Broken Edge No Shelter Novels & Stories

Voices Amid the Debris The terrain had been raggedly scarred by the storm. Ash and rubble swirled in erratic patterns beyond the deteriorating walls of their shelter, serving as a sombre reminder of the world's unrelenting deterioration. When Zara awoke from a restless slumber, she saw Kael standing close to a ragged window, his gaze sweeping the bleak sky. "Is there anything out there?" Her voice was still heavy with fatigue as she asked.

I had dreamed of the neutral zones, of a life where the scent of cedar and ozone didn't mean fear. But as I looked at Marta, who was cradling her shattered leg among the grain sacks, and at Kaelen, who had taken a bolt to the chest to shield me, I knew the border was a lie. If Sharon Bloodclaw took this valley, there would be no neutral zone safe enough to hide the last true heir of the founding packs.

Kael’s magic had been tied to the land; his fall left a wound. Grayson slung his weapon over his shoulder, scanning the treeline. “If we stay here, we’ll draw attention. We need to move.” Nora nodded reluctantly. “There’s an old shelter under the ridge near the river. We can regroup there.” Lira groaned. “You mean the one that smells like mold and regret?” “Yeah,” Nora said. “That one.” As they moved away from the ruins, Nora glanced back one last time. The crater was already filling with shadow but deep beneath it, the shard pulsed again, faintly, like a dying heart refusing to stop.

The shelter's coordinates were etched into my mind, guiding me through the wilderness towards the place where I hoped to find her. But fate seemed to have other plans, as the reality hit me like a blow to the chest upon arriving at the shelter. She was gone, the traces of her presence fading like a whisper in the wind. The shelter's borders were no longer a safe haven due to the rising threat of rogue war – a threat that seemed to encroach from every angle, tightening its grip on my mate.

“Will you keep the light on tonight, please?” My voice sounded fragile, even to me. That night was a week before my eighteenth birthday. My little brother was six and my mother was just a few weeks from having my little sister. Raven lived next door, now my girlfriend. She saw them all leaving, called the police and came right over. She sat with me in the hospital until I was able to be released. My entire stay I woke up with nightmares about what happened. Now every time there’s a storm she’s right there bringing me out of my attacks. She grounds me, keeping me from slipping too deep into the past. She holds me close, sheltering me from the storm.

That had her putting down her walls she had fought to build after the last break up. She couldn’t do that to herself again. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down and let everything she had crumble down. Almost everyone she’d loved left her. Her mother had just died recently, she just started mending her relationship with her father and with Tan he had left before, this was bound to be a repeat of the past. If he hadn’t told her she might regret this after there might be a glimmer of hope for them both, but she already knew it. Tan’s loyalty was to his father and mother.

"You can't do this to me, man. I have nowhere else to go. You can't just toss me and my family out of this shelter—" I turned my back on him, cutting off his pathetic begging, tired of the conversation. "Find your way. Go rebuild your house or something. You should have some insurance on it. Or not, I don't give a damn." I started ambling away, my boots loud against the floor. "I want you out of this shelter before dawn."

I thanked her with all my heart, feeling a sense of hope that I hadn't felt in a long time. The shelter was a small building on the outskirts of the city. It was a plain, unremarkable structure that looked like it had been there for years. The walls were made of gray cinder blocks, and the roof was a simple metal sheet. The windows were small and rectangular, with metal bars on the outside.

I couldn’t afford it anymore. I packed my things into a secondhand suitcase with a broken zipper and left before the end of the month. I found a small women’s shelter on the edge of town. It wasn’t much—just a shared room with two other women, a creaky bed, and a broken heater—but it was warm, and it was safe. There were hot meals twice a day. Clean sheets. A counselor named Janice who didn’t ask too many questions. I sat on the bed the first night, staring at the chipped paint on the wall. My belly ached. My heart ached more.

“And it looks like you’re doing that, so…” “You leaving is what hurt me!” I seethe, anger sinking its claws deeper into me at his pathetic justification for his actions. “And I’m not damaged, Callum, I’m broken! You broke me!” My voice cracks, my chest heaving as I shake my head, fresh tears springing to my eyes. My gaze flutters down to the pavement, my voice dropping to barely a whisper. “You broke me in ways that I didn’t even know were possible.” Callum’s throat clicks with a hard swallow, his shoes scuffing against the ground as he steps closer. “Ness…”