Nova's POV
Nova's eyes snap open.
Her vision is wrong. Everything is too sharp, too bright, colors bleeding into each other in ways her human brain cannot process. Her body is massive and covered in thick silver fur. When she breathes, the air tastes like metal and fear and her own blood.
She is still a wolf.
The realization hits her like a punch. She tries to remember how to change back, how to find the human shape that used to be hers, but her mind is fog. Terror eats at her from the inside.
A woman stands a few feet away. She has dark hair pulled back tight and eyes that look at Nova like she is inventory in a warehouse.
"You have two choices," the woman says. Her voice is steady and bored. "Shift back to human or we force you. Forced shifts are painful. I suggest you choose the easy way."
Nova opens her mouth to answer and a growl comes out instead. The sound surprises her. It does not feel like she is making it. It feels like the wolf is taking over, pushing her human thoughts deeper and deeper underwater.
The woman sighs. She pulls out a phone and speaks into it. "She is not cooperating. Send the sedative pack."
That word hits something primal in Nova. Sedative. Captured. Trapped.
Her wolf brain does not like trapped.
Nova bolts.
She does not think about it. There is no moment of choice. One second she is standing there and the next her legs are driving her forward so fast the world blurs. The woman shouts something but Nova is already past her, already crashing through the back of whatever building this is.
The night swallows her.
Running feels like flying. Her paws barely touch the ground. The city that was her whole life for twenty-two years is suddenly a maze she did not know existed. She knows the human streets, the ones with sidewalks and storefronts. But there are other ways to move through the world. Alleys. Rooftops. Places where a massive silver wolf should not be able to fit but somehow is.
She runs for what feels like hours and is probably ten minutes.
Her lungs burn. Her muscles scream. But the wolf does not care. The wolf is alive in a way nothing else in her life has ever been alive. It is wild and furious and desperate to survive.
Then the alley narrows.
Nova is moving too fast to stop. The walls close in. She skids around a corner and suddenly she is in an abandoned parking lot surrounded by chain-link fence. The asphalt is cracked and broken. There are no cars. No people. Just empty space.
And five wolves waiting for her.
They form a circle. Slowly. Deliberately. These are not scared. These are not new. These are predators who know exactly what they are doing.
"The tracker wants her alive," one of them growls. His voice is still human enough that Nova can understand. "But she did not say how much damage we could do first."
They move closer. One step at a time. Their jaws are open. Their eyes glow red in the darkness. The growls coming from their chests are low and hungry.
Nova backs up and hits the fence. Metal cuts into her fur. There is nowhere left to go.
Fear tastes like copper in her mouth.
Something inside her shifts. It is not her body this time. It is something deeper. The thing that brought down those other wolves at the diner. The thing that made the tracker woman speak in warnings instead of orders.
Nova does not know how to control it. She does not even know what it is.
But she lets it out anyway.
Power explodes from her like a bomb. It radiates outward from her body in a wave that hits the five wolves like a physical force. They yelp and scatter backward, whimpering. One of them shifts back to human, gasping for breath like he has been underwater too long.
"No," he chokes out. "No, she is still too strong. Get the nets. Get them now."
The word nets triggers something in Nova. Nets mean the thing that burned like the sun against her skin. Nets mean trapped. Nets mean the end.
She runs at the fence.
The chain-link should stop her. It should be a barrier. But the wolf in her does not acknowledge barriers. Her body hits the fence and keeps going. Metal tears. Her fur catches and rips but she does not stop. Nothing matters except getting away.
She is through and running again.
The city flashes past. She can hear them behind her. Multiple voices. Multiple feet. They are chasing her and getting closer and she is running out of road.
An open parking lot appears ahead. Huge. Empty. No buildings to hide behind. Her wolf brain screams at her to keep running but there is nowhere left to go.
Nets drop from above.
They come from the buildings surrounding the lot. Silver nets that glow in the darkness. They fall like rain and Nova skids to a halt but it is too late. The nets are already falling. Already wrapping around her.
The silver touches her fur and the pain is immediate and white hot.
Nova screams. The sound is not a wolf's howl. It is something more human, more desperate. Something that contains all the confusion and terror of the last twenty-four hours. She thrashes against the nets but they hold. The more she struggles, the tighter they bind. The silver burns into her skin like brands.
Her vision goes dark at the edges.
She can taste blood now. Her own blood. It is copper and salt and the only real thing left in a world that has stopped making sense.
Footsteps surround her. Shadows move through the darkness. Hands grab the edges of the nets, pulling them tight, wrapping her completely. Nova tries to fight but there is no strength left. The wolf that was so powerful, so wild, is dying inside her.
Everything goes black.
Then a voice cuts through the darkness. Deep. Calm. Speaking like he owns everything around him including the air itself.
"Careful with her. Something that powerful is either a weapon or a threat. Take her to the lower cells. No one goes near her without my direct order. And someone tell me who she is before I wake up."
The footsteps fade.
Nova falls into a darkness so complete it swallows her whole.