Page 2 of Eclipse of the Pack

“Iknow this is the last thing you want to hear, and believe me, I would love to tell you something different, but I can’t. The targets got away,” Ivy said. She grimaced like she was trying to bravely hide pain and hoped her little show would remind them she hadn’t given up without a fight.

“You’re got-damned right we don’t want to hear how the mission got shot down the toilet. What the fuck are we even paying you for, Jenks?” Agent Cody Todd sputtered, and his normally pasty face flushed in patches of blotchy red.

He was just another face in the spinning carousel of management types stacked deep in the organization. Ivy had dealt with enough of them to know her role here: take the browbeating, grovel a little, brush it off, and get on with her day. He didn’t scare her a bit.

She dropped her eyes in fake submission. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said.

His partner smirked. “And it will never happen again, right? Isn’t that how the script goes?” she said. She drummed her perfectly manicured nails on the table.

Ivy blinked. Agent Debra-Lynne Hollis had not come to play. She needed to tread carefully. “Script, ma’am?”

Hollis took in the response and savored it for a moment before replying. “The script every field agent who fails brings in. It’s as tedious as the pat answers pro-athletes give to the media. Let’s skip the niceties and behind-covering and get straight to the point, shall we?”

Ivy nodded and replied, “Yes. Of course.” She forced herself to look like any other direct report getting called out on the carpet—which was slightly queasy and a bit sweaty, not “I’m ready to chew my own foot off to escape this trap” levels of desperate.

“These wolves must be stopped. They pose a clear threat to the public good,” Agent Hollis said. Her voice held all the zeal of a true believer. Ivy worried about what kind of poisoned ground that conviction grew from.

Todd muttered, “Shifter filth like that has no place on earth. It’s unnatural. What I wouldn’t give to get those nasty freaks in my sights.” His hands balled up into fists.

Ivy bit back her response. She wanted to tell him where to cram his bigotry. She itched to shout what she’d learned about PEACE. But the fact that he’d been bold enough to share his hatred so openly, chilled her into silence.

Hollis smoothed her tailored jacket. “Agent Todd, no matter how colorfully he expressed himself, is correct. These abominations must be eliminated. Kill on sight is the best policy,” she said.

“Wait. Why do we have to kill? Wouldn’t capture be a safer and more productive alternative? Aren’t we supposed to be trying to make peace? This sounds like we’re waging war,” she said.

Hollis rolled her eyes and took a theatrically deep breath before replying, “Maybe it looks like a bad play from yourposition, but PEACE has the big picture in mind. Stop second-guessing. Trust me. Trust the system. Do your job and it will all work out. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she said.

Like hell, she thought.

4

JONATHEN

It wasn’t hard for Jonathen to stay at the scene of the riot- he’d discovered his knack for going undetected as a child, and had used it to feed his inquisitive tendencies for years.

He’d always chalked the talent up to the easy confidence and unassuming appearance he projected, but whatever the case, he was grateful for the skill.

It was easily the best tool in his arsenal while he looked for Galen.

While it seemed useless to search for Galen in the city, especially with PEACE agents and shifters crawling all over the place, Jonathen was running out of options fast.

There was no way Galen would’ve gone back to his father, not after being thrown out of the Mojave pack simply because he didn’t buy into the meta-supremacist bullshit. Besides, trying to track a werewolf in the forest was a near-literal comparison to finding a needle in a haystack.

Jonathen picked through the wreckage carefully, avoiding broken glass and debris as he kept an eye out for movement.

He knew the PEACE agents from earlier had already swept the area, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t circleback for anything they’d missed. In fact, Jonathen was counting on them missing something, and hopefully it would lead to Galen.

“Hey!” came a gruff voice from over Jonathen’s shoulder. He froze, and then forced some of the tension from his shoulders as he turned towards the voice.

“Oh thank God, you’ve got to get me out of here!” Jonathen cried, hoping the PEACE officer bought the stranded civilian act.

The PEACE officer eyed him warily, seeming to size him up before adopting the same script they all used with civilians.

“Don’t worry sir, the worst has passed,” he said as he motioned towards a tent at the end of the street. “Head to the medic tent and we’ll have you escorted to the safe zone.”

Jonathen nodded fervently in response, and made a show of hurrying towards the tent the agent had pointed to.

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