I draw another shakey breath.
Please, let me die.
I am in the same position that I've been in since I can remember.
My hands and feet are strapped so tightly that I can't move any of them, all of the limbs stretched across the table, held down by the metal wrist and ankle restraints. The restraint across my neck only allows me to move my head from side to side, but that doesn't matter. The material secured to my face keeps my eyes useless, I can't even tell if there's a light on in the room I'm in.
My naked body lays on the cold metal table. It's only 65 degrees in the room, goose bumps are raised all over my skin.
I take a deep breath and reach out with my mind, feeling for any sign of life. I can feel my frequenies travel out, only to bounce off the confines of the walls and return to my mind with an agonizing silence.
I am alone.
I think about my count. What is today?
Today is day 5,838 of my captivity, or what they call my life.
In two days, I'll be 16. I've lived in this place, this way my entire life.
A genetically unique but emotionally lost teenager must figure out who she is within her mixed-up, warring world of Shifters and Wolfstalkers.
*****
It wasn't Maddie's choice to be born a half-breed, half Shifter, half Wolfstalker -- a hunter of Shifters -- and it wasn't her choice to keep her identity a secret. But after trying to attend high school like any normal sixteen-year-old, things quickly spiral south when her Stalker uncle finds out about her and catapults her out of anonymity and into the awareness--or possibly the crosshairs--of The Order of the Wolfstalker. Maddie must think fast and figure out a way to keep herself and her family safe, or risk losing everything. Including her life.
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