Prologue

Bright colors exploded in confusing patterns before his eyes to the beat of the music. Liam saw Oliver next to him, a strange smile on his face, then a wolf – no, a group of wolves. He turned back to Oliver; did he see the wolves there too? But Oliver was gone and a wolf was in his place. The wolf approached him and he laughed, sticking his hand out. The wolf licked his hand, pounced on his chest and bit. Liam’s laughter turned into screams as the pounding music in the air faded to match the pounding in his head as he slipped into darkness.

He was so tired and so warm and comfortable as darkness wrapped around him. Then bright lights were shining down on him. Loud voices again. People with masks on, shouting. “Possible hypothermia. He was found in a ditch.”

“He’s shaking, get the hot pads around him.”

“What’s this here, on his chest?”

A gasp, then silence. “It’s a bite.”

“Do you think–?” A short pause.

“Call the DoC. Tell them we have a possible werewolf bite in the ER.”

“Should we keep the heat pads around him?” He could just barely make out some masked faces, another group of people surrounding him.

“Take them away. The shaking is probably just the shift binding with his DNA. Poor SOB.”

“He’s waking up.”

“Knock him out again until we get him into isolation.”

Everything blurred, but one face came into sharp focus when he closed his eyes. “Oliver, you bastard,” he muttered as he passed out again.

Chapter One: It’s All Gone Wrong

Jonathan Garrit scanned his ID card and the door to the holding cell level opened. The door was made of a metal alloy formulated to be too dense for any prisoner to shift, and it moved slowly as a result. He stepped through it and grimaced as the smell hit him – a mixture of musty air, unwashed prisoner and worse, all covered with a veneer of disinfectant. It had been a while since he’d last been down here to collect a client – what had it been, a year at least? But nothing seemed to have changed much. He sniffed the air, sorting the different scents into their individual boxes. The guard on duty was familiar to him and he slid his ID card through the gap for inspection.

“Cell five,” the guard told him and pressed a button. Jonathan nodded, reattached his badge to his shirt under his coat and entered the cell block, the door clanging to a close behind him. The smells were stronger in here and there were so many of them, they became nearly impossible to distinguish. It was better to smell as little as possible so as not to get overwhelmed. He breathed through his mouth.

The cells were spread out unevenly, alternating so that not one was directly across from another. The doors again were solid metal. Not that they needed to be – the inmates in this block weren’t likely to be shifting their way out anytime soon. On each door there was a small grate through which inmates handed their clothes before transformations or food could be served as well as a peephole for observations. Jonathan followed the sound of even footsteps, walking back and forth, until he stopped at the third door on the left and peered in.

There he was: the new wolf. He had stopped pacing and was now standing against the far wall, a look of sudden unease spreading on his face, his eyes darting back and forth, arms crossed protectively in front of him, trying to figure out why he suddenly felt so nervous. He stood slightly taller than Jonathan, with shaggy, dark blonde hair and light blue eyes. His clothes looked new, but he’d obviously lost weight since he bought them: they fit him loosely. There wasn’t, from the bare skin Jonathan could see, a single visible scar on him. A buzzer went off and he opened the door and entered the cell.

Jonathan attempted to greet him with a smile. “Hello, you are –” he consulted the file he held in his hand, “William Harris, I presume?” The man nodded while trying to back away further from him, not daring to look away from Jonathan. “I’m Jonathan Garrit.” He extended his hand, but Harris kept his arms folded and glared at him. Jonathan dropped his hand. “Right. Let’s get started.” He sat down on the low concrete bench along one side of the wall and opened the file.

“Do you know who bit you?”

Shrug.

“What day did it happen?”

Shrug.

“How did it happen?”

No response.

Jonathan switched techniques. “Was it really a werewolf that attacked you or could it have been a wererabbit? They are both quite common in in the US, as you might know, with the wererabbit being the surprisingly more vicious of the two.”

Harris started and opened his mouth then shut it with the realization he’d been had. “Yeah, that’s great, have a laugh at me. I may be Australian but I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to werewolves.”

“That’s great to know because from the responses I’ve been getting from you, you’d think you were in a coma when you were bitten.”

“I don’t have to tell you a fucking thing,” Harris replied, gripping his arms even tighter. “I have the, the—”

Jonathan could see his brain struggling to find the name of the law he believed protected him.

“The right to remain silent?” He provided. Harris nodded. “That’s to prevent self-incrimination. Are you guilty of something?”

Harris opened his mouth again and then shut it again.

“Interesting,” Jonathan shut the file and tucked it back inside his coat. “Let’s start with what you know about lycanthropy then. Well?”

He rolled his eyes. “I know that it’s fucking awful.”

“Watch your mouth. Do you know anything else about them? Like what they look like, for example? How to recognize them?”

Harris snorted. “Lately, I’ve just been looking in the mirror. But no, do tell me how you recognize them.”

Jonathan sighed. “If I had a dollar every time I heard that one, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.” He straightened up on the bench and Harris caught a look at his ID for the first time. It was striped neon yellow and red, designed to be noticed.

“You...you’re a werewolf.”

“Correct.”

“And you work...here. For the government?”

“Technically, I’m a contractor. I don’t work for the DoC, but I’m contracted by them to provide counseling and support for new lycanthropes.” Harris scoffed at this, and Jonathan found himself liking him less and less.

“You didn’t know I was werewolf when I entered?” Jonathan probed.

“Well, I...” Harris stopped for a moment and thought. A first time for everything, Jonathan mused. “I thought something was off about you. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I felt–” he paused, and Jonathan got the impression he was trying to phrase things in a way that wouldn’t make him sound ridiculous. “I thought you were going to try and hurt me.”

Jonathan gave him a wry look. “That’s the first thing you should know about being a werewolf. Werewolves can sense other werewolves. You might get a prickly feeling all over, or goosebumps, or the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up or you’ll feel threatened.”

“Do you know many then?” Harris asked, a note of caution in his voice.

Jonathan shrugged. “I know a few. I’ve met a few more since accepting this job. But you appear to be an unusual case, Mr. Harris.”

“Yeah, I’m Australian.” He gave Jonathan two thumbs up and grinned. “I’m a real novelty. Do you have anything useful to tell me or are you just going to try and hoover information out of me like everyone else I’ve talked to?”

Jonathan stared him down, an action that would have cowed most new wolves. But Harris merely straightened up and planted his feet more firmly on the ground. “I think I’ll just start slow so you can keep up. Recognizing werewolves. They will look like wolves, but they won’t be in the natural habitat of a wolf. So, if you see a wolf in the city during a full moon, it’s definitely a werewolf.” Harris glared at Jonathan as he spoke. “And, unlike wolves, werewolves move towards people and try to attack them. The only wolves who do that are rabid. Got it?”

“Thanks. That’s very helpful. If anyone ever figures out how to shift time, I’ll go back and inform my past self how to recognize a werewolf so I can avoid being bitten.” He sneered. “Do you have anything useful to tell me?”

“Yes. The Werewolf Division has decided you’re doing well enough to release you from Lockup into temporary accommodations at a halfway house. I’m supposed to take you there and,” he cleared his throat, “help you settle in.”

Harris started to approach Jonathan before thinking better of it and scooting back into his corner. “Wait a second. I don’t want to settle in. I want to go back to Australia. I’m not staying in this miserable place. I want to contact my embassy and–”

“Great, we’d love for you to go back to Australia, too. However, there are a few things preventing this from happening. First, the lack of werewolves in Australia makes them very reluctant to let any into their country, regardless of citizenship. They know what the International Agreement on Werewolves says, but they aren’t in a hurry. Secondly, they have no experience with werewolves and would prefer you were oriented somewhere with people who do. Thirdly,” he eyed Harris closely, “you were witness to a crime and the Department of Corrections has placed a hold on you until they’ve been able to investigate it and, hopefully, catch the person who did this.”

“What? I have to stay here until then?”

“Yes, but it may not take long. It just depends on how determined they are and how heavy their workload is. Your more important concern is how long it will take me to certify you as knowledgeable about your condition and capable of managing it. I doubt Australia is going to take you back before they have some sort of assurance you aren’t going to infect the whole country.” He nodded his head in the direction of a bag sitting in the corner of the cell.

“That your bag?” Harris nodded, looking stunned. “Grab it. Let’s go.”

Liam slung his travel backpack onto his back as they exited the building and winced as the cold air hit him in the face. This kind of cold was something he couldn’t see himself getting used to. He glanced around. “Where’s the nearest teleporter?”

“No more teleporters for you. You’ll be walking or riding the tram from here on out.” Jonathan told him.

“What? Am I banned from telpos now or something?”

“No. But teleporters can’t keep together the wolf and human DNA that’s now inside you. You’ll arrive at your destination in pieces. You can try it out if you want or take my word for it.”

“Right.” He glared at the back of Garrit’s head and dropped his pace to widen the distance between them. It reduced the anxious feeling he had around him. The yobbo in charge of him was old; he looked at first glance to be 70. His hair was completely grey, as was his beard. He was wrinkled and scarred. It was the scars that scared Liam the most. How had he gotten them? Were they a result of the frequent transformations? The two Liam had experienced so far hadn’t been a piece of piss, but he hadn’t been physically scarred by them. It wouldn’t be so bad if the old man didn’t look at him like he was this close to ripping his throat out, or at least if Liam didn’t feel like he was this close to ripping his throat out. There was a constant tension surrounding him, as though at any moment he were going to turn around and – Liam turned his thoughts to other things.

It was just his luck to be stuck in Salt Lake City for god knows how long. It had seemed a good choice in the beginning when they’d decided to travel across the US and hit the major cities, the Grand Canyon and other national parks, but this place was supposed to be a three-day stopover. Admire the natural scenery. Go skiing. Celebrate his birthday, then get the fuck out of there and head to Chicago, followed by New York. But now he was stuck here, the most boring city on the continent, miles away from anywhere interesting. He shivered while they walked and stuffed his hands deep into his coat pockets. It was deep winter now, snowing, the coldest weather he’d experienced in his life and here he was trudging around in it while other luckier people zapped in and out at the telpos they passed.

“Here it is.” They stopped in front of a shabby looking building, standing set off from the rest of the buildings on the block. The placard in front listed it as a Department of Corrections Halfway House. People walked past it, looking at the building to the left and the building to the right and ignoring the one in the middle. Liam didn’t blame them. He wanted to ignore it, too, and check himself into a nice hotel.

The windows were long and dirty, and a single light glowed dimly above the door. It seemed to lean more than it went up straight and Liam guessed the DoC’s maintenance budget was around zero.

The foyer was as bad as the outside: a buzzing overhead light barely illuminated the small room, which was divided by a counter topped with bullet- and shift-proof glass extending to the ceiling. Sitting behind it was a middle-aged woman flipping mindlessly through a magazine.

Garrit greeted her. “Hello.”

She didn’t look up.

Jonathan knocked on the glass. “I have a William Harris here. I believe an accommodation request was sent over.”

She grunted, opened a drawer and pawed through it. “Harris...Harris. Ah ha. William?” Liam and Garrit nodded. “Werewolf?” Now she looked up and gave him a long look. “Haven’t had one of you for a while.” She pulled out another form. “Here are the rules you are to follow during your time in residence. Curfew is 9pm to 6am. If you have a job that requires you to be out of the building during these hours, you’ll need to submit the 1078-E form. This will allow you to–”

He interrupted her. “I don’t have a job.”

She stared at him a moment and he realized he’d just made himself look shiftless. He tried to correct. “I mean, I’m from Australia, I have a job there–.”

She ignored him and continued her spiel. “During the full moon, you must be in your room two hours before sunset and remain there until noon the following day. You will be sealed into your room until then. You must report to the DoC Clinic for your lycanthroscape injection the day before the full moon. Failure to comply will result in being back in DoC custody. Sign here to indicate you understand.” She handed him a pen. Liam signed.

The woman handed him another paper. “Here is a list of the contents of your room. Failure to leave the room in the condition it is received will result in additional costs upon moving out. Destruction of property will also result in your return to Lock-up. Initial here, here and here.” She wrote red x’s along the side. “And sign down here.”

Liam signed. She handed him a key and he and Garrit headed to the elevator.

It wasn’t working.

They took the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor was just as dank as the rest of the building and just as poorly lit. “Here it is, 315.” Garrit unlocked the door and Liam walked in, dropped his bag on the floor and immediately wanted to pick it up again.

The floor in the main room was scratched to bits with sizeable divots missing throughout. He could stub a toe in one. A quick tour revealed a small bedroom behind the main room, which featured a saggy, worn sofa, and a small kitchen and eating area to the left. Garrit opened the door next to the one leading to the bedroom. “The bathroom,” he announced. Liam glanced in. A sink. A toilet. A shower. Basic. Depressing.

“I’ll leave you to settle in then.” Garrit reached into his pocket and pulled out two cards. “You’ve been granted a small food stipend during your time here. Additionally, we will meet weekly to see how you’re adjusting to your condition. Our first session will be on Thursday.” Liam accepted the cards with a nod, noting the time and date of his appointment. “Until then, try to stay out of trouble.” With that, Garrit left, and Liam hated him.

Hated him for his ability to leave this place. Hated him for his ability to be a werewolf and just take it in stride. To be used to the idea. He screamed in frustration and punched a wall and was surprised when his fist left a good-sized hole in it. He pressed his hand against the broken drywall and pressed his hand against it, urging the pieces back together. It was a strain, but he managed to shift them mostly back together. Then he slumped down onto the sofa with his head in his hands, wishing he were anywhere else.

*

Do most people approach their parents’ house for Sunday dinner with a feeling of trepidation, or just me? Anouk Garrit wondered as she left the teleporter and walked down the street toward her parents’ house. She’d tried to switch shifts with a co-worker and then dawdled on the way between teleporters to delay her arrival, all because she knew her parents were going to hit the roof when she told them she was dropping out of community college.

She dodged piles of snow on the sidewalk until their house came into view. Up until she was 15, it had been her grandparents’ house and she’d felt a different kind of dread seeing it. Anouk took a deep breath, turned up the walk and opened the door.

“Hey, I’m here.” She threw her coat onto the pile in the entry way went into the dining room, where her brother Theo and his girlfriend Chloe were already sitting down at the table.
“You’re late,” Theo commented.
“I just got off work 30 minutes ago and I had to change,” Anouk excused herself, giving her mom a quick hug before sitting down. “Where’s Dad?”
“Oh, he has some work to finish up, he’ll be out in a minute.”
Anouk and Theo both looked up at this. They both knew what it meant when their father had work. “A new werewolf?” Anouk asked.

Her mom nodded and passed her the platter of roast beef. Anouk picked around the rare slices for something a bit more done. “Where from?”
“Oh, An, you know I can’t answer that.”

Anouk shrugged and grabbed some salad. “It never hurts to ask.” She’d comb through the news later, anyway, trying to find any reports. Her dad’s cases were rarely local, so it’d be a wide search. But she’d find it. Werewolf attacks always made a splash in the media.

Theo rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be reading all of the news, too, to make sure you don’t miss a single detail.”

Anouk opened her mouth to give an angry retort, but Chloe interrupted.
“How was work, An?”

“Same as usual. I tried to convince a parent that their kid really didn’t a professional-sized soccer ball for the Little Kickers league, but they didn’t care. I did convince a girl to not buy the sports bras they sell there and get a decent one.” Anouk worked at the Sports Emporium, selling sporting goods and accessories. It wasn’t the best job; its main advantages were that it involved something she was interested in (soccer) and didn’t require any shifting.
“I may be wrong,” Theo began, “but isn’t your job to sell things in the store to customers, not to convince them to go somewhere else?”

Anouk shrugged. “No, it’s to provide customer service. They’ll thank me later when their boobs aren’t sore from running up and down the field all day.”
“She’s not wrong,” Chloe added. “The sports bra you recommended is amazing.”
“See? If they would listen to me and stock those, I’d happily sell them.”
Theo was out of his depth with this sports bra conversation and Anouk enjoyed that; she rarely got to see him out of his depth in anything. All the shifting talent she hadn’t inherited, he had. All the things she found difficult came to him with such ease, it drove her up the wall.

“Did your dad say anything to you about the attack?” Anouk asked Chloe.

“No, but I didn’t ask either,” she replied. Figures, Anouk thought. No wonder Theo and Chloe were dating. Neither of them was remotely interested in anything related to werewolves. Chloe’s dad was the Chief Tracker of the entire Salt Lake Region, but you wouldn’t know it from how Chloe acted. Anouk had always been the one who got caught listening to her parents discuss “things” after she was supposed to be in bed as a kid. It was Anouk who got in trouble for getting involved in werewolf-related stuff that, as far as everyone else was concerned, didn’t involve her.
Her dad’s office door opened, and he hurried out. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” her mom said. “Anouk just got here a few minutes ago, anyway.”

Her dad smiled a hello at Anouk, and she jumped at her chance. “Where was this attack, Dad?”
The smile vanished from her father’s face. “Nowhere you need to be concerned about.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but according to you, that includes the entire planet.”
Jonathan busied himself with filling his plate, picking out the rarest roast beef with a bit of salad. “Exactly. I’m glad to hear you’ve accepted that. Did you enroll in your classes for Spring semester?”
Anouk braced herself. “Yeah, about that. No.”

Her mother and father stared at her. “What?”

“I decided to take a break.”
“But, Anouk, you just had a break. The break between semesters. What do you need another break for?” Her mother’s voice was full of concern and Anouk took a deep breath, hoping they’d understand.

“I just need to take some time to find out what I really want to do. I’ve been taking classes there for the last year and a half and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. Plus,” she added, “I don’t think I could take another semester of remedial shifting. You know what Mr. Morrow said when I left the final last semester? See you next year, Anouk. He hadn’t even graded my final yet!”
Her parents exchanged looks while they digested this bit of news.
“Surely it’s not that bad,” her mother began.

“It is.”

“Theo and I could tutor you in shifting,” Chloe offered.
“Yeah, I’ve told you Anouk, you just need to relax more while you shift. You get all tense. It’s like you’ve already decided it’s impossible every time you try,” Theo advised her.
“Great, thanks. I’ve definitely never gotten that advice before. I’ve only been unable to shift my entire life.” She stabbed a carrot and chewed on it with more vigor than it required.

“They wouldn’t require a credit in basic shifting if they thought it was impossible for some students,” her mom explained. Again. For the thousandth time. Difficulty in shifting in biology in high school? They wouldn’t require it if it were impossible. It was easy for her to say; she had been an experimental medical shifter before she met her dad. She specialized in shifting; it was as natural for her as breathing and Theo had inherited her same talent. Every time Anouk struggled with a shifting project, he would offer to help her with it, not understanding why it was such a struggle for her. Or why she would reject his help. What good would it do to pass the homework when she’d never be able to pass the test?

“Well, they do, and it is. Let’s face it: I’m in the bottom thousandth percent of shifting ability. I’m not meant to shift and I’m not going to keep taking that class until the college decides I’ve paid them enough and they’ll just give me a passing grade to get me out of their hair.

“Maybe you could find another community college where shifting isn’t a requirement to pass,” her mom suggested. “Doesn’t your community college make some sort of promise about how all their graduates have some skill in shifting?” She looked at her husband, hoping he’d back her up in this one. But he sat there, quietly cutting his meat and chewing it, refusing to weigh in.
“The only ones that do that are those skeevy ones. You pay them enough, they’ll give you a degree in anything,” Anouk objected.

“I wouldn’t take it personally,” her father said, still more focused on his meat than anything else. “I was always hopeless at shifting when I was a kid. My mom said I inherited it from her. We just have a weak shifting tendency in our family, and you had the bad luck to get it, too.” This was the other thing she’d grown up hearing.

“Tell that to my college.” He wouldn’t, her parents never did. Even if they did, it would matter just as little as it had while she was in school. Anouk can’t shift because her father is a werewolf, was what everyone had always said. Never mind that her brother was a brilliant shifter. “I transferred the tuition money back into your account anyway.”

“What are you going to do, if you won’t be at school?” Her mother asked.
“Sports Emporium offered me a full-time position, so I’ll work there and save up some money. Little Kickers starts up again in the spring; they’ve asked me to coach a team again.”

“You know, I talked to Malcolm recently,” Theo said, pointing his fork at Anouk.

“Oh, great.” Malcolm was Theo’s friend from college; he’d gotten a job as a promoter in the Woman’s Soccer League and spent half his life promoting it to Anouk.
“He wanted to know if you were still interested in playing for the league. He thinks you’ll be great.”

Anouk sighed. “I’ve told him I’m not good enough.”
“Wouldn’t he know better though?” her mom interjected.

Yeah, if he weren’t exaggerating, Anouk thought. Out loud, she said, “Look, I played in high school and that was fine, but you remember how it went when I tried out for the team at college.” How it went was she tried out, she got on, then she benched warmed while all the other players on the team whispered about her and her family and how creepy it was that werewolves were allowed to breed. Wasn’t there something wrong with her?
She hadn’t told her parents that part though. “I was a big fish in a small pond at high school, but college level, league level…it’s completely different.”

“You’ve completely stopped playing since then, so it’s no wonder you’re rusty,” her dad told her.
“I coach!”

“Yeah, but Little Kickers is one ball with a bunch of kids running after it. It’s not like playing against other adults,” Theo said.

“Hey! My team came second in the league last year, and you’d be surprised how hard it is to get them to stop doing that,” Anouk reminded him.
“They did really well,” her mother agreed, “and I bet they’ll do just as well this year.” Anouk smiled at her.

Jonathan fixed Anouk with a serious look. “I just hope you won’t waste your extra free time on activities you shouldn’t,” Anouk tensed when he said this and prepared to fend him off, but Theo spoke before she could.
“Speaking of which,” Theo said, “Rue and I saw these flyers while we were out the other day. They said they were from a Werewolves’ Rights Association.”
Everyone at the table looked at Anouk. Her mother raised an eyebrow. Anouk focused on her food. “And?” She asked with forced casualness.

Theo laughed. “We had a bet going on whether or not you wrote them.”

Anouk glared. Bad enough for them to bring it up in front of her parents in the first place. Even worse for Theo to be right. “Maybe,” she responded. “We’ve been hearing so much about taking rights away, I thought it’d be good to remind people that werewolves ought to have rights.”

“You started an organization?” Her father’s voice was stunned, and not in a good way. “Anouk, do you have any idea what kind of trouble you could cause? The Werewolf Division isn’t going to like this at all.”

“It’s not illegal. And I’m not a werewolf, so I don’t think they have any jurisdiction over me.”

“No, but I am. I work for them. How do you think that’s going to look?”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to take part,” Anouk rolled her eyes, “though it’d be nice. It would definitely be a good example to show people how you can be a werewolf and still have a normal, stable life.”

“People don’t want there to be werewolves, period, though,” Theo objected. “You’ll have to get them to fine with their existence first and then maybe you can work on getting them rights.”

“And that’s one of the things this organization will do!”

Jonathan rubbed his head. “Look Anouk, I’m going to make the last statement regarding this topic and then we’re discussing something else. Werewolves do not have rights. They have privileges that must be earned and obligations to keep those around them safe. You need to understand that werewolves are still a danger, whether they are transformed or not. Chloé’s father would agree with me. I don’t want you to trivialize the dangers to promote some cause.”

“I don’t!” Anouk protested.

“You do. Furthermore, any organization could attract a dangerous element and it would be very unsafe for you, especially if you’re the only unaffected person. Not all werewolves are safe, Anouk. Not all of them are as careful as I am. If they were, I would not be orienting a new one right now.”

“Fine. I get it. But I’m betting the werewolf that bit this new one wasn’t registered. What good is it for the DoC to mandate registration when the dangerous ones aren’t registered? It only oppresses the ones who are willing to register. They’re the ones who suffer the negative consequences from it.”

Jonathan looked sternly at his daughter. “We are done with this topic. We are discussing something else.”

Tamsin turned to Theo. “How are things going at work?”
“Great,” Theo answered. “I quit my job.”
Tamsin dropped her silverware on her plate with a loud clang. “You quit your job?”

“Yes, but—"

“But you had a good job! What is it with you two today, quitting everything?”
“It was a tedious job. You spend all day preprogramming those stupid shift buttons and it’s always the same boring shifts because anything new has to go through development and that takes a million years. We’ve decided to start our own business.”
“Who’s we?” Anouk asked.

“Me, Rue, and a couple of friends.” Anouk got the feeling Theo was keeping things intentionally vague.
“Doing what exactly? You know how risky this is right?” The concern was heavy in Tamsin’s voice.

“It’s going to be a shifting repair service. You know how it is. People who can’t shift worth a crap – sorry, Anouk—" Anouk rolled her eyes. “–always try to do more than they’re cut out to do and completely screw things up. They can send it to us, and we’ll put it right.”
“You’re sure you can do that?” Anouk asked.

“There will be some limits. No live animals, for one thing. But if you ruin the bedspread trying to redo it, send it in and we’ll fix it. Completely screw up your shifting button because you decided you wanted the upgraded version but didn’t want to pay for it? We can fix that, too. That sort of thing.”
“It’s a good idea,” Jonathan agreed.

“We have financing,” Rue added, “and I’ll be doing the books.”

Anouk thought of something. “Is that why you had that lease signed at your apartment when I went to pick up that dresser, Theo? For the new business?”

A pained look crossed Chloe’s face and Theo looked irritated. “No, that’s for our new apartment.”

“What, you’re moving in together?” Tamsin asked.

“We thought it would be better that way. It’d make it easier to get work done for one thing,” Theo began. “My roommates are moving on and Rue’s aren’t renewing their lease.”

Her parents exchanged looks and Anouk focused on her food, enjoying her parents’ ire being focused on someone else for a change. At least they were fine with Chloe; she remembered the panic it had caused when her parents had found out the two were dating. But that was pretty much normal. There was always a certain amount of panic when one of them started dating someone. Did they know about her father’s condition? Should they be told? When should they be told? How would they react when they found out? But their parents never openly asked these things; they never liked to admit that they were afraid their kids’ boyfriends or girlfriends would break up with them when they realized what kind of family they came with.

The joke was on them though; so far, Anouk’s reputation had preceded her in that regard. Going to the same schools as her brother meant everyone already knew about her and her family by the time she arrived. It put her in the rarified category of undatable. She’d had a brief new start when she started college, but completely misjudged the timing on when to tell the guy she’d dated there the truth as well as the method.

But things were different with Chloe. Her father worked as a tracker. He knew her family. Chloe was alright with lycanthropy and once the initial panic had subsided, her parents were fine with her. It probably helped that they’d met at university and Theo had waited until they’d been dating for quite a while to mention her at home.

But now Theo and Chloe were taking things a step further. Anouk already knew that Rue had moved into Theo’s apartment a few months before and it was causing no small amount of tension between them and his roommates. But her parents only knew that this relationship was serious and progressing.

“It’ll save us a lot of money. Why should the two of us spend double on rent for two separate apartments when, quite frankly, we’re going to spend most of our time at one of them?” Theo argued. Her father coughed at this and looked at her mother.

“Oh, come on,” Anouk broke. “You guys lived together before you got married!”

Theo laughed at this, and her mother became defensive. “Our situation was a bit different.”

“Uh huh,” Theo said. “Back then it was even worse to live together. Nowadays it’s completely normal.”

“I understand that. It’s just that,” Tamsin looked at Jonathan for help, but he provided none.

“I think it’s fine idea,” he answered mildly. “They’re adults, they’ll save some money this way.”

“Hmm,” Tamsin said. “Am I just old fashioned? But wouldn’t it make more sense to just make it official and get married first?”
“Old fashioned when it comes to your kids, Mom,” Anouk said.

“Can we cut the marriage talk?” Theo begged.

“Right now, we’re putting all our spare cash into getting the business off the ground,” Chloe said, “and it’s going to take a while before we operate in the red as it is. I’ve drawn up some forecasts—” Chloe was an accountant. She accounted for everything and when used as a strategy in arguments, it could be brutal. Chloe was ready to go on and on and on about why moving in together made cents. “We’ll run the business from the spare bedroom, which can then be deducted–”
Tamsin backed down. “Alright, it’s fine. It’s just a thought.”

Anouk shoved a last spoonful of food into her mouth and looked around the table. “Dessert?”

“In the kitchen,” her mother waved her hand dismissively, still looking at Jonathan as though she had expected him somehow to help turn the tide on that discussion. Or maybe the previous one.

“No, no!” Chloe interrupted. “We brought some.” She hurried over to the door where a white box sat amongst their pile of coats and pulled out a box. “Cake,” she explained opening the box. “It’s from a bakery by our new place.”

“Where is the apartment?” Tamsin asked, letting herself be taken in by the peace offering.

“It’s on the southeast side. They built a new complex over there in a pretty good location. There are telepads close by, shopping.”

“How many bedrooms?”

“Just the two.”

“We’re having a housewarming party next weekend, Anouk,” Chloe told her. “You’re welcome to come.”

“Sure,” Anouk agreed, trying to stifle the weird mix of relief and jealousy she was feeling. Relief because she’d told her parents what she was doing now, and they’d accepted it. Jealousy because it coincided with her brother’s better news. Once again, he was moving forward while she was just hanging back.