CHAPTER 4
1502 Words
I slammed my locker closed quickly but as I looked around me, there was no one there. No one growling, no one making any noise at all.
I managed to escape Ridgeview High on my first day, but my nerves were fried. Melody hated me. Wolves whispered about me. Tyler kept trying to sniff me from three lockers away. And somewhere between my verbal destruction of Melody and the mysterious growl in my locker, I became convinced that Ridgeview had been built on top of a giant cosmic joke.
I drove home with my fingers gripping the steering wheel too tight. My wolf paced inside me, frustrated and on guard. She hated being suppressed. She hated being watched. And she really hated the twins staring at me like they wanted answers I could not give them.
When my cabin finally came into view, tucked in the trees at the edge of Ridgeview territory, I exhaled. It was small and isolated, exactly how I needed it. Humans would call it rustic. Wolves would call it depressing. I called it safe.
Safe was a lie, but it was the one I needed.
I parked beside the cabin and scanned the area automatically. Trees. Dirt. Thick brush. Nothing moved. No tracks. No scents lingered too close.
Good.
I stepped inside, locked the door behind me, and finally allowed my shoulders to drop.
The cabin looked normal at first glance. One bed. One table. One tiny couch. A kitchenette with a fridge that hummed like it was dying of boredom. Anyone would walk in and assume I was your average lonely teenager with questionable furniture taste.
Except none of it was real.
I reached beneath the table and pressed my thumb against the underside. A soft click sounded and the wood panel shifted open.
Inside was a weapon.
A long knife with a black handle and a blade sharp enough to cut the wind. I pulled it out and set it on the table. Another click, and I opened the second hidden compartment. More knives. One folded steel blade. Two slim throwing daggers.
I moved to the wall near my bed. It had a loose panel disguised to look like cheap wood. I tugged it open.
Training bands. Wrist guards. A compact baton. A collapsible spear. A matte black pistol. Silver lined bullets. Not for wolves, but for other threats.
I returned to the kitchenette, grabbed a small steel box from the upper cabinet, and set it beside the weapons. Inside the box were thin vials filled with translucent liquid. My scent suppressants. Manufactured by the facility that raised me. Designed to erase every trace of my wolf.
One vial was half empty. My stomach twisted.
I hovered it in front of my face. “Stop flickering,” I muttered.
The suppressant didn't flicker. But my control did. I could feel it in the way my wolf clawed at me, begging to breathe without the tight chemical leash.
I placed it down before I crushed it in my hand.
The cabin felt too small. Too quiet. Like the walls were inching closer.
My brain wouldn’t calm. So I grabbed the collapsible spear, stepped outside, and locked the door again.
The clearing behind my cabin was perfect for training. Dirt ground, surrounded by trees, nothing fragile to break. My wolf stretched inside my chest as I walked, brushing my senses with a restless awareness.
I unfolded the spear. The metal clicked into place. And then I moved.
Swing. Twist. Strike. Pivot.
My boots hit the dirt softly, the spear slicing through air in precise arcs. Every movement was muscle memory. Born from years of training. Years of orders. Years of being shaped into something sharp and deadly.
Trained to protect. Trained to kill. Trained to survive.
Sweat formed at my temples as I ran through the sequence. My mind drifted unwillingly to where it all began.
The military base.
I didn't remember the outside world before the base. I remembered sterile hallways. Concrete floors. Gunfire in the distance. The sound of wolves howling behind reinforced steel.
I remembered being small. Scared. Cold. I remembered instructors who never smiled. Doctors who injected me with something that made my wolf curl in pain. Commanders who told me I was lucky to be chosen.
Chosen for what?
Chosen to be a ghost. A blade. Something that could move into human spaces without detection. Something that could slip through wolf territories invisible. Something that could kill quietly. Efficiently.
Someone without a scent. Someone who didn't exist.
They trained me in everything. Knives. Firearms. Combat. Tracking. Disappearance. They taught me how to erase my scent. How to mimic humans. How to mask my wolf until even she could not breathe.
They taught me that emotion was weakness. That attachments got you killed.
That the mission mattered more than anything. And my mission had been clear since the day they branded it into my mind.
Protect the twin heirs at all costs.
Jack Hayes. Beau Hayes.
I had never met them. I had only seen photos. Files. Tactical maps of Ridgeview territory. Every scrap of information the base could gather about their pack. Their lineage. Their enemies. Their potential threats.
I had been trained to keep them alive. No matter what.
I had not expected them to stare at me like I was changing the direction of their entire lives. I had not expected their wolves to react like I was a meteor falling from the sky. I had not expected this pull. This heat. This rush.
And I definitely had not expected to feel something pull back at them.
I gritted my teeth and spun the spear again. The pole whistled through the air.
Why did they react so strongly?
Why did their wolves lurch toward mine like they wanted to tear the suppressant off me with their teeth?
Why did Jack look at me like he could see straight through all the lies I had been taught to wear?
My spear hit the dirt with a sharp thud. I sucked in a breath and wiped my face.
Stop thinking about them. Focus on the mission. Focus on survival. Focus on the reason I came here.
I folded the spear and walked back toward the cabin, my mind was still buzzing.
The base had warned me about the Ridgeview Pack. About enemies who wanted the twins dead. About rogues who were getting smarter. About an unknown force moving in the shadows.
Something big was coming. Something dangerous. And I was supposed to stop it.
I reached the cabin steps and paused. The woods suddenly felt different. Heavier. Quiet in a way that didn't feel natural.
My wolf lifted her head sharply.
Something is wrong, she whispered.
I scanned the area again. Trees. Dirt. Wind. Nothing unusual.
But my wolf kept pushing, claws dragging at my ribs.
I unlocked the cabin and stepped inside. And immediately I sensed it.
A shift in the air. A flicker in my chest. My scent mask.
It had faltered again.
A wave of panic shot through me. I grabbed the nearest vial, uncapped it, and inhaled the suppressant deeply until the burning sensation crawled down my throat.
My wolf snarled inside me. Angry. Choking. The suppressant forced her back.
The burning intensified. My vision swam. But the chemical curtain dropped into place. My scent vanished again.
I closed the vial with shaking hands.
If that mask failed in the wrong moment, the twins would know exactly what I was.
A lie. A weapon. A wolf trained to hide.
I placed the vial back in the steel box and locked it.
Then I froze. Footprints.
Right outside the window.
Fresh ones. Big ones.
Paws. Four sets. All circling my cabin. Some deep. Some light. Some from one wolf. Some from another.
They were close. Too close.
No other wolves were supposed to be near here. My location was off the books. Hidden. Officially unoccupied.
My heart hammered.
Who found me?
I stepped toward the door and pressed my hand against the frame. The wood felt cold.
My wolf pressed forward, teeth bared. Someone was here.
Someone had walked right up to my cabin and circled it like they were inspecting prey.
My pulse quickened.
I inched toward the window.
The scent suppressant inside me buzzed, flickering like a weak light.
No. Not now. Not now.
My breath shook. And then it happened.
A sudden wave of heat rolled through my chest and my scent mask flickered. Like a light about to go out.
My wolf lunged, trying to break free.
Outside, something shifted in the trees. The pawprints glowed in the moonlight.
Fresh. Close and watching.
I whispered, “Who is out there?”
No answer. Only the faintest crackle of twigs.
And the terrifying truth that if my scent mask failed again, every wolf in Ridgeview would know exactly what I was hiding.
The suppressant inside me flickered once more.
And this time, it nearly snapped.
- Writer
