Chapter 1: Interview at the Hunter Academy

POV: Stella Morris

Location: Virginia-Kentucky Border

Timeline: Present

The long-distance bus dropped me off at a road junction, and there was no one else around.

I dug Justin Hall's hand-drawn map out of my bag and turned toward a narrow path cutting into the trees.

It was dark even in the middle of the day, the kind of darkness that swallowed sound.

I walked for close to forty minutes. Occasionally the wind pushed through the tree line behind me, carrying something colder underneath.

I kept my eyes on the map and my breathing even.

The hollow log marked on the paper was exactly where he'd drawn it. I stepped past it, and the trees broke open.

A school. Low and wide, brick the color of old rust, chain-link fencing running the perimeter. A flag hung from a pole near the entrance — faded, barely moving.

The sign above the gate read Northwood Federal Training Academy, the letters clouded with grime.

I stopped.

It looked like a federal facility that everyone had agreed to forget about.

The moment I stepped through the gate, something in the back of my nose pulled tight.

Gunpowder. Metal. And underneath both of those — silver.

The scent hit me like a hand pressed flat against my sternum, and something in me wanted to move toward it, to find the source and get closer.

I pressed that instinct down hard.

There was enough silver in this place to kill me.

I kept walking and didn't let myself think about it again.

I stepped into a building that looked like a hotel.

The receptionist was a broad-shouldered man with a thick neck and a cigarette stub hanging from the corner of his mouth.

He looked me up and down, making no attempt to hide it.

I pulled Justin's recommendation letter and my documents from my bag and set them on his desk without a word.

He picked them up, looked at me again. I stood still and let him.

He took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out. My sensitive nose screamed at me to step back, but I held my ground.

He picked up a radio and muttered into it, "She's here."

Then he slid the documents back across the desk and pointed down the corridor to his right.

The hallway had no overhead lights. Green EXIT signs at intervals gave it a dim, underwater quality.

I tucked the documents back into my bag and walked into the hallway.

The doors on both sides stood half-open, the rooms behind them dark.

But I could feel the attention. More than one set of eyes, tracking me from inside those dark doorways — across my back, my shoulders, the back of my skull.

I kept my pace even. I didn't look into any of the rooms.

I'm a werewolf walking into a hunter training facility.

Being watched was the least I could expect.

The hallway ended at a blank wall. No door, no sign, no indication of anything.

I stood there for a moment, and from somewhere behind me came a quiet sound — half a laugh, one person, impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman.

I turned. My eyesight caught a dark outline retreating into the nearest room, just barely.

Then came a few broken voices, quiet enough that an ordinary person probably wouldn't have heard them. But werewolves had sharp hearing.

Almost got caught.

She looks lost.

Shut up! She can hear you.

Then silence.

I frowned thoughtfully.

What did he mean by "lost"? There was only one road here.

I faced the wall again.

Matte finish, cold to the touch, fine grit under my fingertips.

I began working my way across the surface, knuckle by knuckle, pressing and listening to the sound it gave back.

Near the upper-left section, one section returned a different resonance. Hollow, not solid.

I knocked twice to confirm, then pressed.

The wall shifted inward. Light came through the gap — sharp and immediate after the dim hallway — and I turned my face slightly away from it before stepping through.

The room was large. Seven people sat behind a long table, and every one of them was looking at me.

My heart hit the inside of my chest once, hard.

Seven people. Seven different expressions.

The one on the far left had his brow pulled together, the hostility in his eyes making no effort to disguise itself.

The person beside him wore a faint curious smile, like I was something they'd been waiting to observe.

A third had pushed back in his chair and was mid-yawn, and when he noticed me looking he gave a lazy wave toward the chair in front of the table.

I crossed the room and sat down.

The woman in the center was somewhere around fifty.

Her hair had gone mostly white. Her hands rested folded on the table in front of her, and her expression gave away absolutely nothing.

The silence held for a few seconds.

Then she spoke.

"Ms. Stella Morris. I think you already know what this school exists to do."

I nodded. Justin had told me before I ever got on the bus.

"Good," she said. "The fact that you're holding Hall's letter tells us something about your capability and your intentions. That's why this interview exists — to confirm it."

She let that settle. "Thank you for making the trip."

I said, "Thank you. For the consideration."

My voice came out with a roughness I couldn't smooth over, but the words made it out, which was what mattered.

The white-haired man to her left leaned forward. "What's your reason for wanting to join us?"

"Hunt werewolves," I said. I paused, then added: "Protect the people in the towns."

Somewhere at the table, someone exhaled through their nose — short, quiet.

The woman in the center picked up the folder on the table in front of her. I caught a glimpse of a photograph clipped to the inside — mine.

"Ms. Morris." She set the folder down again and looked at me directly.

"You carry werewolf genetics. Your biology is werewolf biology. Your instincts are werewolf instincts."

Another measured pause. "Tell me — why would a werewolf choose to join us?"

I dropped my gaze to the floor.

I'd been on that bus for the better part of a night, and I'd turned this question over more times than I could count.

I'd rehearsed the answers that would be most useful — the ones that sounded like conviction, like strategy, like the kind of clarity that gets someone through a door.

All of those answers were true. Every single one of them.

But there was only one that had kept me awake.

I raised my head and looked straight at the woman across the table.

"I hate them," I said.

"That's why I'm here."