Sophie's POV
The clock above the espresso machine reads 10:47 PM. Thirteen more minutes and Sophie's shift ends. Thirteen more minutes before she has to drive back to the Blackstone compound. Thirteen more minutes before tonight's pack meeting.
She wipes down the counter for the third time even though it's already clean. Her hands shake slightly. She hides them in her apron pockets.
The coffee shop is nearly empty. Just one customer in the corner nursing cold brew. Her coworker Maya is restocking cups in the back, humming to herself like she doesn't have anywhere else to be after work. Like she doesn't have a family waiting to hurt her.
Sophie envies that more than anything.
"You okay?" Maya appears beside her, holding a stack of paper cups. "You look like you're about to face execution."
Sophie forces a smile. Not too big. Never too big. Drawing attention is dangerous. "Just tired."
Maya studies her face like she's trying to read something buried underneath the surface. She does that sometimes. Maya is too perceptive for her own good. Sophie is grateful Maya doesn't know the truth about her. Grateful Maya thinks her home life is just "strict" and "weird." Not what it really is.
"You should get out more," Maya says, the same thing she says every week. "Come to that party I mentioned. Meet actual people. Live a little."
Live. The word feels foreign. Like something other people do. Other people with normal families. Other people who don't have to be invisible to stay safe.
"Maybe," Sophie says, which really means no.
The door chimes. A customer enters and Maya moves to greet them. Sophie watches the clock tick forward. 10:52 PM now. She's running out of time.
At 11:00 exactly, Sophie unties her apron and clocks out. Maya gives her a sad little wave from the register. Sophie waves back and heads toward the parking lot.
The night is cool. Stars are visible above the city which means the Blackstone compound will be cold underground. She shivers already.
The drive to the compound takes forty minutes. Sophie knows every turn, every light, every moment the familiar city transforms into dark mountain roads. She drives with the windows down even though the air is cold. She needs to feel awake. She needs to feel anything other than fear.
The compound entrance is hidden. Most humans who drive through these mountains never see the hidden road that leads down, down, down beneath the earth. Sophie's hands tighten on the wheel as she descends. The stone walls close in around her.
The underground garage is empty except for a few other vehicles. Everyone is already inside. Already gathered. Already waiting.
Sophie parks and kills the engine. She sits in the darkness for exactly thirty seconds. Just thirty seconds of stillness before she has to become someone else. Someone invisible. Someone safe.
She counts them down in her head. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Seventeen.
Then she gets out of the car and walks toward the meeting hall.
The stone corridor is long and cold and smells like damp earth and something else. Something metallic. She recognizes that smell. Blood.
Her heart rate picks up. The meetings are usually just Carson talking. Just him exerting control. But tonight something is different. Tonight there's violence.
As she gets closer to the meeting hall, she hears sounds. A growl that makes her bones ache. A scream that cuts off abruptly. The crowd noise. The energy of wolves who smell fear.
Sophie stops walking. Her instinct is to turn around. To run back to her car and drive away and never come back.
But pack wolves who disobey meet worse ends than those who stay.
She forces her feet forward.
The meeting hall is a wide cavern carved into the mountain. Torches burn along the walls casting everything in orange and shadow. The pack is gathered in a circle. Sophie's eyes are still adjusting to the light when she sees what's happening in the center.
Carson has someone pinned to the ground.
A young female. Maybe twenty. Her face is bloodied and her arm is bent at an angle that makes Sophie's stomach turn. The girl is whimpering. Still conscious. Still feeling everything.
Carson is still in partial wolf form. Half shifted. The most dangerous version of himself. His voice comes out growled and distorted.
"This," he says to the crowd, "is what happens when you question my authority."
The arm snaps further and the girl screams. Real screams. Uncontrolled and broken.
Sophie can't breathe right. Her vision gets spotty around the edges. She wants to look away but looking away draws attention. Everyone in the pack has learned to watch. To see what happens to those who step out of line.
The girl stops struggling. Just lies there taking the pain because fighting back means worse.
Carson releases her and stands. He's massive in his partial wolf form. Dangerous. The kind of dangerous that kills people just for existing wrong in his presence.
The crowd doesn't applaud. They've learned that too. Instead they're silent and still and afraid.
Sophie tries to move further into the shadows. Tries to become part of the wall.
But then Carson's head turns.
His eyes find her across the crowd. Between the bodies of her pack mates. Through the shadows. His gaze locks onto her like she's made of light instead of darkness.
For one terrible second Sophie thinks he's going to summon her. That she's done something wrong without even knowing it. That tonight is the night he decides she's too weak to keep alive.
Then Carson smiles.
Not a kind smile. Not any kind of smile that makes sense. The kind of smile that looks like something hunting looks when it realizes its prey can't escape.
Sophie's blood goes cold.
Carson shifts fully back to human form. He's still covered in blood. Still looking directly at her.
"Come," he calls out to the pack. To the warriors and the fighters and the males who are always hungry for power and status and anything they can dominate.
"My daughter still has uses."
The words hang in the air like poison.
Sophie feels the moment when every eye in the meeting hall turns to look at her. She feels the shift in the air. The hunger. The sudden, terrible interest.
Her father, Carson, is smiling like he's just realized something valuable about a toy he forgot he owned.
And for the first time in her entire life, Sophie understands that being invisible might not be enough to keep her alive anymore.