AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Three
Skylar
One of the perks of living in a city like Harbor Crossing was that nobody batted an eye at a woman walking down the sidewalk covered in gore.
Supernaturals weren’t out, but there were so many of them here that most humans adapted to the weird without realizing. They keep their eyes forward, didn’t ask questions, and certainly didn’t stop for small talk.
The city was a pulsing heart with a million moving pieces. Crowded, dirty, and loud, this was my city. My home. I grew up here, cutting my teeth on hunting supernaturals in the alleyways and seedy underground bars. I was only thirteen when my dad started dragging me along on hunts with him.
As an outcast, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. My dad married for love instead of pack, and he was punished for it. When my mom died giving birth to me, I think he died a little too. He did the best he could, but nobody would accuse him of being warm. Maybe that was the shifter in him. Though, I wouldn’t know since the only other shifters I knew were the ones I hunted and my roommate, Lola. But she was like me, an outcast, not part of any pack.
I turned toward my building and could already hear her disapproval. She was a full shifter, able to transform into a wolf on command. I’d never seen her do it; though, I suspected her occasional weekends away were so she could run in the nearby mountains as a wolf.
We had one rule in our house: no supernatural talk.
Which meant, she’d judge my ruined clothes silently. When she left the shifter community she really left. She even got a human day job and a human boyfriend and did not discuss her past. I never pressed. I’d seen enough evil from the list of misdeeds of my marks to know she had to have her reasons.
Our building was ancient. We had drafty windows and an elevator that only worked half the time. But it was a refuge in the middle of the chaos. A building almost entirely inhabited by misfit supernaturals. Most of us in this building were here so we couldn’t be found.
It was far too expensive for what it was, but they didn’t run credit histories. Or background checks. Which was useful since I didn’t technically exist. I was never registered in the supernatural community or the human community. So in an odd way, I have a foot in both but also in neither.
I took the crumbling stairwell to the third floor and emerged into the hazy hallway. From the smell of things, our neighbor was having a party tonight and the theme was whatever the newest product he was offering. It wasn’t pot, not in this building. It was probably something supernatural. And while it didn’t have an unappealing scent, there was no way I was going to linger and find out if the secondhand smoke was enough to make someone high.
Quickly, I made my way to my door at the end of the hall. Through the fog, it looked like it was open. But that was impossible. Lola and I were strict about keeping our door closed and locked even while we were home. Between my job and whatever she was hiding from in her past, there was also the steady stream of our neighbor’s customers knocking on our door mistakenly from time to time.
Whatever was in this smoke must already be getting to me.
My brow furrowed as I moved closer, it really looked like the door was open. I picked up my pace, and before I thought it through, I was sprinting to the end of the hall. My heart was already racing when I reached my open door, but full-on panic struck as soon as I stepped inside.
My apartment was trashed.
No, that’s not the right word. Trashed was how it looked when we had a few busy weeks and didn’t have time to clean. This wasn’t trashed. It was destroyed.
Our dining room table was in two pieces, every couch cushion had the stuffing ripped out, springs dangled from the torn base. Papers and clothes and shattered objects littered the floor. Photos and pictures were thrown from the wall, the contents removed from the frames.
I pulled my knife from the pocket on my thigh and tiptoed around the shattered glass and broken objects. Forcing myself to keep my breathing steady and my eyes focused, I looked for any signs that the perpetrator was still here.
“Lola? You home?” I paused, waiting for any sign of movement.
It was silent. Lola wasn’t home and if there were any uninvited visitors still here, they were being careful to keep quiet.
I moved forward slowly, my eyes darting around the destruction for any signs of who might have done this.
None of this made sense. Sure, I had enemies, and I had a feeling Lola did too. But this didn’t look like revenge or an attempt on our lives. It was pretty clear that whoever had been in our apartment was looking for something.
I wanted to say it was one of our neighbor’s customers looking for a fix, but my instincts told me that wasn’t the case. This was too extreme. Whoever did this tore open our couch cushions. They were looking for something they thought was hidden with purpose.
My eyes darted to the overturned couch. It was presently on the one place where we did hide things. There was a loose floorboard we kept our cash in for rent or emergencies. Since I had a dangerous job and nobody else around, I put all my cash in there. Lola knew if I didn’t come home, the money was hers. Not that there was much there at a time… rent here was criminal and I’d desperately needed tonight’s pay. I cringed as I remembered that I’d thrown that money back at the enforcer. Damn my stubborn pride.
I wanted to open the floorboard and check, but not yet. I needed to make sure I was alone first.
I checked the kitchen and bathroom. I checked the hallways and the closets. I checked my room, which looked like someone had set a bomb off. Wonderful. I was going to have to start over. Looked like I’d be sleeping on the floor for a while.
With a deep breath, I left my room and walked to the second bedroom. I pushed open the door and dropped my knife to the ground. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut and I reached for my throat as I struggled to take in a breath.
Lola was sprawled out on the floor, a pool of blood under her.
Movement caught my eye in the corner of the room and I regained my senses, grabbing for my fallen knife.
