Wolf Marked (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 1)

Savannah

The trip to Chicago sucked.

My old Gran Fury struggled to stay over fifty, so I had to take side routes. With the summer heat and the passenger window broken, it was like I had a hair dryer blasting in my face the whole way. Heading to Chicago was probably a terrible plan, verging on horrendous. I shuddered as I recalled Jaxson’s warning. Monsters are real, Ms. Caine. You can’t outrun them, and wherever you go, they’ll find you.

I dialed the old radio to 101.5 FM for a little rock. The speakers had a tendency to crackle and pop and sounded pretty hollow compared to my headphones, but I loved the hazy sound. “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon came on, and I started to sing along. The ridiculousness of it lifted my soul.

Monsters. Ha! What a bunch of bullshit. But something dangerous was definitely going on. I just had to figure out what it was.

Why had people attacked me? Did it have something to do with my parents? Or who I was? The questions kept looping through my mind like a broken record. I needed answers…but I also needed protection, and I hoped Laurel LaSalle could offer both.

My parents had kept my relatives a secret for a reason. If they were so dangerous, then maybe they were dangerous enough to keep the monsters at bay.

Of course, all of that hinged on whether Laurel LaSalle would be happy to see me, which was a pretty substantial assumption.

Hi. I’m your estranged batshit-crazy niece who thinks she’s being hunted by people with scarlet eyes and clawed hands.

Maybe I wouldn’t lead with the monsters bit.

I fingered the note in my pocket. It had to count for something.

There was just one tiny hitch in my plan to find my aunt: I couldn’t pull her address up in Google Maps, which didn’t seem to recognize a 7546 Wildhaven Avenue in a neighborhood called Magic Side. That wasn’t entirely surprising. My phone was an old Walmart POS. But at least Chicago was on a grid, so I had a backup plan. I decided that I’d come into the city on 75^th Street and drive west until I found Wildhaven Avenue.

Three hours later, the Gran Fury was dangerously close to overheating, and I’d nearly run out of 75^th Street. I’d gone slowly, asked for directions twice, and checked the well-hidden signs at every cross-street, but there’d been no sign of Wildhaven or Magic Side.

Apparently, I’d made several flawed assumptions about how the Chicago grid system worked.

Pangs of hunger clawed at my stomach, and the stupidity of it all drove tears of frustration into my eyes. I rumbled over some train tracks and just kept driving because I didn’t know what else to do. Businesses with gated windows gave way to apartment buildings, and just as I was about to cross South Shore Drive, I finally saw the sign: Magic Side Exit.

The arrow pointed straight ahead.

Goddamned Google Maps.

I wiped my runny eyes with the back of my wrist and drove along the tree-lined street with my pulse racing. The buildings stopped, replaced by Lake Michigan, a dark expanse of water that glistened in the setting sun. I took the exit onto a long bridge that stretched over the lake toward Magic Side. A wide channel separated the suburb from the rest of Chicago, and I spotted the faint outline of another long bridge to the north. Apparently, Magic Side was an island, like Manhattan.

Parks full of dark trees lined the lakefront, and the skyscrapers rising from the north end of the island mirrored those of downtown Chicago. The air over the whole city seemed to shimmer in the twilight.

I glanced at my phone. Google Maps showed me driving over a barren stretch of lake. I reached over and zoomed out. Still no island. I released a deep, exasperated sigh that felt like it contained all the frustration of the day. No wonder I couldn’t find my aunt’s address—the damn phone wasn’t loading that part of the map.

The stress of the drive flooded out of me. Now that I’d found Magic Side, it should be easy to find my aunt’s house, even in the dark—with or without stupid Google Maps. I flexed my hands on the wheel, feeling confident about my choices for the first time all day.

Then my car died.

The headlights went out, and I lost power completely. The car rolled to a halt smack dab in the middle of the bridge, probably half a mile from either end.

My stomach knotted. The Gran Fury was dead quiet.

I broke the silence by screaming at the top of my lungs and pounding on the steering wheel.

Headlights swept through the car, and a horn blared as a Jeep swerved around me, bringing me back to my senses. I was sitting in a dark-brown car with no lights on a dark bridge in the middle of a lake. I tried turning the ignition but didn’t have any power at all, so I couldn’t turn on the emergency flashers. I should have packed road flares, but who actually had road flares?

Should I get out and flag someone down? My imagination conjured up visions of me standing on the bridge and getting smashed against the guard rail when some idiot driver rammed into the rear end of my nearly invisible vehicle.

A truck raced by, honking furiously.

Hands trembling, I called roadside assistance and explained the situation.

“Where are you, ma’am?”

“I’m on the bridge between South Side Chicago and Magic Side.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Ma’am, right now your cell phone location is showing you in the middle of Lake Michigan. Can you help us pinpoint your actual location? Do you see any road signs?”

“I am in the middle of Lake Michigan. There’s a bridge right off 75th Street that connects to the giant island.”

The dispatcher paused again. “I’m not finding the island you’re talking about.”

“The one right off Chicago! With two bridges! I’m on the south bridge!”

“Ma’am, have you been drinking tonight?”

I hung up and squeezed my phone in rage, which accidently prompted Google Assistant to pop up with a message: “Hi, how can I help?”

My eyes clouded with tears, but I was desperate. Maybe it would have an answer. “Where am I?” I muttered weakly.

“Your current location is Lake Michigan, Illinois,” Google Assistant said in a cheerful voice.

Mid-curse, rolling blue and white lights flashed in my rearview mirror. The cops. Every muscle in my body relaxed. Apparently, the dispatcher had figured things out.

The white police cruiser rolled past and pulled to a stop in front of me. It had Magic Side Police written in big red letters beneath a blue stripe.

At least I was in the right place. I eagerly cranked down my window.

A female cop got out of the car, flicked on a flashlight, and sauntered over. She pointed it in my face, rather unnecessarily. “You’re sitting in the dark with your lights off in the middle of a busy bridge. Are you in need of assistance?”

Pretty obvious, yeah.

I kept my hands on the steering wheel, not knowing what these city cops were like. Probably not like old Sheriff Kepler. “Yes, please. My car stalled, and I can’t turn on the emergency flashers.”

The cop nodded, returned to her car, and dug some flares out of the trunk. She made a perimeter around my car and came back to the window. “License and registration.”

I had them ready and handed them over.

The cop looked at them and then handed them back. “I’ll need to see your other ID.”

“What other ID?”

She sighed. “I’m guessing this is your first time coming to Magic Side?”

I nodded.

She typed something into a tablet. “Reason for visit?”

God, it was like going to another country. Magic Side wasn’t part of Canada, was it? Did I need a passport? I shrugged, searching for a response. “I have family here. I’m visiting my aunt.”

The cop looked at her tablet. “Any weapons or dangerous concoctions in the vehicle?”

“What? No!”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stay in your car and hand over your keys. I’ve got an alert on your license plate, and I need to hold you here until the proper authorities arrive.”

I handed my keys over in a daze. The Gran Fury wasn’t even running. It didn’t matter.

She walked back to her car, calling in something on her radio. I couldn’t hear the words over the pounding of my heart.

What was happening?

Then the hard truth hit me like a brick.

Somehow, I’d just stumbled onto a government black site. It all added up. The city wasn’t on the map. I needed another kind of ID, probably military. The cop was acting weird and asking strange questions. And they already had an alert on my license plate.

That meant one thing. They knew I was coming. The man in the black truck—Jaxson, if that was his real name—had tipped them off.

Holy shit. Alma’s crazy tin-hat conspiracy theories had been right all along.

I had definitely seen something I shouldn’t have. Who attacked me? Some kind of super soldier on the loose?

I was so in over my head.

My pulse raced. I’ve got to run.

But then again, if I did that, they would probably shoot me. I gripped the wheel in desperation and indecision.

Then a pair of high beam headlights rolled to a stop behind me, and a car door slammed.

I glanced in the rearview mirror as a well-built shadow stepped into the headlights. I’d know that silhouette anywhere.

Jaxson Laurent.