LOGAN: Alliance of Shadows, Book 2

The Stranger at the Door

I heard the crash of something shattering in the kitchen. They were fighting again.

Our house was never calm. In fact, I can’t remember a time when our house was peaceful. My father’s temper would ignite over the smallest things, leaving destruction behind.

It never felt like home to me—just a cold, crumbling structure. The walls were blank and whitewashed with peeling paint and stucco ceilings that had been yellowed by age and cigarette smoke. The air always seemed heavy. Madre kept a few photos of us and her family, hiding them where he wouldn’t find them so that he didn’t tear them up on us. There was nothing warm or inviting about my situation. Nothing to even show a family of three lived there - just the sinking feeling of emptiness and tension.

It always felt like they were ready to disappear at a moment's notice.

They had been away from the Shadow Storm pack for eight long years. For the last seven (literally since my birth) my father had left everything to my mother—paying the bills, raising me, and managing everything that needed to be done. She bore it all without complaint or demands for more.

Despite living in a two-parent household, it never felt that way. My father was a ghost in our lives, present only in name. My mother was my entire world.

Every day, she cooked, cleaned, and helped me with my homework. School was easy for me, but letting her help meant we got to spend time together. Those quiet moments were rare, but they were everything. I lived for the gentle curve of her smile in those moments—it felt like a gift, fleeting but precious.

We owned almost nothing, just the bare essentials. The few things we did have were well-worn, used to the edge of usefulness. Yet, despite having so little, my mother found ways to make the best of what we had.

A mismatched set of plates, cups, and utensils were all we had for dishes, accompanied by a single pot and a scratched frying pan. Tattered curtains, sewn from old pillowcases, barely covered the kitchen window. Dark sheets, secured with mismatched, multicolored tacks, hung over the rest.

The kitchen felt like a patchwork of castoffs. An old, scratched-up table—a neighbor's throwaway—stood in the center, surrounded by three flimsy plastic folding chairs. The sink dripped constantly, its rhythmic leak competing with the knocking sound of the refrigerator whenever it sputtered to life. Only two of the stove’s burners worked, and the oven seemed to decide on a whim when it would function.

The living room offered no relief. An aging floral couch slumped against one wall, facing a battered coffee table and an old TV set. We had no cable, so Saturday mornings were my only chance to watch cartoons, provided my father wasn’t passed out on the couch. If he was, any sound at all risked waking him, especially after a night of drinking. That was a disaster waiting to happen.

My parents’ room had a double bed and a small dresser. A plastic shower curtain hung where a closet door should have been, adding to the patched-together feel of the house. I had only been in their room a few times, always when my father wasn’t home. His absence made it feel safer to peek into spaces I normally avoided.

My own bedroom was just as sparse. A small cot with a few moth-eaten blankets and a flattened pillow served as my bed. A rickety dresser held a suitcase-worth of clothes—little more than the essentials.

The bathroom was no better. It had the usual fixtures, but the bathtub, toilet, and sink were stained in ways no amount of scrubbing could fix. My mother tried tirelessly, her hands often left red and wrinkled from scrubbing. Watching her struggle over stains that would never come out filled me with a quiet frustration—I hated how hard she worked for so little reward.

Money was always tight. My father’s drinking and gambling had left us with next to nothing. Somehow, my mother managed to hide away just enough cash to keep the bills paid and food on the table. Her quiet strength amazed me, but it also broke my heart.

I hated how he treated her. The way he belittled her, how he drained her of everything. I hated the way he treated me, too. He called me a “useless waste of space,” a name he used so often it felt like it clung to me. “Runt” was his favorite word for me—a constant reminder of my small stature, even among kids my own age.

Madre, however, saw me differently. She reminded me that even Runts could be useful. Her words stayed with me, a quiet lifeline in a world dominated by his cruelty. Being a Runt, she once told me, meant I was overlooked but it also meant I had higher chances of survival.

Then there was the evening a messenger from the pack arrived at our door. His visit brought a fleeting spark of hope to my mother, a belief that maybe she could pull my father back from the darkness that had consumed him. That hope, however, was destined to be crushed.

I remember the way she stared out the kitchen window that night, her hands submerged in soapy water as she washed the dishes. The faint scent of dish soap hung in the air, mingling with the lingering smell of dinner. My father had just finished complaining about her cooking a few hours earlier, before running off to spend what little money we had—an all-too-familiar occurrence in my daily life.

Cooking was her passion, one of the few joys she clung to, but he seemed to take pleasure in finding ways to make her feel worthless. I could see it in the way her shoulders slumped slightly as she worked, though she always tried to hide her pain from me.

Sitting at the table with my homework spread out in front of me, I felt a dull anger simmering beneath the surface. It wasn’t fair. Watching her like this, stuck in a constant loop of hope and disappointment, made me wish I could do something—anything—to help her. But I was just a kid, too small and powerless to change anything.

School was my escape, a place where my efforts paid off, and I excelled. I consistently earned good grades and was already fluent in French, Spanish, and English, skills I was proud of. My mother’s family was from Mexico, and she had always encouraged me to learn Spanish.

Then, one day while we were going over my spelling words, she sighed and told me more stories about her family in Río del Rojo, “I pray you’ll get the chance to speak to them.” Those words carried a small promise of connection, something to hold onto when so much else felt disconnected.

When I finished my last math problem, a loud knock echoed through the front door. Mom’s hands froze for a moment, still submerged in soapy water, before she turned her gaze from the dishes and glanced over her shoulder at me.

“Logan, I want you to stay put, mi querido,” she said, wiping her sudsy hands on her apron as she hurried to answer the door.

Stay put? She may as well have asked a bird not to fly or a tiger not to eat meat. I could barely sit still on a good day with all my pent-up Werewolf pup energy, let alone now, with a stranger at the door. My legs bounced under the table, my heartbeat quickening as curiosity burned too bright and hot to ignore. It was as if something inside me was pushing, tugging, demanding I move.

I slipped my homework into my drawstring backpack, shrugging it onto my shoulders with a sigh. Stepping quietly into the hallway, I stopped when my mother squealed, her voice sharp and unexpected.

In an instant, my heart full of concern and fear, I darted back to the main entryway. My chest tightened, and it felt like the air in the hallway grew heavier with every step. A whirlwind of thoughts raced through my mind—Was Mom okay? Who was at the door? I didn’t know what to expect, but the urgency to protect her overpowered everything else.

Standing in the doorway was a brown-skinned man with piercing blue eyes. He held a small white envelope between his fingers, its surface marked with just one word: Pierce. His calm gaze met mine, and he smiled warmly over my mother’s shoulder.

“I didn’t know you had a pup,” the man said, an amused glint sparkling in his dark blue eyes. His tall frame filled the doorway, and his short, dark mahogany hair was styled into sharp spikes, making him look both polished and slightly imposing.

He seemed nice, but was he really? Years of living under my father’s shadow of fear and anger had left me edgy and skeptical of anyone who walked through our door.

“It’s all right. Come meet one of your Padre’s pack mates,” Madre encouraged gently.

I stared at the hand he extended, and I had to fight the urge to bite down just to make him regret getting too close to us.

“Sí, Madre,” I murmured, my words low and hesitant. Despite my reluctance, I took a step closer, drawn forward by the aura of absolute power that seemed to radiate from him. Each step forward felt heavier than the last, and the sheer weight of his presence seemed to press down on me even more, making me feel smaller than small. I glanced up at my mother, shifting my focus to her instead of the stranger.

“Madre, he terminado mi tarea,” I told her softly, letting her know I’d finished my homework. Her face softened, and she bent down to kiss my cheek, her warmth a soothing balm against my nerves.

“You are a good son,” she said in Spanish, her voice filled with love. “Never forget that you are loved.”