, to my knowledge, she’d never actually been caught.
“You shouldn’t say that out loud,” I warned, because I cared about her eccentric ass.
She dropped the box, waving me off. “Girlie, I’m not scared of that overgrown fleabag. You should take me up on my offer of putting him in his place the next time he oversteps with you and your ma.”
A nervous chuckle left me, but I didn’t argue with her. She was a harmless, batshit-crazy old shifter. But I loved her because she’d been more like a mother than my own in the last few years. And this job had basically saved my life.
“I’ll get the new order shelved,” I told her, snatching up the pile already unpacked on the bench.
Dannie’s Books was the only bookstore in town, and long before I’d worked in these four walls, I’d been a regular customer. Books had been my saving grace for years. An escape from my mundane, sometimes seriously terrible life. And it was pretty much why I’d been extra-pissed to spend hours reading that stupid story for my school assignment.
Never waste time on bad books. There were too many amazing stories out there waiting to be discovered.
Wandering into the shelves, I breathed deeply, absorbing the incredible and unique smell that only books had. The older books in the “used” section smelled different to the new ones, and despite the chemical undertones that my shifter nose picked up, I loved all the scents. Basically every good memory I had in the past ten years was here. With Dannie, and especially with the books.
“Oh, that new shifter series by Leia Stone is in, too,” Dannie called after me, her voice muffled by the shelves between us. “I kept a full set aside for you.”
“I love you!” I shouted back, already excited to find a new world to escape into. I loved reading an author’s take on shifters. Some of them got it so accurate that I knew they were shifters secretly writing fiction, but humans wrote about us, too. Often with more inaccuracies, but I loved that all the same. As far as I was concerned, any fantasy world that I could get lost in was okay by me.
The rest of my afternoon passed by quickly and at 6 p.m., Dannie turned the closed sign over and locked the door. It was still just light outside, winter creeping closer, but not quite here yet. I grabbed my hoodie, slipping the three paperbacks into my bag and swinging it over my shoulder.
“Are you heading to the meeting?” Dannie asked as she rifled through the cash register, counting out my money. She paid me every day in cash “just in case.” She never told me in case of what, but I wasn’t complaining. This was the best and easiest way for me to stockpile it.
“If I had a choice, the answer would be no,” I said, my chest growing tight at the thought of being in the same place as thousands of shifters who hated me. “But if I don’t show up, Victor’s enforcers track me down, beat the fuck out of me, and drag me there anyway. Might as well avoid the beating.”
I wasn’t guessing. I knew this from experience.
She patted me on the shoulder, tingles of her energy running across my arm. Those small zaps happened a lot when Dannie touched me. I was used to it now, and even felt comfort from the familiarity.
“Change is inevitable,” she said, her eyes hooded. “Your change is coming. Prepare for it.”
I swallowed roughly, wondering if she was doing her psychic thing again. I hadn’t told her about my plans. Simone was the only one who knew I wanted to leave, but I sensed that Dannie had some idea as well—she always saw too much.
“See you tonight,” she called as I unlocked the door to leave.
“Yep, see you then,” I replied, waving over my shoulder as I stepped out into the street.
A chilly wind whipped past me and I realized that maybe winter was creeping up faster than I’d expected. Made sense. The solstice was around the corner, and I’d been counting down to that motherfucker for months.
Winter was finally coming.
Yeah, I went there.
