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I find myself hiding the collar in the bathroom cabinet, sneaking back to put Tinker’s tool back in her box, and then I retreat back to our bedroom.

I wonder if I could climb out the window now. I wonder if they’d see me. I wonder who is watching. For a while, I sort of peer out of the window to see what is happening on the street beyond. I don’t see any vans, which I know is Henry’s transportation of choice when it comes to moving shifters. Makes sense. Someone can be in wolf form in the back of a van and nobody’s going to know about it.

There are probably cameras around the house, I figure next. But where are they exactly, and do they cover every angle? And if I shift now, will it even matter, because there’s no fucking way they’re going to be able to hunt me down. In fact, the second story doesn’t even look that high up really. I bet I could…

I find myself opening the window and looking out of it. I catch a scent of something in the air. Maybe it’s the grass. Maybe it’s the few trees who have been permitted to exist in this semi-urban hellscape. Maybe it’s something older and deeper and more compelling.

The lot next to this one has more under- and overgrowth than this one. There are bushes and trees, and I cannot completely see from my window, but I think I can scent water, so maybe a river?

I inhale.

And I am wolf.

Gliding into my animal self feels so incredibly freeing. The guilt is gone in an instant, because creatures do not feel guilt. They follow their nature, and that is all.

I follow my nature out the window, leaping down onto the jutting veranda below, I scoot around the house and make a leap as far as I can into the bushes.

I think I have made a clean escape, but there is a sudden rustling around me and the scent of multiple shifters suddenly taking their animal forms. Air that smelled like grass and possibility is now full of wolf musk.

I take a sharp turn away from the direction I was headed as a pack of wolves bursts out of the undergrowth. A good six of them are on me in an instant. I am fast, but I am not able to outmaneuver them, because they come from all different directions and there is no clear path through them.

He wasn’t lying. He had guards posted everywhere, shifters ready to pop out and hunt me down in an instant. The fright of being immediately caught makes me vicious, but not vicious enough. These creatures have been ordered to catch and hold, I know that because I am being bitten all over. They are nipping at my legs and my back. There is no deference in their bites. They are treating me as they would treat any wild prey they wanted to bring down.

I yelp and snap and try to spin to get them, but there are simply too many. Blood joins the scents hovering in the late morning air. Mine and theirs.

Finally, rough teeth sink into my neck, pinning me down to the ground by my throat. Someone big has me. A male, too heavy to remove from my neck by myself. I can’t push him off, can’t snap at him. He has me pinned with paws and jaws, his fangs threatening to go even deeper if I do not submit.

I hear voices. The others have left their wolf forms and are scrambling to re-dress in human clothes. They’re talking to one another about what they’re going to do with me, and the fact that they’ve already called Henry.

“He’s on his way.”

“Can’t keep her out like this for long, someone will see.”

“Harder bite. Make her drop form.”

The teeth sink in deeper, harder, and my animal self starts to whimper and whine. I can feel my body trying to drop the wolf shape, but I won’t. I hold onto it like it is the last bit of freedom I will ever have.

Fuck it. He can tear my throat out, if he wants.

There is elation in resistance, energy of pure defiance animating me. I don’t care what happens right now. I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if they kill me.

“Jesus Christ, she’s an absolute little monster,” someone says nearby.

“Blood of the Swales,” someone else says. “It’s impressive, huh.”

I know then, that in spite of the fact that I am pinned, I am bleeding, I have punctures on my legs that they’ve given me because they expected me to shift and heal as I took my human form, that these wolves recognize what I am.

That feels good.

“We could silver her.”

“That hurts like hell.”

“Maybe, but at this point, for her own good.”

I let out a furious snarl. It comes out somewhat choked because I am still pinned by teeth, but they know how I feel. This will come with consequences for all of us.

“People are going to be coming. Do it. Fast.”