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“For now, you can just leave that section blank and add a note.”
Delilah handed her job application to Miranda. She loved the smell of her perfume and thought to ask her where she got it.
“You like eggs?” Miranda asked. “Are you a breakfast kind of girl?”
“I love eggs,” Delilah said with a bit too much excitement slipping in.
Miranda chuckled. “How do you like ’em?”
“Fried or soft-boiled.”
“And do you like sausage or bacon?” Miranda kept taking her order.
After jotting everything down, Miranda went to the kitchen. She didn’t come back until she had brought a massive dinner plate full of eggs, sausage, waffles, and grits. Delilah wondered if she had cooked it herself… if they were really that short-staffed.
Miranda sat down next to her as she ate. Even though it was approaching the dinner hour, she remained the only customer in the cafe.
As she ate, Miranda questioned her more in-depth on her life. Delilah knew she needed to be as vague as possible. She mentioned that she had an abusive ex back home, that she’d been working as a waitress for years, and that she was just frugal enough to have a good nest egg in her back pocket.
The entire time, Miranda listened closely, nodding where appropriate, and expressing genuine sympathy. She seemed very invested in Delilah’s story and was a great listener.
When it came time to pay the bill, Miranda insisted that the whole meal had been on the house, but Delilah refused. She wanted to pay for it. It was important to her feelings of self-sufficiency. Plus, she didn’t want to start something that could become a friendship feeling indebted or like she was taking advantage of Miranda’s charity.
As she paid the bill, Delilah left Miranda her phone number. Miranda said they should get together sometime, so she could show her around town, and Delilah expressed how much she’d like that.
Delilah didn’t want to get her hopes up, but this job felt perfect. She’d made the first genuine connection with anybody since arriving, and she felt confident she could trust Miranda. She seemed like she wore her heart on her sleeve, like what you saw was what you got with her. Authentic people like that weren’t common even back home.
Sure, the pay probably wouldn’t be great, and she’d be within walking range of the two shifters she’d encountered. But she had a feeling that wasn’t going to come up again. Perhaps it was misguided optimism, but this felt like a genuine reboot, an opportunity to start fresh and wipe the slate clean.
Delilah headed for her hotel, still afraid of running into either of the two shifters on her way home. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and as the night wore on and her stomach emptied itself, she ordered another pizza.
Chapter 7
Graham
GrahamandJudecontinuedto search the city for the lone female shifter but to no avail. After daily street watches and exhaustive searches into nearly every nearby business, they still found no signs of her.
Soon, Graham began to fear the worst. Aspects of this city weren’t kind to shifters, and if her past hadn’t caught up with her, perhaps the city had. The ability of certain individuals to shapeshift, mainly into wolves, was a closely guarded secret, but some among the population knew the truth and wished them ill.
Meanwhile, Jude continued to insist that she was probably fine, and maybe she was just visiting the city and belonged to another pack. But Graham knew the look of a shifter displaced from their society, and his every instinct told him to protect the girl, wherever she was.
Graham was a brilliant strategist, but he had an even better intuition. In his life so far, his gut had never led him astray. To hopefully broaden their search, he had called a pack meeting.
As much as they wanted to conceal themselves and the existence of shifters from the public, the pack sector was an array of neon lights, bonsai trees, and townhomes. The Fang District of the city aimed to be fully self-sufficient, bringing in income through pack-owned businesses and avoiding as much outside intervention as possible.
The Grimmaw pack’s goal was to hide in plain sight. Whenever anybody produced outlandish claims that werewolves lived in the Fang District, their pack-run newspaperThe Fast Timesdiscredited the claims, making it clear that the existence of “werewolves” was motivated by the name of the district and people’s active imaginations.
Over generations, they had worked to mix modernity with nature. A few skyscrapers dominated the district, but they also had a secluded, sizable park. Trees and foliage jutted out of the sides of the skyscrapers, integrated into their design through cultivation and careful metal crafting.
The Fang District was meant as a paradise for shifters, protecting them from the cultural narratives and rival packs that endangered them.
Graham and Jude met at the teahouse, sitting outside on the patio while watching the alternating neon lights. They waited patiently. Even here, in the middle of the city, they could see the first stars in the sky appearing among violet swirling clouds.
Samson, Dakota, and Sarah approached the patio table, with Sarah carrying a briefcase and a portfolio. Jude was an excellent backup, his presence intimidating to those he first met. However, Samson and Dakota were even more imposing.
Samson looked more Hulk than human, with red hair that stretched down below his waist and a burly, unkempt beard. Dakota looked like a biker and had tattoos and piercings to match. His wife Sarah was the total opposite, being both soft-spoken and professional.
“I know why my wife’s here,” Dakota’s nostrils flared in a way that his nose piercing shook like a bull’s. “But why you gotta bring the muscle down, too?”
