Memories
The first-class cabin of the Boeing 737 was whisper-quiet, save for the dull, rhythmic hum of the engines cutting through the clouds. Leah Day rested her chin against her palm, staring out the window as the patchwork fields of Indiana began to materialize far below.
She was flying back to her hometown for her ten-year high school reunion. And absolutely nobody was expecting her.
Instead, the Enders High School reunion committee was expecting a miracle. They were expecting an appearance by Daisy Wise—the reclusive, record-breaking fantasy author whose face had never been captured by a paparazzi lens, but whose books sat at the top of every global bestseller list. The absolute hilarity of it was that “Daisy Wise” had never set foot inside Enders High. Yet, the reunion committee was far too ignorant to realize they were chasing a ghost.
Six months ago, Leah’s publisher had called her, holding back laughs. “Leah, you’re never going to believe this. A public high school in your old zip code just sent an impassioned, twenty-page invitation to Daisy’s PR team. They want her to be the guest of honor at their reunion. They’re claiming her as an alum so they can celebrate themselves as the ‘creative breeding ground’ for one of the most popular authors in the world.”
Leah had laughed out loud. Then, a cold, elegant spark of ambition had caught in her chest.
She agreed to attend on one strict condition: everything—the flights, the five-star hotel suite, the security—must be booked under her pen name. Her real name was not to be uttered, printed, or whispered. For ten years, Leah had been building a literary empire in the dark. Now, she was finally ready to step into the light, and she was planning on bringing an absolute storm of vengeance to the people who had made her teenage life a living hell.
Leah blinked, her gaze tracking a bead of condensation sliding down the double-paned window. Her mind drifted back to the very last time she had stood on her high school’s grounds. It had been graduation day and the day that changed her life.
***
All those years ago
Enders High School — One week until graduation
Leah walked through the heavy double doors of the school, her head instinctively ducked low. She wore her universal shield: an oversized black denim jacket pulled tight over a plain white shirt, dark jeans, and her shoulder-length light-brown hair worn straight and unstyled over her forehead to hide as much of her face as possible.
She didn’t dare look anyone in the eye. Her only goal for the day was survival. Specifically, she wished to not get beaten up or cornered before first period.
Leah was the undisputed laughingstock of Enders High. She used to have one friend—the only person who didn’t look at her like she was a stain on the floor—but her family had moved out of the territory state lines months ago, leaving Leah completely isolated in a shark tank.
The problem wasn’t just typical high school cruelty. The problem was supernatural.
Leah was a werewolf, attending a high school entirely populated by other regional werewolves. But there was a devastating mutation in her DNA: her other half had never awakened. While every other teenager in the pack had endured their agonizing, glorious first shift between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, Leah’s wolf simply never came.
To a pack, a wolfless werewolf was worse than an outcast. She couldn’t shift. She couldn’t access the pack’s shared mind-link. She possessed none of the heightened strength, predatory grace, or healing factors of her peers. She was a “Mute”—the lowest possible rank, a biological glitch who was basically a fragile human in their predatory eyes.
The older pack members and elders mostly ignored her, treating her like a tragic, invisible burden. Some of them offered a suffocating, pathetic pity that made Leah want to scream. But the teenagers? The younger generation of the pack made her life an absolute misery.
Leah reached her locker, her fingers trembling slightly as she spun the combination dial. She swung open the dented metal door and began her rigid, frantic routine of swapping out her morning textbooks, praying for speed. She just needed to get to her first-period seat before the hallway became a hunting ground.
Then, the air shifted.
The heavy, overwhelming scent of expensive, cloying perfume mixed with the sharp, crackling tang of predatory ozone filled the hallway.
Leah’s heart dropped into her stomach. She knew that scent anywhere. Panic seizing her chest, she slammed her locker shut, abandoned her remaining books, and rushed down the corridor toward the nearest restroom. She pushed through the heavy privacy door and bolted straight into the farthest stall, throwing the metal latch into place. She pulled her knees up to her chest on top of the toilet seat, hoping beyond all hope that she had escaped into the shadows before she was spotted.
But in a pack house, it was never that easy. Predators could smell fear.
The heavy outer door groaned open, the loud, rhythmic click of designer boots echoing sharply against the sterile tile floor. Then, Leah heard her voice.
Shannon Bearrs.
Beautiful Shannon. Popular Shannon. Future Alpha’s mate Shannon. The undisputed apex predator of the high school and the girl Leah hated most in this mortal world. While the rest of the student body treated Leah like an annoying insect to be stepped on, Shannon treated her like a prized sport.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are...” Shannon’s voice purred through the empty restroom, dripping with a terrifying, playful malice.
Leah squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing the bile of fear rising in her throat. A agonizing second later, the sharp crack of manicured fingernails tapped aggressively against the metal door of Leah’s stall.
“Come out, Mute,” Shannon taunted, her voice dropping into a low, dominant growl that vibrated right through the partition.
Knowing she couldn’t prolong the inevitable—and aware that hiding would only make the retaliation twice as violent—Leah slowly lowered her feet, unlocked the latch with a trembling hand, and stepped out into the open washroom.
She didn’t even have time to brace herself. Shannon’s hand shot out like a striking viper, fisting tightly into Leah’s brown hair and violently throwing her weight downward. Leah gasped as her feet slipped out from under her, crashing hard onto the cold, unforgiving floorboards.
Right on cue, Stella Croft and Emma Hogue—Shannon’s shadow-dwelling best friends—strolled into the restroom to inspect the morning entertainment, shutting the main door behind them to block the hallway’s view. Emma looked down at Leah sprawling on the tile, a momentary flicker of genuine guilt passing through her eyes, but she quickly masked it. Emma knew the rigid rules of the high school food chain: you were only popular as long as you stood behind the apex predator. She wouldn’t dare speak up or defend a Mute.
Stella, eager to please her future Luna, immediately joined right in. She whipped out her smartphone, angling the camera lens directly at Leah’s face to record the degradation.
“You are so pathetic, Leah. Can’t even stand up and fight back like a real wolf?” Stella stoked the fire, her voice dripping with disgust.
Shannon laughed, a cruel, melodic sound that echoed off the mirrors. CRACK!
With a brutal, lightning-fast backhand, Shannon slapped Leah squarely across the face. The force of the blow snapped Leah’s head to the side, the stinging heat of the impact radiating instantly across her flesh.
“Alright girls, that’s enough!”
The sharp, authoritative voice sliced through the tension as Mrs. Wool, the strict history teacher, marched into the restroom. She immediately knelt down on the floor, entirely ignoring the three popular girls as she placed a gentle, protective hand on Leah’s shoulder, helping her stand up while carefully checking the angry swelling on her cheek. “What exactly is going on here?”
In the blink of an eye, Shannon’s predatory smirk vanished, replaced by a wide-eyed, perfectly innocent expression that could fool any human. “Nothing at all, Mrs. Wool. Leah had just slipped on some water when we came in, and we were just leaning down to make sure she was okay. Right, girls?”
“Mm-hmm,” Mrs. Wool muttered, her eyes narrowing into slits of deep, unwavering doubt as she looked from Shannon to the phone still clutched in Stella’s hand. “And her cheek is blazing red because...?”
Shannon didn’t miss a beat, her voice smooth and perfectly rehearsed. “She must have hit it on the edge of the porcelain sink as she fell. It was an accident.”
The teacher didn’t look convinced for a second, her gaze lingering on Shannon with severe disapproval. But without concrete proof or a pack-rank authorization to challenge the future Alpha’s mate, her hands were tied. “Go to class, girls. All of you. Now.”
Shannon threw one last, menacing glance over her shoulder at Leah—a silent, icy promise that this hallway ambush was far from over—before turning on her heel and strutting out of the restroom with her pack entourage trailing behind her.
Leah clutched her heavy book bag tightly against her chest like a shield. She whispered a quick, strained “thank you” to the teacher before ducking out into the hallway as well, her eyes burning with hot, angry tears she absolutely refused to let fall in front of the monsters.
