Page 10 of The Sacred Wolf

The cat man? My wolf snorted. You did her a favor.

Ignoring her attempt at dark humor, I turned my attention to the yellow poster clutched in my hand. Pushing my sunglasses onto my forehead, I read a neon-red invitation for ‘humans concerned with anti-human shifter activities’ to come together for a rally at a nearby church in a few days.

I crumpled the paper into my fist. Anti-human?! They’re the ones—!

We should go. My wolf spun in a tight circle. Your face…

Her face.

Same thing.

I scowled, fuming once again about how my selfish twin had been photographed running through Central Park in her shiftskin. If she hadn’t, if that man with the bat hadn’t recognized her face clinging to my skull, then everything would be different now. Charlie wouldn’t be dead. Jayla wouldn’t be alone. And Evan wouldn’t be trapped in a world that wouldn’t accept him.

Elyse, go. Now.

Her gruff tone left no room for debate, and a second after I started walking, I heard the jingle of one of the shop doors behind me. Casting a furtive glance over my shoulder, I saw a human female leaving what I now realized was a printing store with a fresh stack of yellow posters under one arm. Our eyes met briefly, and I quickly looked away, hoping my messy bun and lack of makeup would render my true identity invisible. Her footsteps swerved in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t relax.

I will never get to relax…

As I drew closer to the tramway station, my fear and fury shifted into loneliness and sorrow. Other than living in the Plaza, I hadn’t had a chance to visit any of the iconic movie locations scattered all around Manhattan, so riding the tram made famous by the original Spider-Man movie should have been an iconic movie moment for me. But the preachy posters and violent graffiti had dampened my interest in any activity that didn’t involve going back to the hotel and crawling under the covers to cry about Charlie. She’d never taken the time to ride the tram, Evan had mused sadly to me when he showed me the film. None of them had.

Then do it for her?

My wolf’s attempt at a gentle tone warmed my heart around her. She stopped giving me a hard time about my friends or human interests after Charlie died. She carried her own guilt, I knew, for not erupting in time to take the bullet that took away the closest thing I’d ever had to a mother figure. And then losing Yara on top of that, even though I’d barely known her… Well, it sometimes felt like my grouchy wolf was making an effort to tap into something more maternal now.

Maybe that explains the weirdness with Evan…

I hurried on to the tramway station with my shades down and my chin tucked, past all the fluttering flyers affixed to every streetlight, lamppost, mailbox, and trashcan along the way. I could only hope that the majority of human New Yorkers were more irritated with the zealots defacing property than the targets of their hatred. Maybe they were even getting sick of the hatred itself.

There had always been a small but vocal group of humans who disliked Alma Mater Animalis for the opposite reason of the haters—they believed it was wrong that there weren’t any shifters in the writing room or on the crew. Hence the show’s frustrated creator going on the morning news a month ago and saying she would listen to any shifter who showed up in her office to prove our existence. I snorted, remembering Damian’s horror when I offered to go do it myself. Maybe I should. Maybe if he saw me on the news having a chat with ‘that awful woman’ about the realities of being a female shifter, he would get so indignant that he showed himself. And we killed him.

I humored this pleasant daydream until the tram pulled into the station. The excitement of all the tourist families crowding around me turned out to be contagious, and by the time the time the fire engine red doors finally opened, I was bouncing on my toes like a pup on her first trip outside the high-rise. I raced to the window with the best view of the Upper East Side and smashed my face against the smudged glass with the rest of the children, barely able to keep my butt from wiggling with the wagging of my phantom tail. The doors shut, and the tram lurched forward.

I held my breath as we made our languid journey upward, rising above the traffic-jammed streets and sailing past the gleaming black and silver towers lining the bridge. When we emerged, with just the tiniest sway, over the East River, I could have sworn I felt someone’s hand cover mine on the glass.

You would have loved this, Charlie.

Sun glittered on the olive water streaked with the fizzy white wakes of speedboats zipping happy tourists alongside FDR Drive. Well, I was just assuming they were happy since I couldn’t really see them from way up here, but everyone in the tram was having blast, oohing and ahhing over the panoramic views the wraparound windows provided. Children darted from side to side, exclaiming over landmarks on the Manhattan side—no one knew how to recognize anything in Queens.

There was one couple, however, whose lowered voices carried simmering heat rather than sweet nothings. All of the other riders appeared blissfully unaware of the tension brewing between the two, but my wolf ears couldn’t help overhearing their hissed exchange.

“Would you stop worrying about that nonsense?” the male pleaded. “We’re here to have a good time. I thought you were looking forward to seeing the old Smallpox Hospital?”

“I am, Ronnie, but if I’d known about this, I would have canceled the trip,” his female fretted. “I told you cities were full of monsters!”

The male banged his receding hairline against the window. “Nancy, for the last time: there are no such things as shifters. Everyone’s been watching too much TV! C’mon, we’ve been planning this trip for two years! And it’s not cheap! I just shelled out…”

Their voices faded as my pulse roared in my ears. I tipped my shades down and peeked at the couple from beneath my lashes. A frumpy female in a T-shirt with two wide-eyed Persian kittens on it tucked into her light blue mom jeans was waving at her balding husband, a male wearing what appeared to be a brand new—as in still creased—I Heart NYC T-shirt along with khakis and colorful sandals over his grubby white socks. They looked like they could be Charlie’s parents. They weren’t, of course. But they looked like it. And I couldn’t have them this afraid.

I opened my mouth, heart pounding.

Don’t do it.

“Hey there, guys,” I spoke up, my voice coming out squeakier than I’d intended. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”

My wolf groaned as several heads swiveled my way, not just the two I was addressing, and suddenly a dozen Midwestern gazes seemed to be seeing right through my clothes and my shiftskin to the bristling fur waiting to burst through.

I swallowed. “I’m a true New Yorker myself. Born and raised in the Bronx.” I laughed nervously even though that wasn’t the slightest bit funny. I swallowed again. “So, um, I can tell you first-hand that I’ve never seen a shifter. If they do exist, they don’t bother anyone.” I nodded at Ronnie. “Like that TV show.”

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