The Hunt

6

Not long after Jin and Jimin left, Sarah arrived at my house. She thanked me for letting her borrow my car, but she didn't seem to remember why she had asked. I made up a story about how she was thinking about getting a Corolla, too, and I had offered to let her take mine for the afternoon to see if she liked it. 

I felt awful lying to her, but it was necessary. The truth was just too complicated and the consequences of revealing the existence of hybrids to a human were devastating. 

Growing up I was always told never to reveal to a human that I was a hybrid. It didn't matter if I trusted the human with my life, I could never tell. My parents told me stories about hybrids who had entrusted a human with our secret, and how the human always promised never to tell. But they always told. One way or another, it was never kept a secret for long. 

The penalty for telling a human about the hybrid world, or showing a human your hybrid form, was death. Death for the hybrid, and memory manipulation for the human when possible. If memory manipulation wasn't an option, then the human was killed also. This was the rule according to The Council of Hybrids, a small group of hybrids from some of the larger families, who were selected to govern the hybrid community. 

There were several large families in the hybrid community. The Kim Family were powerful in the world of real estate development and were mostly large cats. The Mins, also large cats, had their hands in investment banking. The Choi Family, of which I was member, were wolves and bears. We were in the healthcare sector, mostly doctors and nurses, but there were some hospital administrators and directors. 

Those were the big three families. They all had money, power, and large numbers of large predators. 

There were other families on the council, but none had as much pull as the Kims, Mins, and Chois. 

Sarah and I chatted a bit before I drove her to her condo across town. 

I grabbed a burger on my way back home and settled myself on the couch to watch some TV before Jimin came to pick me up. 

I debated with myself whether or not to report the hunter situation to the council. It was a rule that all suspected hunters should be reported immediately so they could be put under surveillance and hybrid families in the area could be notified about the possible threat. But I decided not to contact the council. 

While the consequences of withholding vital information were a bit extreme, usually torture of some kind, I was willing to risk it. My reason for avoiding my family for the past few years was, in my opinion, worse than any physical torture. 

Another responsibility of The Council of Hybrids was maintaining the bloodlines. In an attempt to avoid inbreeding, arranged marriages were common among the families in power. Essentially, offspring were married off strategically in a way to benefit each family while keeping the family trees more like a tree than a wreath. 

As the fifth child of the Choi Family, I was not as desirable as my eldest brother and sister. He was set to inherit a seat on the council, as well as the bulk of the family business, a series of private hospitals and hospice care centers. My sister, the second born, was highly coveted for her beauty and would hold the second largest stake in the family business. 

I, however, was more or less the runt of the litter. Pretty, but not beautiful. A little on the chubby side. Small for a wolf. Therefore, I was to be married off to a lesser family as a reward for their family's loyalty to the Choi Family. 

While I'm sure he was a perfectly nice guy, I wasn't thrilled at the thought of being married off to a Park.