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“I heard you’re given the order to kill her if she resists,” Bonne said. “Is that true?”
“Yes. Dead or alive, we’re to bring her in.”
“We’re going for alive, I’m guessing.”
Of course. I bring her in alive, and the new alpha promised to leave us alone in the reservation.”
“You think he’ll keep to his promise? James said the same thing that every kind of wolf was welcomed in his community, and then he woke up one day and didn’t want you people.”
“Do you know why he did that?”
“I asked around. It had something to do with the Tarloux family.”
I scoffed at the mention of their name. I should have known they were involved somehow.
“I know, right?” Bonne said. “What will you do if she doesn’t come willingly, though? Have you thought of that? She killed the Alpha, so she must be pretty powerful. I mean, James wasn’t the most powerful alpha to have been, but he was strong, and he was an alpha! That means something. If she doesn’t come willingly, you’re going to have to make a decision. Kill her or let her go. One of the two.”
“She’s going to come willingly,” I told him.
But I knew he was right. I hadn’t thought of it, but it was a possibility. If I catch up with her and it leads to a fight, I have to make sure she doesn’t win. Even if it will take having to tie her down so she doesn’t escape and bring her in still tied up, then that is what I would do. I can’t think of killing her. She’s imprinted on me. In a way, she’s become a part of me, and the worrying thing was that that part was getting deeper and deeper as time passed. I’m going to have to fight it.
“I don’t know this girl,” Bonne said. “I have never met her, but she’s done something to you. Something I have never seen anyone do before. And I think that is more reason why you shouldn’t hunt her.”
“I have no option, Bonne,” I said. “It has to be me. I can’t let anyone else get her.”
I don’t know why, but the hunting was just a secondary mission. The main one was to make sure no one but me got her. It felt very important to me. There was something about her.
They call her Hayley, and I have to know her.
Chapter eight(Hayley)
About fifteen years ago, before James took me off the street, I used to run around for a gang that called themselves Persi. They were just a bunch of older street kids who got together and made us do things for them. If we didn’t do those this, they’d beat us and collect whatever you made for the day. They were big, too big to be street rats, and they were mean. They didn’t mind throwing a few punches and throwing things at you. They didn’t mind even breaking bones. They were simply heartless, and they recruited me soon enough. I had avoided them as much as I could, but they found me. People talked about me a lot—a little girl on the street with swift legs and hands. I was a dangerous weapon.
I used to walk down the street with my nose flaring and taking a sniff at the people to see who was using expensive perfumes. They were always the right ones to rob.
Not the ones wearing the expensive designers or the ones with the expensive wristwatches, not even the ones that put so much effort into looking rich. It was simply the ones that smelled expensive. Most of them weren’t showing off and just loved to smell nice. If they catch you stealing from them, they mostly would just shoo you away and not hand you over to the police. Sometimes, they would give you some money and make you promise never to steal again. It was all empty promises, of course, but it was fun to look into their eyes, those pretty things overflowing with naiveté with their lustrous skin and beautiful smiles, and lie to them.
The best humans are the ones that smell nice. A fact I came to understand as a street rat.
The Persi rounded me up one afternoon with a couple of other kids. They asked us to go steal for them and bring whatever we get back, and then they’ll determine what portion to give us. They have made themselves the street mafia. It was utterly ludicrous, and they were pigs. There was no way I was giving them what I hustled off the street.
So, we went to the street to steal. I made a bit that day, enough to keep me going for about a week or two, and I wasn’t about to hand it over to them. I ran away. I couldn’t remain on the street because they would find me. It was their turf; they’d been out there longer than I had been, they knew all the hiding places, and they knew a lot of kids they could get to look for me. I was left with only one option—hiding inside a house.
When the streets get unsafe, when you have everyone skulking for you and every nose in the town sniffing out your scent, the best thing is to stay invisible. Stay away from the street for as much as you can. The trick isn’t in getting out as fast as you can; the trick is in getting out alive, and you do that by picking the right time to be out during the day.
That morning after I left Kris’s, I could tell it wasn’t the right time to be outside. The hunt will just have started, and everyone will be at it with fresh enthusiasm. I had to lay low for a while, let them tire a bit from finding me and not seeing me, then I would step out again. It might take me weeks to make it out of town, but I would make it out alive.
If I had had humans hunting me instead of werewolves, this would have been much easier. But werewolves have aheightened sense of smell and perceive their environment differently than humans. They had the sensory ability of wolves and the cognitive abilities of humans. It was a dangerous pair. I know because as I walked down the street, with the sun slowly coming up behind me and basking the street in a lovely yellow glow, I was listening to the conversations happening inside the homes on either side of the street. It was a school morning, so families were up early to prepare the kids, and those without kids were preparing for work. What I was looking for was a house with no noise coming out of it at this time of the day.
I found it just about five houses from the start of the street. It was dead quiet, and I couldn’t even hear the sound of mice skittering about from inside the house. As I walked towards it, I took a sniff of the air around the house. It was mostly just grass, some flowers, and a huge amount of dust. No human skin, though. Only flaked old ones. I got to the porch and found some mail and newspaper on the floor. These people have been out of town for a long while. I did knock, though. Just a gentle one, and I didn’t wait to get a reply before I broke the bolt and walked into the house. I could have gone in through the back window, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. A neighbor was bound to see me sniffing around, and it wasn’t dark.
I was a long way from the Palace but still within the community. Depending on the kind of hunters they hired, I should be able to keep them off my scent, and the time I spend in this house will keep them going in circles for a while. That was what I did before heading here—walked around the city in circles, keeping myself hidden and using the dark for cover, but once it started to get light, I headed out immediately.
It was a bit dark inside the house as all the curtains were drawn, but I didn’t need to pull them. I could see like I was still outside.The furniture in the house was covered with sheets to stop dust from gathering on it and judging by the amount that had gathered on the sheets, I think the occupants of this house have been gone a long time. I hope they don’t come back soon. There were family portraits on the wall, a couple of artworks, some child paintings on the refrigerator, and nothing to eat in there.
I was beginning to get hungry.
I made sure not to breathe in too hard because of the dust in the air. Our senses were good, but that had its downside too. A simple breath inward can send me into a sneezing fit. I was trying to remain stealthy, and sneezing would help me achieve the opposite of that.
