Mercedes could feel it. A sense of dread growing into a tangible mound in her chest. She knew that one of these times the boys would venture off and never return. They'd disappear into the night, the dirt shifting underneath their changing bodies, and their shadows would fade into the forests like a second skin. One of these times she wouldn't see her friends again. One of these days someone wouldn't return, only she hadn't expected for it to happen so soon. Finn had left earlier that day and had never come home. He vowed to be back before midnight and yet, there was still no sign of either him nor Rachel...It was only natural to worry.
Something in Mercedes was telling her that their disappearance wasn't just accidental. None of the others believed her though, so she waited... All night.
And the days that followed.
She spent much of her time in her kitchen, staring out the bay windows toward the forests that shrouded around Lima. And when they hadn't shown up within the week, Mercedes decided to make a trip to Rachel's parents home. They had seen neither hide nor tail of her since the previous Saturday.
Now it was Sunday night.
Silently, Mercedes maneuvered herself through the quiet halls of her home, slipping on her hood and concealing her face behind its large woolen fabric. She stepped into her tennis shoes, leaving a sloppily scrawled note on the kitchen table as she walked out the door. If none of the others were going to even look for Finn, she would... Even though she hadn't left the community grounds in years.
She staggered down her front porch steps and into the gloomy night, the air around her hanging heavy, nearly opaque in the stillness of the evening. The earth crunched underneath her feet as she walked, creating a soothing backdrop noise to the pounding of her heart in her chest. Her hands were tucked securely in the flaps of her sagging jacket pockets, overcome with tremors of anxiety as she crossed the first lime colored line drawn in the cement that marked the ten foot distance from the end of the community.
She can't even recall the last time she had gotten close enough to the city edge to see the city limit lines drawn onto the pavement. Her feet never let her venture off of Lima's enclosed community roads. Lima was a gated city. You could leave at your own free will if you pleased, but you had to pay a fine to do so. In the day, only men were allowed to leave, if their jobs required it. Women were supposed to stay within the city limits. This was a rule that had been in effect for as long as Mercedes could remember. And now that it was night time she knew that she could leave, but she'd have to sneak her way out.
Once she crossed the final lime colored line drawn on the cement road before her, she veered off the road, getting a safe distance away from the guards high towered post directly up above. There was a myth floating about that high up in the guards post was where all the ferals were kept and released to attack intruders who dared enter the city without being checked in by the squadron. It was just a myth, or so she had hoped.
Mercedes let out a breath and plowed towards the rickety wired fence, spotting the hole that the guys made years ago. They used it whenever they wanted to escape the fees and get out of the city for a while. Where they went, she was never entirely certain.
Mercedes removed her hood from her head for a moment and dropped down into a crouch. Observing the hole in the fence and calculating just how she could get through without seriously injuring herself.
She flopped onto her stomach and scooted her way out, her hair getting snagged on the tangled wires as she pushed herself through, dirt getting on her chin as she loosened her knotted curls. Once on the other side she rolled into the deep mound of weeds to make sure that she wasn't spotted by the guards and dusted herself off.
She'd managed to get onto her hands and knees to crawl through the weeds and towards the misty exit of Lima's limits when a pair of long arms wrapped around her waist. She tried to scream but her attacker hushed her harshly.
"Be quiet" the deep voice whispered sternly in her ear, dodging her weak attempt to push them aside. The deep voice made her stiffen. She'd heard that voice before. But only from afar. The attackers hands slid away from her waist and turned her around.
Mercedes eyes came to rest on the beautiful ones that haunted her dreams her entire life. They belonged to the man that was the Alpha of her clan. The man that never lived by the rules, a guy who left when he wanted to, and returned on a whim.
The same man that Mercedes always secretly loved. It was too bad that he wasn't planning on settling anytime soon. Besides if he were, Quinn would always be his first pick. She was going to be the perfect mother for a healthy set of werewolf cubs, all the retired mating females knew that. And only the best of the best got to become a mated pair with Alphas...
But regardless of this fact, Mercedes heart picked up a beat as the blonde haired man before her gave her a lazy smile. "Hey kid" he let out a deep breath, cloaking Mercedes in his woodsy midnight scent.
Her world stopped.
"Sam?" Mercedes whispered with uncertainty.