Novel & Cerita The Outsiders Plot

The things we want are so very rarely the things we need. Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful. But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you're not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen. Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new... Until night falls once more. Handy's Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

One night, as I was making my way to the bathroom around 3 a.m., I saw my dormmate, Yvonne, squatting in front of our door. She was rearranging all our shoes so that their tips were pointed inward. I thought it was funny, so I rearranged them to have their tips pointed outward. The next day, I found that all of them had been positioned inward again. This kept happening for a week, and I continued to scramble things up, hiding the shoes, even, or tying the shoelaces together. But they always ended up being repositioned neatly inward. I started observing my dormmate and found her mumbling to the shoes while squatting at the door. I ranted about it online, only to have my first reply send chills down my spine. [Do you also get the weird feeling that something paranormal is happening around you? You have to move out before it’s too late!]

The dormitory entrance downstairs is completely blocked. After squeezing to the front row, a he-wolf from the physical training camp next door points and whistles at me. "Look, that's the Luminian vixen. She's famous for being a notch-collector and will do it with any Alpha." My bed is strewn with rotten meat and animal entrails. On the wall, the words "Harlot", "Floozy", and "Tart" are scrawled in bright red lipstick. Jessica Cobb, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed cheer captain, holds up her phone. "Girls, I really don't want to expose her, but she's just filthy," she says with a face filled with contempt. "She's worse than a dog in heat. On Monday, it was the little hottie with the six-pack abs in his Ferrari. "Wednesday, it was the mature Alpha who reeks of cigars and has eyes that look like they want to devour you in his Bentley. Yesterday, it was that old gentleman with the monocle who's into domination in his Rolls-Royce." She shoves the photos right in the faces of the surrounding women. "Clearly, she didn't come here to study, but to find a sugar daddy." Despite the crystal-clear pictures showing me in those cars, I can't reveal that the men with me are my obsessively controlling older brother, my hot-tempered uncle, and my great-uncle. Respectively, they are the Alpha King of Lumin, the Chief Justice, and the Chair of the Elders' Council. The surrounding male werewolves burst into laughter, their eyes roaming over my thighs. "Hey, Luminian doll, how much for one night? I'd like a taste of you too." They have no idea that these men they're fantasizing about as my sugar daddies are actually the werewolf elders they can least afford to mess with in this lifetime.

When Callum abandoned me, feverish and shivering on a mountain road, just to watch a meteor shower with the young woman he had raised, I decided to divorce him. His good friend, Emmet, advised him to try winning me back. "Look Cal, sisters are sisters, but a wife takes priority. You’d better not mix up what matters most." Callum, however, dismissed the idea with a confident smile. "She’s bluffing. Does she really think she’ll go through with the divorce?" "All these years, I’ve given her a place to belong. Without me, she wouldn’t even have a home. Leave me? She wouldn’t dare.  "Just wait. Before the cooling-off period ends, she’ll come back crying and begging me to take her in."  But thirty days passed, and I never looked back. While he scoured the world searching for me, I sipped tea in a misty mountain villa, utterly at peace. "James," I remarked to my step-brother, "your place truly feels like home."

Ever since my husband, Ted Towery, returns from a trip, he seems like a completely different person. He becomes gentle, attentive, and deeply affectionate. But one night, I get up in the middle of the night and see him standing at the kitchen counter. On the cutting board lie his head, his tongue, his eyeballs, and a heart that is still beating. "He" holds a kitchen knife, seeming a little conflicted. "Where should I start fixing?" Suddenly, the tongue on the cutting board lets out a shrill scream, "She sees us!"

How would a powerless woman with nobody on her side survive in a society full of ruthless supernatural beings? She might be weak, but she is strong-willed. Having lost her whole family to the higher beings, Luciana was driven by hatred, and she would stop at nothing until she avenges them. But what would happen when she ended up being entangled with one of them? ******* He had been nicknamed 'the dark prince', infamous for his cruelty, feared, people cower in his presence. But what will happen when he will meet the girl that feared neither him nor death, because according to her, she has nothing to lose?

My wife cheated on me—with my cousin. The three of us were headed to sign divorce papers when bam—car crash. Next thing I knew, I was back on the day we got our marriage license. This time, no fights, no drama. We both knew it was over. She ditched me for Jason fast and skipped the country with him. I stayed behind, buried in law books and case files. Five years later, she was famous—thanks to Jason pulling strings. Concerts, cash, fans screaming her name. Me? Still grinding at a law firm, backing folks who needed real legal help. Then came the family reunion. She showed up on Jason's arm, smug and shining, throwing shade like it was sport. But when I mentioned I was settling down with someone else? Her face snapped. "I made one dumb mistake! How DARE you move on?!"

Six years of marriage, and I'm finally pregnant! My husband is an Alpha. To give him an heir, I had gone through countless rounds of ovulation shots, swallowed all sorts of herbal concoctions made by witch doctors, and even been forced to insert some strange things into my private parts! But now, it's worked! I planned a romantic road trip, hoping to surprise him when we got to the resort. Of course, he insisted we bring Kelly along. Kelly is his Beta—beautiful, tough, and a bit of a warrior. The heat was unbearable, so I went to the trunk to grab a soda from the small cooler, but Kelly accused me of trying to smash her with it. "Apologize to Kelly!" my husband ordered firmly. "No! I didn't do anything!" I protested. So, they both dumped me in the middle of nowhere. It took everything I had to escape the three Rogues who were after me. But when I finally made it back to the hotel, I found Kelly on top of my husband. "Ana, you can't have children. Kelly just wanted to help us have one," he said shamelessly.

Due to the change in my work location, I'd already informed Paul Miller, my part-time helper, to look for a job elsewhere three months ago. Back then, Paul had agreed to do so immediately. But when I'm about to move out of my old home, he made an absurd request to me. "I've spent so many years working for you to the bone. According to this industry's rules, you have to take care of me for the rest of my life. But if you refuse to do that, you can pay me a pension of ten thousand dollars every month." I'm stunned, to say the least. Did I hire a part-time helper, or did I find myself a financial burden instead? I turn Paul down immediately, so he decides to take a step back. "If you don't want to pay me, then give me this house of yours. I can't just leave without anything, right? It'll just show how petty of an employer you are. If not, I'll humiliate you in the group chat!" Fury floods my senses immediately. Fine. Let's see who will get humiliated here!

I've sustained grievous wounds thanks to me stepping into a trap by accident. While I'm dying in the forest, my parents, older brother, as well as my fiance are busy preparing the afterparty for my older sister, Selene Sutton, who has put on an outstanding performance at the hunting rite. I use what's left of my energy to ask for help through the mind-link connecting me and the others. Yet, none of them bothers replying to me. Even Leon Lane, the next candidate set to inherit the Alpha position as well as the wolf who's betrothed to me, blocks out my pleas for help. A long, long time later, I finally hear Leon's message coming through the icy expanse of the mind palace. "Stop it with your tantrum, Ivy. Tonight is Selene's afterparty. We'll talk more once the party is over." As I stare at the moon in the sky, I lose the will to struggle to survive anymore. It turns out that my life isn't as important as one of Selene's afterparties. This is the 99th time everyone has abandoned me for Selene's sake. Well, this time, I don't want them in my life anymore.