Chapter 7

Somehow—I have no idea how—I manage to sleep.

I dream, vaguely, about Kaely. It’s one of those dreams where I know it’s him even though I don’t actually see him. I’m aware of his presence, mocking me, jeering at me. Rejecting me.

I wake up in a cold sweat, aching to go back to him, tormented by the fact that he’s nowhere near me and that I’ll probably never see him again.

I don’t want to see him again—and yet I’m craving him like oxygen. I need to make a plan.

I need to know where I’m going.

And as that thought comes to me, I realize I already know where I want to go.

There’s one thing I’ve been preparing myself to do for my whole life, and that’s hunt Moon Casters. Whatever I am, whatever I’ve found out about myself, that doesn’t change. I’ve been training all my life, dreaming of being one of the greatest Moon Caster hunters who’s ever lived.

If I can get hold of one of them, take him prisoner, maybe I can get some answers about who and what I really am.

Before I leave the store, though, I’m going to see if I can find anything to bring with me.

I feel a connection to my mother as I wander through the wreckage, kicking things over as I go, looking for anything that might be useful. This must be what shopping trips were like for her. Looking for treasures to bring home.

In the first few years after the Lunar Reversal, places like this were raided for food and supplies. I wasn’t really a part of all that since I was a child at the time. I don’t have any memories of going through stores and taking what I needed. All my memories come from the years since the pack learned to be self-sufficient. Our clothes are made of animal hides, or else they’re garments that have been passed down from parent to child over the years. The tools we have are mostly things someone already owned when the Lunar Reversal took place. The pack shares almost everything now.

But I’m on my own. I have nothing. So I need to start gathering supplies.

The first good thing I find is a backpack. I unzip it and look inside. It’s pretty spacious, and it ought to hold several things without too much trouble. I stuff in the undergarments I found last night and sling it onto my back.

As I do, I make a fantastic discovery. In addition to shoulder straps, this backpack has two straps that buckle around the waist and the upper chest. I click them into place, noticing how they change the way the weight of the pack is distributed. If I were a human carrying something heavy, that would be helpful.

But I’m not thinking about this the way a human would.

If I adjust the straps just so, this backpack will stay on me even when I shrug my arms out of it. It will stay fastened around my torso—even when I’m in wolf form.

That really feels like a lucky break. One of the hardest things about traveling in wolf form is carrying anything—I’ve already been worrying a little bit about how I’ll negotiate the issue of bringing my clothes with me wherever I go. This solves that problem. It’s so convenient that I almost feel like my mom is helping me out somehow, nudging the things I’m going to need into my path.

“Thanks, Mom,” I murmur, even though I kind of know I’m being silly and superstitious.

Now that I have a backpack that’s going to be so easy to carry, I can get a few more things to wear. I go back to the pile of clothes and sift through it again, picking out a few shirts and pants. I roll them carefully so they’ll take up the least amount of space they possibly can and tuck them into the bag.

Now—food.

Food is a long shot, and I know it. Anything that was fresh in this store when the Lunar Reversal took place will be long gone, of course, rotted away or consumed by animals decades ago. And preserved food will probably have been taken in the early days, by people trying to survive. But maybe something was overlooked.

I’m lucky again. In the very back of the store, set deep on a low shelf, I find some tin cans claiming to contain alphabet soup. I don’t know what that is, exactly—there’s no picture on the label—but soup is easy enough to understand, at least. I take all six of the cans and load them into my bag.

I don’t really know what else I might need, and I’m about to leave the store when it occurs to me to get one of the scented candles that concealed me last night when the pack came through. If that trick worked once, it can work again. I hurry back to that part of the store and pick out a lavender scented one. That’s a smell that’s found often enough in nature that it won’t seem suspicious or draw anyone to investigate it, and it ought to be powerful enough to cover me if I need it to.

I turn and head for the exit.

On my way to the door, I see something else—a plastic water bottle as tall as my forearm. It’s lying on the floor by itself, and I imagine it was part of a collection at some point, but all its brothers must have been taken. I pick it up and examine it. It doesn’t look cracked, but there will be no way to know for sure until I test it by filling it with water.

There’s a little mesh pocket on the side of my backpack that’s just the right size for a bottle like this. I tuck it in.

Then I head to the broken window at the front of the store, the place where I made my swift entrance last night. I brace my foot on the windowsill and jump out.

All around me, the world is quiet.

I know how deceptive that is, though. Just because I can’t see or hear any threats, that doesn't mean there aren’t any.

There are other wolf packs scattered throughout the city. Ours is far from the only one to have survived the Lunar Reversal. And because I’m a woman of mating age, I’m a commodity. Anyone who sees me is going to want me.

There are the Ravagers, of course. I’ve never met any Ravagers, but I’ve certainly heard enough legends to have a healthy fear of them.

There are covens of Moon Casters, using their magic to do unspeakable things. I want to find a coven, but I can’t let them find me first.

And, of course, there’s my own wolf pack. Still pursuing me. Still hunting me.

I’ve really got my work cut out for me.

I tighten the straps of my backpack and set off down the road.