Page 1 of Under Dark Skies

One

Layla

Layla was walking home from work. Her shift had ended at two, so she had the rest of her day to do what she wanted. While some might dread the idea of working retail, selling clothes at the mall, she enjoyed it. She liked working with people, and the job was good for an extrovert like her.

She was good at her job. It was amazing what batting her emerald green eyes or twirling her dark blonde hair could get certain customers to buy. She did customer service well.

The employee discount was also something she really enjoyed. She had tall, skinny girl problems, so it was nice that the place she worked at sold pants in lengths. Otherwise, every pair of pants was either falling off her or looked like clam diggers.

She didn't mind revealing half her calf to the world, but she preferred doing it by choice rather than because she couldn't find pants built for her body.

Overall, she really just enjoyed life. It was uncomplicated. She went to work, went out with friends, and just lived her life relatively stress-free. She still had her bills to pay and all that, but she'd settled into a routine that worked for her.

It was a Thursday. So that meant she and her friends would meet to go out partying. That wouldn't be until later, though, so she had plenty of time to relax at home before she even needed to start getting ready.

She walked into the apartment building and collected her mail from the letterbox. The address was handwritten, and Layla would have recognized the neat script anywhere, even though it lacked a return address. Her sister Darla sent her a letter. It was a little strange since they had mostly been communicating via email and text.

When she got into her apartment, she set her stuff down and opened the letter from her sister. It was a few handwritten pages. She sat down to read it. It looked like a very rambling message, mostly dredging up old childhood memories—like the time they buried their pet gerbil, Frank, under the birch tree in their backyard.

It was a little odd since the gerbil had been named Hank. There were small, missed details throughout the letter. None of it was a huge error or memory gap, but enough that Layla started to wonder if her sister had gotten really hammered and, in a drunken bout of nostalgia, wrote her this letter.

She ended the letter saying she missed some of the games they used to play as kids. She signed her name and added OXOX. Layla looked at it. When she and Darla did text, they signed off with XOXO. It wasn't like autocorrect could have done something to a handwritten letter.

Then she had an idea. Grabbing a piece of paper and pencil, Layla sat down and went over the letter again. Layla thought that if PEACE hadn't sprung up, her older sister would have ended up working for something like the CIA. One of the games they used to play as children was sending each other coded messages.

While it wasn't Layla's favorite thing, she wanted to be cool like her big sister, so she went along with it. She had to smile, thinking that maybe it wasn't drunken nostalgia, but just regular garden variety nostalgia. While Layla had chosen a less complicated path, working for PEACE must have been hard on her sister.

Maybe this was just a silly game to take her mind off things. Layla was more than willing to play along if that was the case, but as she decoded the message, the game started to feel less and less fun. She began to wonder if she'd forgotten the cipher they used to use, but if she had, the message would be gibberish.

But even though the words she spelled out made sense, grouped together, she was still having trouble comprehending them.

PEACE compromisedby silent coup conspiring with meta supremacists in Lycan Legacy—a group of wolves on the west coast. The goal is to start a meta/human war. I was ordered to assassinate an innocent werewolf named Galen. I refused. I'm now a threat to the conspiracy. PEACE and Lycan Legacy now trying to kill me. Going dark. Watch out. They may try to use you to draw me out. Leave the city ASAP.

Just to be sure,Layla went over the letter again. But everything came out exactly the same.

This was the first time Layla had been made aware that her sister's job included assassinations. And now, her big sister was on the run from her former employer, and that somehow put Layla in danger. It was a lot to take in.

But then what was Layla supposed to do about it. While she wasn't drowning in debt or anything, she didn't have the sort of money she would need to relocate, especially not for some indefinite amount of time. The skin prickled on the back of her neck like she was being watched.

She felt ridiculous as she turned around to stare at the blank wall. She was alone in her apartment, but she could feel herself getting worked up by the letter.

Layla didn't know a lot about PEACE. It was one of those agencies that belong to the Department of Homeland Security that came about after the Veil had fallen maybe ten years ago. When normal everyday humans had their eyes opened (almost like a veil falling) and realized that the normal everyday humans that were their neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends were actually sometimes supernatural or paranormal beings like witches, wolf shifters, and fae. PEACE was supposed to make sure that everyone - regardless of whether they were human or metahuman - lived peacefully as an American. They were supposed to take out extremists on both sides and protect the homeland. That’s what Layla knew. She certainly didn't know they carried out assassinations. But she did know they were a large organization with field offices everywhere.

If someone was going to try to use Layla to get to her sister, what exactly was she supposed to do about it. Sure, she played pretend spy games with her sister when they were kids, but it wasn't like those ever amounted to anything. It was almost absurd to expect a retail sales associate to be able to do anything useful with this information.

What Layla enjoyed most about her life was how uncomplicated it was. This letter shattered all that, and now she didn't know what to do.

Two

Rafe

“Another day,” Rafe grumbled to himself. “Another dollar. If only Griffen could see me now.”

Rafe shed the suit and tie he wore for meeting clients. It wasn't anything too fancy. He had a few relatively cheap ones that looked good enough to make him look somewhat respectable when he needed to. Being a private investigator tended to tarnish someone's reputation a little.

There was an association of dirty old men waiting in cars just to take pictures of cheating spouses. No one ever seemed to recall the times a PI had tracked down a missing person or recovered valuable stolen property. Yes, Rafe earned most of his money because people treated their marriage certificates like toilet paper, but it wasn't his fault. A man had to make a living.

He wore his suits during the day and while conducting the more public-facing parts of his investigation. But there was the other half of his work where respectability went from being an asset to a liability.

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