Shifted in Silver

Halei

Today is the day I will be set free.

I have waited for this moment for years— suffered through pain, fear, and relentless neglect just so I could claw my way to this one chance. No more chains. No more abuse. No more being a prisoner in my own home.

The plan isn’t perfect, but I don’t need perfection. I just need out.

Click.

My heart jumps, but dread coils around my ribs the moment the door creaks open. My father steps into the room, his silhouette a looming shadow against the dim light. The air turns suffocating, thick with the sharp tang of alcohol and something fouler— rotting cruelty. In his hand, the whip. Wolfsbane and silver spikes, both deadly to our kind. The last time he used it; it took weeks for the wounds to close. I still bear the scars.

I keep my face blank, but inside, cold fury simmers beneath my skin.

Not tonight. Tonight, I win.

He sneers, running a gloved hand over the handle, savouring the way my body stiffens. “Not now, monster. You don’t get off that easily.” His words are slurred, promising a punishment worse than the last. The door slams shut, and the lock clicks into place.

My breathing steadies, but my pulse pounds. My window is shrinking. I don’t have much time.

I glance at the floorboards, the ones he drunkenly stumbled over on his way inside. He never noticed. Didn’t notice the way I edged a single silver chain off the hook. Didn’t notice how, in his intoxicated state, he left the key half-turned in the lock. Good. I slide the chain under my cot, heart hammering. If I need it later, if I need to fight… I will. I exhale, shaking off the fresh wave of nausea.

“Please, Chase, don’t fail me,” I whisper, praying my brother hasn’t broken his promise. I was clawing at my last thread of hope, I knew that but I had to get out.

But hope is a fickle thing in a place like this. The shadows creep in, and doubt tries to sink its claws into me. What if you never truly escape? What if you’re caught? What if every place is the same? What if you really are a monster? That voice. The one that whispers every time I get too close to believing in more. But I won’t listen this time.

I am not a prisoner anymore.

The chains rattle as I shift, and for a moment— just a breath— I’m not here. I’m there.

The room was colder that night, damp with the lingering scent of rain. I remember the way my wrists burned, the way my breath hitched as my father loomed over me. His fingers tightened around the whip’s handle, and he smiled. “Do you think running makes you strong?” I had been six. Barefoot. Bloodied from where I’d scraped my knees climbing out the window. I hadn’t even made it to the tree line. “You’re a monster, girl.” His voice had been silk-thin, dangerous in its quietness. The whip had cracked once— just once— and I had screamed.

The memory shifts, blurs, but I still see the way my mother stood in the doorway, her hands shaking, her lips parted like she wanted to say something. She never did. And I never saw her again after that night.

“Monsters don’t get to run.”

The memory snaps, the past dissolving into the present. The lock clicks. Loud. Deafening. I blink, forcing the ghosts away as the door creaks open. And for one terrifying second, I think it’s my father again. The cruel man coming back before my brother can get to me so that he can leave me in agony once more.

But the footsteps are steady, careful.

A presence fills the room, but something is wrong. There is power— authority pulsing into the room in waves. My breath catches, my heart racing too fast. It had to be my father. The scent hits me— wrong. It wasn’t acid mistaken for blood-ties. Not alcohol, reeking from every pore. Not cruelty, sliding into my skull before he even touched me.

“Halei, you okay?”

The voice seems familiar, but my brain can’t register who it belongs to. I stiffen, blinking up at the figure but my sight is obscured in filters from the past. A threat. But as I blink more, pushing the tears away I can see that it’s not my father. Not my mother either... Not even the ‘mother’ my father took as a second mate.

For a split second, confusion bleeds into rage and pulses through me. I fought so hard to keep my composure, to shove my terror down, but this? This nearly undoes me, the uncertainty of it all— of not being free.

A harsh breath escapes me, relief when the bluest eyes finally filter into my shadowed vision. “Took your damn time.” The words slip out before I can stop them. Chase— my brother, my only anchor to this horrid world— lets out a shaky breath. I see the hurt in his eyes, but I don’t apologise. I can’t. Because for one awful moment, I thought I was still trapped.

He doesn’t comment on my outburst; instead, he moves quickly. He unlocks my chains, avoiding the silver with practiced ease. The moment the shackles hit the floor, I clutch my wrists, rubbing at the raw, irritated skin.

The wounds will heal. The scars will stay.

He tosses me clothes— his clothes and a pair of boots. I inhale deeply, catching his scent, the only familiar comfort I have left. “It’ll mask yours,” he murmurs, turning away to give me privacy. I pull on the worn jeans and cotton shirt, biting back a wince as the fabric sticks to the wounds from yesterday’s lashings. When I finally look up, he’s already holding out a black, sleek backpack. “Inside— supplies, a burner phone. My number’s in there.” His voice shakes, but he steadies it. “When you reach Grandma’s pack, call me.”

The weight of the bag is nothing compared to the weight of this moment.

I swallow hard.

“Follow the river,” he reminds me, “to hide your scent. Shift when you can. Run free. Forget this place.” I nod— but we both know I won’t forget.

I can’t.

Instead of answering, I crash into him, holding onto him like the lifeline he is. “Chase… thank you. For everything.” My voice wavers.

His arms tighten around me instantly, fingers gripping the back of my shirt. Like he doesn't want to let go. "You were always the strongest of us," he murmurs. "Never let them take that from you."

I pull back, looking him in the eyes— a deep blue, just like our sister’s used to be. A sad smile whispered upon my lips, “Never.”

“I love you, Halei. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, so much.”

For a moment, we just breathe. A moment of painful, fleeting bliss.

When I catch a wayward tear cascade down his cheek, I couldn't help but wipe it, "You know I'm coming back for you, right?"

He chuckles, but it's broken. "You better." A final, fierce hug. When he pulls back he smiles again, a sad one but he pulls out a hunting knife. His hunting knife. “Just in case.”

I nod. Then— we move.

I follow Chase up the stairs, pausing only once to look back at the room that held me captive for over twelve long years. Stone walls— dappled, aged, stained with old blood. The blackened window, the muted shelves carrying instruments of torture disguised as discipline. Silver arrows. Leather whips. The brander that seared my thighs and kneecaps. The chair— coated in silver, designed to break me. But it didn’t.

I take one last breath in this wretched place. Then I turn my back on it forever.

The night air hits me like a shock to the system. For the first time in years, I am outside. I don’t run immediately. I should. I know I should. But… I don’t. Instead, I stand in the moonlight, and I let myself feel it. The air is crisp and cool against my skin, clean in a way that the cellar never was. I inhale deeply, taking in the scent of pine, damp earth, the distant whisper of wildflowers.

Twelve years of captivity vanished in one breath of night air— just a single moment, and everything changed.

I’m 17 and finally I could have a taste at what my sister promised me… and what my brother followed through on.

The world is so much bigger than I remember. My breath catches as a shadow moves through the trees. A fox. Sleek, small, delicate in the way I’ve never been allowed to be. It pauses, golden eyes meeting mine. It doesn’t run.

Neither do I.

We just stare at each other, two creatures caught in a moment of stillness. Then, with a flick of its tail, it disappears into the underbrush. And I? I smile.

“We’re free now,” Reece whispers in my head. “We can do anything.”

For the first time, I believe her. For the first time, I let myself hope. For the first time—

“TRAITOR ESCAPING. I REPEAT— TRAITOR ESCAPING.”

The world shatters. The wind dies. The trees close in.

“Bring back the girl. Dead or alive.”

My stomach drops. The scent of freedom is ripped away, replaced by something far worse. The rattle of chains. The hum of electricity.

Tasers. Nets. Traps.

Every nerve in my body screams.

RUN.

I launch forward, heart slamming against my ribs. I run— but I’ve run before. I’ve run so many times, but this memory was specific. This one was tethered closer to the feeling of now even with everything being different. The night was colder that time, the air thick with the scent of damp leaves and old blood. I remember the way my feet pounded against the earth, the way my lungs burned as I gasped for breath.

“Run, little monster.”

His voice had followed me through the dark, amused, cruel— because he knew. He knew I wouldn’t make it.

But he dared me to try.

I had barely made it past the garden before something yanked me back— my father’s fist tangled in my hair, wrenching me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, stars bursting behind my eyes.

I had begged, then.

“Please—”

“Monsters don’t beg.” His grip had tightened. “They pay until they bend, or they die.”

I could feel his anger pressing into my skull like it was my own. Pair that with the scent of his alpha dominance and I cowered in fear.

Not because he never called me by name— although he refused to name me in the first place… but because I knew that there was a strong possibility he would murder his child in cold blood.

Why not?

He had already lost another one…

A sharp pain tears through my side, dragging me back to the present. This time is different. It has to be different. I shove the memory away, push harder, run faster. But the past clings like frostbite, whispering between the trees.

“You’ll never escape me.”

No. I will.

The forest blurs around me. The river is close. I can smell it.

“You’ll never be free.”

I am free.

The ground shifts beneath me, my boots barely touching the earth before I’m pushing off again. The scent of water thickens. I’m almost there, this time I won’t be caught. The forest— a blur, shadows whipping past me as I weave between trees, my feet just barely skimming the ground, almost like I’m floating— no, flying.

Footsteps thunder all around me, signaling they’re closing in.

A figure steps into my path.

Octavius.

The bloodhound.

My father’s best hunter— a killer, a warrior.

He meets my eyes. Hesitates. “You must hurry, malen'kiy volk.” Then— he lies for me. “I caught her scent going east, toward the border!”

He didn’t look at me when he lied. Like if he did, he’d remember he was human.

I don’t stay to question it. Because I am still hunted. Because I am still running. Because I am still afraid. And I have every right to be.

I run.

Because I have no choice. Because hope was never meant for people like me. Because the moment I cross the far border— the pack bond shatters, and it feels like I am being torn apart.

The pain starts at my bicep, a slow, bubbling burn that spreads like molten fire through my veins. I nearly stumble. My breath shatters into jagged, uneven gasps. The crest on my arm glows like magma, searing through flesh and muscle.

Rogue.

I am rogue now.