Skinwalkers

Chapter Fifteen

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Chapter Fifteen

Nostalgia was a dangerous emotion, Fey realized as the bus came to a stop.

The woods. The hills. Even the clouds in the sky all seemed exactly as they had been on that day three long years ago. Seeing it again, it struck her how much she had missed this place.

Fey Greenbriar was home.

And that was what made it dangerous. As she gazed out the window at the familiar landscape, every inch of which was engraved with memories, she had to forcibly remind herself that she was walking straight into danger. This wasn't her home. The people she'd come to see weren't her friends. If she let herself slip into a false sense of security while she was here, they would disembowel her before she even made it past the tree line.

She looked at Clueless, fast asleep with her head resting against the window. The trip had taken all night and most of the following morning. Clueless had spent the first half of the trip trying to press her face against the glass hard enough to see behind the bus, as if Zave were right outside, following them on foot. A little after midnight, she had finally fallen asleep. Every once in a while, she would let out a little bark. Luckily none of the other passengers seemed to notice. Steeling herself for whatever might come next, Fey shook the other skinwalker awake, and the two of them disembarked.

They were the only ones to get off at this stop, and that suited Fey just fine. Fewer people meant fewer wandering eyes to see them abscond into the woods. It was a large gas station and truck stop, but at this time of morning it was nearly deserted. Standing out in the parking lot, Fey couldn't help but turn in a slow circle as feelings she had hoped she would never have to confront rose up in her chest. This was the exact place where she had left the pack, and the life of a skinwalker, behind three years ago. The pain of betrayal—her own betrayal—was still as sharp as it had been that cold winter morning where she had shed her true form for what she'd believed was the last time.

She could still remember how it had felt to wear her human body for the first time in nine years. Not only had the sensation of not having thick, warm fur all over her body felt utterly alien to her, but that was the first day she'd had to wear clothes since her Awakening as a child. The way she had picked at her shirt and pants, fighting the urge to strip them off just like Clueless had the day before. And her feet! Real feet after nine years of walking on hooves! She had almost forgotten what it felt like to have toes!

It hadn't been her choice to leave the pack. She had known it would happen eventually since the day she'd developed her Instinct. She had thought she was prepared. But when her eighteenth birthday had finally come, and skinwalker custom dictated that she set out on her own to Awaken and lead her own pack...

I felt so alone, she thought, the memory making her eyes sting. The world was so big, and my place in it had just been yanked away. They expected me to carve out a new place to belong, surround myself with a new pack to chase away the loneliness, but...but I already knew that it wouldn't be enough.

Fey had loved being a skinwalker. Living in the woods, unconcerned with humanity's petty rules and useless expectations. There, her only concern was finding enough food to keep her belly full until the next day. It was a kind of freedom that the human world could never offer. Humans were expected to work day and night, toiling away at meaningless tasks just for the right to exist. Compared to that, the Wild was a paradise. But what good was paradise without her friends? The packmates who were close enough to be her family? Fey didn't doubt that she'd be able to find more skinwalkers and build her own pack, if given enough time. But having a new pack would never make her stop missing her old one.