Fuck this. We’ve been searching all goddamn day. He wasn’t in the camps. The scent tracker couldn’t pick him up in the woods. He must have crossed the northern border already. Let the other guys deal with him now. That’s what I say,” Hansel said.

His face was full of anger. He sat down on a hollowed-out tree trunk and sighed. In the year before last, he found every single runaway gray wolf. This year, his track record had been terrible. He was afraid of being let go. Even worse, they might schedule him for more cleanups around the barracks.

“I wouldn’t doubt it, but Walter seems to think otherwise. What do we do? Come back empty-handed?” I asked him.

Even though Carter humiliated me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scenario in his tent. He was connected to me somehow. I knew he was. But something happened to interrupt his train of thought. That’s when Carter turned on me.

I knew why. I was the one who hunted down his father. I nearly killed him. Of course, he hated me. I would hate me too. I desperately wanted to apologize, but it was difficult to know how.

Ever since our eyes met, my senses started to change. I felt more and more connected to my identity but in a truly physical way. For so long, I tried to deny my omega traits. I pushed those traits down as far as I could.

At first, Carter Thompson was just some wolf I had to take down. Since then, everything has changed. I knew who he really was.

He was… my fated mate.

I knew where he was. I could sense him now. When I closed my eyes, I could feel him. Every emotion that he was going through, I felt too. Right now, he was close to danger. He was near the barracks and headed for the inside of the prisons.

I needed to get back to him, but I was stuck with Hansel. He looked at me and shook his head. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting weird lately.”

“It’s nothing,” I lied. In fact, it was something big, and it was starting to take control.

“Whatever. Just wait here, will ya? I have to take a leak,” he said.

I looked into the distance at the vibrant sun. The world had become stagnant, but I knew that things were about to change. Whether I liked it or not, everything was about to turn upside down.

Our president once said, “In the history of the world, no one has solved the dilemma of the shifters. We end that now.”

It was all bullshit. There never was a shifter dilemma, and everyone knew it. The difficulty lied in ourselves. Could we finally live in a tolerant society? That was the question of the ages.

As Hansel was taking a piss, it hit me. What side of history did I want to be on? I had to act. I had to help Carter, not hunt him down.

“Shiiiit!” A loud, thunderous roar echoed throughout the forest. I looked back to see Hansel on the ground, panting and in tears. “Help me!” he screamed.

I jumped up from the tree trunk and ran to his aid. “It’s bad, man! It’s really bad!” he yelled.

“Calm down. Just stay still,” I said.

His leg was snared in an old trap, leftover from the rebels of the Northern Pack Alliance. “It’s going to cut through my damn ankle!”

We were trained for this. I grabbed the lace from my safety bag and carefully compressed the springs. I took the pressure off until it popped back open. Hansel fell back and started weeping from the pain. His ankle was bleeding all over the place. We needed to get back as soon as possible.

I grabbed a bandage and sprayed the wound, before applying it around the punctured flesh. “Don’t look at it, man,” I said.

“Mother-fucking-rebel-scum!” he growled.

“We need a vehicle,” I said.

Hansel grit his teeth. He was salivating and holding the top of his leg. I could tell that he was holding the urge back to shift. “The budget is lower than it has ever been. They aren’t going to give us one. They’d rather let me die,” he said.

I looked into his eyes. He looked completely defeated. “I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t,” he said.

“Well, I can’t carry you. You’re built like a tank, Hansel. As much as I’d like to leave your sore ass here, I believe in decency and helping out our fellow gray wolves,” I said.

He lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t talk like that. You sound just like them,” he said.

I grinned. “Don’t be stupid. You know me. I’m the best in the business. But I’m telling you, if I leave you here, you’ll bleed out. You’ll lose that leg. You know what that means, right?”

I have never seen so much fear in his eyes before. Beneath everyone’s tough exterior, there is something real and humble. No matter who they are, it’s there. “They’ll throw me out. They’ll leave me in the camps,” he said.

“Worse,” I muttered.

“You want me to shift, Liam?” he asked.

I nodded, glancing back down at his ankle. It was worse than I thought, but I didn’t want to freak him out. We could get back to the barracks faster if he shifted. Once we were back at the barracks, I could start to formulate a plan. I could find my fated mate, Carter Thompson.

“You need to shift. I’ll make sure that we aren’t spotted. Once we’re close to the barracks, I can holler at an ambulance. You’ll get to keep your leg, your job, and your pride. They’ll probably give you one of those medals.”

He smiled at that idea. “Shit, man. You think? Maybe the president will congratulate me personally!”

“Sure, why not?” He was hurting, but also pleased. Hansel was a traumatized wolf shifter. I knew that if things were different, he could have lived a decent life. Our leaders had failed him, but I wasn’t going to. I was destined to be someone else. Carter would help me achieve that.

He closed his eyes and growled. His body turned dark grey, with splashes of white. When he fully changed, he made a howling gesture. “Alright. Let me cover you. From now on, we need to be careful,” I said.

A folded up,green blanket was in my bag. I threw it around him, tying the ends around his neck for support. We were ready to go.

I knew I had a purpose, but there was just so much darkness in the world. It made it impossible to love anyone, especially myself. Each step brought me closer to that strange alpha, Carter. And every time I closed my eyes, I could feel his soul entwined with mine.

“Do you sense me?” I thought to myself. There was no response. All I could hear was the quiet breathing of the young man. He was dreaming, somewhere in the depths of the prisons. It was hell down there.

At the edge of the forest, we could see the guards of the barracks standing with their assault rifles ready. Hansel shifted back, falling to the ground. “You tell anyone that I did that and I’ll kill you,” he said.

“You worry too much,” I said. But it was obvious now how much leverage I had on him. “Just wait here. I’m going to get you some help.”

“Thanks, brother,” he said, with dry tears on his face.

I ran to the front of the barracks and informed the guards of Hansel’s injury. I knew they would be calling Walter to the scene, so I slipped inside once they ran to his aid.

As I made my way through the barracks, the smells of burnt rubber and flames, stoked by trash, wafted into my nostrils. I hated this place now. Every second that passed seemed to drive me away from what used to be my home.

The prisons were in the heart of the quarters. Guards littered the area. There was no way I was getting in there, without a plan. I ran toward the local stands where merchants were closing up shop. I stood by the wooden poles and watched the entrance carefully.

After about fifteen minutes, I felt stir-crazy. Then, right as I was about to give up my mission, a man bumped into a set of guards. He was drunk and slurring insults at the men. “You’re all a bunch of fucking ingrates!” he screamed, flipping them off.

The guards were bored and looking for fun. This was their chance. Luckily, it was mine too.

I removed most of my outer militia gear and slipped inside the prison, behind a line of prisoners. I kept my badge some other parcels, just in case anything went awry. I was beyond nervous. If they found me, they’d send me away forever. It wasn’t enough that I was a gray wolf shifter. But I was a traitor too. This was the most terrifying thing I had ever engaged in, but it was my only chance at finding Carter.

The man leading the prisoners inside worked for the corporate donors that built the prisons. He smiled as he handed the documents to the inside guards. “Rank and file gray wolves! Enter through these doors, and abandon all hope!”

The man’s face was vile and undoubtedly evil. I met him once before in a meeting with Walter. His name was Sandoval Lewis. Even though he was in his thirties, his greed aged him to look at least sixty-five. His skin was leathery and cruel. His stare was as black as the night sky.

His eyes met mine. If I faced another direction, he would have seen the scar on my face. For a brief moment, I thought he was going to call my name.

He walked toward me. My chest seized up. I felt a strong sense of disorientation. If he caught me, I would have to go out in a hail of gunfire and glory. I closed my eyes and felt my blood turn cold. His hand grabbed my shoulder.

“Get in formation, halfling,” he growled.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

I was good to go.