Chapter 1
I’ve spent my life on the run.
It hasn’t always been a conscious decision; in fact, a lot of the time, it’s been a decision made for me by others. The result of outside circumstances falling on me and moving me around like a pawn in the giant chess game that is life. Hell, it’s been happening since before I was even aware of it. First, my parents, running away from their responsibilities, running away from a future with their child. Handing me over to the people who would end up shaping my life in indescribable ways. Then there was me, moving from living situation to the next with no end in sight, no goal other than surviving another year on a path with no conceivable future. And once that situation became intolerable, I ran from the system itself, stumbling blindly into my fate like a kid running through a dark forest, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t starting to get used to not running.
It was just starting to feel like a climax, like all the constant fleeing was finally coming to an end. Yes, I went from being an orphaned human to being a hybrid shifter, part of a secret supernatural community running parallel to the normal world. Yes, the life I knew was turned upside-down, replaced by one of magic, mayhem, and politics far above my ability to understand. And yes, there was a new danger in that, there were new unknowns… but I had a place. The Shifter Academy had felt like the last stop on a long and meandering journey with no destination. I was starting to build something for myself, a community - hell, more than a community, a family.
I guess that’s the thing about life, though, isn’t it? Every time you start to get used to one thing, something else turns up that throws it all out of whack again. There’s no such thing as certainty, and I was a fool if I thought that a boarding school for shapeshifters would turn out to be anything but uncertain. So I guess I’m the fool in the end, right?
At least, that’s what I tell myself when I come to an abrupt stop at the end of a dark alleyway somewhere in downtown Boston, in the United States, my clothes filthy and my eyes bloodshot. Blaming it on having too high expectations is a hell of a lot easier than confronting the fact that it feels like the whole world has turned on me and my friends, seemingly overnight. One such friend comes to a halt beside me, his brows furrowing over his black eyes as he glances around the alleyway, lips pursed. “What’s wrong, Boots?” he asks, his eyes darting to me. His arms are full of a grocery bag - not much in the way of provisions, but considering we’re both broke college students and fugitives, we’re going to have to make do.
“Does this alleyway look familiar to you?” I ask with an uncertain look at my surroundings.
The dark-skinned siren shifter frowns. “Shit,” he mutters. “Now that you mention it…”
I let out a frustrated groan. “We’ve been going in circles! Why does this city have to be so damn confusing?”
“For whatever it’s worth,” Landon replies, “these streets all look the same at night.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” I protest, raking a hand through my chestnut hair as I put the other one on my waist. “How the hell are we supposed to get back to the bridge if we’re lost in the middle of the… What the hell is this neighborhood even called?”
“Back Bay?” Landon supplies. “I think. We’re by the university. That’s all I know. Remind me again why we’re making a supply run at one in the morning?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” I reply.
Landon snorts. “I mean, if they’re so hellbent on finding us that they’re willing to come after us in the middle of the night, then maybe we ought to just let them take us and get it over with.”
“You don’t mean that,” I tell him.
“No,” he replies, his shoulders dropping. “It felt good to say it, though. Let’s head out to the boulevard,” he suggests. “We can make a left this time.”
I give him a short nod, and we start towards the other end of the alleyway. It was raining earlier, and the cobblestone streets are still glistening with water. The night is relatively quiet, punctuated by the occasional peal of drunken laughter or burst of music from a car