Masked Ball
1842 Words
Taking the invitation, my supervisor gave me a look that said she was equally done with the entire circus.
“The company sent one to every employee,” she said with obvious annoyance. “Honestly, if you can make it after that speech, awesome, we’ll see you at the grand ball. If not, we hope your economy gets better soon.” She shrugged as if she were discussing weather. “I hear there’s another job opening at the gas station around the corner if you’re looking for more cash. See you tomorrow, Amaryllis.”
I stared at her.
Every word of cheerful stupidity made my eye twitch.
Another job?
Another.
Job.
As if I didn’t already work sixteen hours a day stocking shelves, cleaning spills, dealing with entitled customers, and pretending I had not spiritually died three months ago.
As if sleep was some luxury I was indulging in too much.
As if my bills were not lined up like executioners waiting to take turns with my neck.
I swallowed my sarcasm because if I opened my mouth, unemployment would become the next unpaid debt in my life.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know. See you tomorrow,” I muttered.
Being wolfless wasn’t easy.
Being secretly wolfless was worse.
I couldn’t afford for people to know.
Not in this city.
Not in a world where werewolves measured worth by the beast under your skin.
The second they learned there was nothing inside me, I became less than omega.
Less than servant.
Less than tolerated.
So I worked.
And worked.
And kept my head down enough that no one noticed there was no wolf aura, no instinctive dominance, no sacred scent shifts that every normal she-wolf carried.
I walked toward the employee lockers to clock out, and with every exhausted step I felt my medium-length paprika hair slipping loose from the ponytail that had somehow survived my near death by tomato sauce.
Reaching back, I searched for my hair tie.
The elastic snapped free into my hand.
I stared at it.
Of course.
Of f*****g course.
“Fantastic.”
I bent to pick it up, trying to loop it again.
It snapped a second time across my fingers.
I looked at the broken strands like they had personally betrayed my bloodline.
Then tossed them straight into the trash.
Perfect symbolism for my life.
Broken things trying to hold together until they couldn’t anymore.
I clocked out, emptied my locker, left my pathetic little name tag behind, and walked out of the store before someone else’s child could use me as a crash mat.
My next mission in surviving adulthood:
phone bill.
Greg—my best friend and the poor i***t who held the lease to the apartment all six of us crammed into—had already received my portion of rent this morning.
Which meant every cent left in my pocket was going to keeping my phone alive.
Because in modern civilization, apparently breathing was optional but having service was not.
I walked into the phone company, signed my name at the front desk self service computer bot, and took a number before settling into one of the plastic waiting chairs.
As I sat there beneath fluorescent lights that made everyone look dead, I glanced at my reflection in the glass door.
Plain.
That was the word.
Skin pale as snow with no warmth to it.
Slim body.
Short height.
A round backside that my roommates swore men liked, though men mostly looked at me the same way people looked at expired milk.
Quickly.
Then with discomfort.
Most people didn’t give me a second glance.
And when they did, it usually ended in them avoiding me like I carried some social disease.
Maybe I did.
Maybe being born incomplete was visible in ways mirrors didn’t show.
The envelope crinkled in my hand.
I remembered the invitation.
With nothing else to do while waiting, I slid my finger beneath the seal and unfolded the thick expensive paper.
The scent of rich ink alone probably cost more than my monthly groceries.
To whom it may concern;
The Royal Family invites any she-wolf above eighteen years of age to the Grand Masquerade Ball. Please make sure you arrive at the directions below.
The Fitzroy Castle, House to the Royal Family of Valor
9:00 PM
Sincerely, The Royal Family Valor
I read it once.
Then twice.
Then a third time because surely my exhaustion had made me hallucinate wealth-induced stupidity.
A grand masquerade ball.
For any she-wolf.
Any.
Meaning every breathing female with fur and estrogen was expected to parade herself to the royal castle like some discount mating market.
I blinked at the page.
“What the f**k is wrong with these people?” I muttered under my breath.
Did they have any idea what normal living cost?
Gas.
Food.
Rent.
Utilities.
Phone bills.
Soap.
Tampons.
The basic privilege of not dying early.
Do royals think people just wake up with magical free time and silk gowns hidden under their mattresses?
Did they assume common women spent their evenings twirling in candlelight waiting for a prince to sniff us?
I laughed once, dry and humorless.
The paper felt expensive.
Heavy.
The kind of invitation meant for women who had dresses prepared and perfume on hand and enough savings to pretend life was a fairy tale.
Not women like me.
Women like me attended double shifts.
Not balls.
Still…
My eyes drifted back to the words.
Any she-wolf above eighteen.
A bitter little ache touched my chest.
Any she-wolf.
What a beautiful joke.
Because even if by some miracle I could afford to go…
I wasn’t really one of them, was I?
Technically… no.
I had no wolf.
Which was the funniest part of my existence if anyone wanted to call it funny.
A cosmic joke wrapped in skin.
Because every time I had gotten sick enough to need bloodwork done, I had asked the doctors out of morbid curiosity if my blood came back human.
Every single time they had looked at me like I was delirious and told me the same thing:
werewolf blood.
Undeniably.
Genetically.
Biologically.
I carried the blood of wolves in every vein.
That alone categorized me as a werewolf.
Yet there was no beast inside me.
No second heartbeat.
No instincts whispering under my skin.
No claws waiting beneath my nails.
No shift.
No wolf.
I was a werewolf only on paper.
A defective product with no return policy.
With that uplifting realization, I shoved the invitation back into my bag.
If I didn’t go, nothing would happen.
No fines.
No royal guards dragging me there.
No magical punishment from the crown.
So the invitation could sit there and rot like every other rich-people problem that had nothing to do with me.
The number board dinged.
Mine lit up.
I handled the phone payment, watched my bank account get even sadder, and the rest of the day became what it always was:
survival.
That was all adulthood had turned into.
Surviving one invoice at a time.
The only thing I had ever asked my parents for before my eighteenth birthday—before the cursed day everyone waited for my first shift—had been a car.
Any car.
I had gotten my license.
I had gotten my permit.
I had studied road signs until my eyes crossed.
But I didn’t get the wolf.
Funny how fate said, here’s the ability to drive away from your misery, but no actual beast to make your family love you.
By the time I pulled my old wheezing car out of Walmart’s parking lot, the sky was beginning to darken.
Traffic crawled.
My back hurt.
My ankle still protested every time I moved it from gas to brake.
And all I wanted in life was to collapse face first into a pillow and not wake up until next tax season.
Finally, I reached the apartment.
Calling it an apartment was generous.
It was Greg’s lease.
Greg’s name.
Greg’s miracle of bad financial decisions that had somehow turned into a six-person shelter for lost omegas and one wolfless parasite—me.
I had barely shut the front door behind me when Greg’s kitchen door opened.
He leaned against the frame with a wooden spoon in hand and that same relaxed smile that always made me wonder how the hell he stayed sane.
“Hey, you got your cell back? Awesome.” He pointed the spoon at me. “I’m cooking tonight. You want to add something to the dish? I’m doing lasagna.”
For the first time all day, something close to real happiness touched me.
Food.
Actual food.
Not instant noodles.
Not stale crackers.
Food.
“f**k yes, food,” I said, feeling my soul return to my body. “I’ll do the potatoes to go with it. Let me change and put my stuff away first.”
I walked to my room, pushed open the door—
and froze.
Someone had been in there.
My eyes instantly narrowed.
Then I looked up.
The leak in the ceiling was gone.
Actually fixed.
No dripping bucket.
No mold stain.
No sad wet towel shoved in the corner.
Just patched ceiling.
A small win.
Tiny.
Pathetic.
But after the day I’d had, it felt like the universe had handed me one stale cookie and said don’t say I never do anything for you.
I exhaled.
“At long last.”
I changed clothes, helped Greg with dinner, and soon the two of us were sitting at the small table eating like famished prisoners.
The rest of the roommates could eat when they got home.
Or not.
We were all adults.
Broken adults, but adults.
Each one defended their own survival in this apartment.
And I was not mothering anyone.
The television played in the background while we ate, mostly useless chatter I tuned out until a familiar image flashed across the screen.
The invitation.
The grand royal masquerade.
Apparently the entire city had opinions.
Greg slowly looked my way.
And asked the question I had been hoping no one would ask.
“You got one too, right?”
I groaned so hard my soul nearly left my body.
Because yes.
Yes, I did.
Shoving my chair back, I went to my room, dug the expensive envelope from my bag, and dropped it into his hand.
Greg opened it.
Read it.
Then blinked with the exact same offended disbelief I had worn at the phone company.
“The audacity,” he said flatly, “to believe you can afford to visit them is astonishing.”
I snorted.
He kept staring at the paper.
“Seems the news was right this time.”
I nodded.
Neither of us said anything else.
We just kept eating while the television continued dramatizing royal nonsense, and for a few quiet minutes, the apartment felt peaceful.
Peaceful enough that I could almost pretend the invitation sitting on our table wasn’t about to drag my life into a storm I did not ask for.
- Writer
