Nadia

She had never believed in things that go bump in the night. Even when she had been a child, her father hadn't ever had to check under the bed for monsters because Nadia would tell him quite proudly that they weren't real. Monsters were things in storybooks, meant to scare little babies into being good.

It wasn't until she was an adult, with her own problems that she learned that monsters were indeed very real. It had started with the fae, coming out slowly after thousands of years of hiding. She had been surprised, but not repulsed by the idea of them. They were interesting and new, something Nadia had never considered before, and they had put a pin in her journalism career.

And then there were the werewolves, but not the romanticized version that she knew from books either, even if that was the image that they were trying to push. The wolves were very good at pretending to be sheep, disguising themselves as the heroes rather than the villain that so many were trying to paint them as.

She should have guessed that other creatures wouldn't be left to the books either.

Nadia stuffed her keys back into her coat, quickly shuffling into her car and shutting the door as the rain tapped its fingers on the roof. She reached to make sure that the locks were in place, although she knew that it would hardly stop what she was running from. Her Jeep Cherokee was that classic stationwagon look, a dark green with a wood panel running down the side. She loved it though, and it had enough room for her camp out in the back when she needed to.

She took a deep breath through her nose as she closed her eyes, rain still clinging to her hair. The dark curls were going to be even more unmanageable than usual thanks to the combination of wind and rain.

She reached across the seat towards the discarded newspaper, a picture of a man carrying a child boldly displayed on the front page. It was old, years old now, but she had been able to dig it up in the local library. The man, one David Christiansen, had lead a mission to retrieve some kids from a terrorist camp in South Africa. He was the first werewolf to come to the public eye and he was also, despite appearances, very dangerous.

In her mind, she ran over all the facts that she had found out about David. Special forces turned mercenary, turned somewhere in between. She didn't care about particulars, she just needed help and he seemed the one most likely to do the job.

Now all she needed was a phone.

Phones were actually quite dangerous in the grand scheme of things, which was why she didn't carry one anymore. She didn't need another way to be tracked, already having a difficult time staying out of their view. She drove the Cherokee around the block, scanning the streets for a payphone. She didn't even know if they still were around, as pretty much everyone was reliant on cell phone service these days.

It took her some time, but on a not so fair side of town she finally found one connected to a gas station. Digging some change out of the cup holder, she darted out of the car and up to the awning that sheltered the sidewalk from the storm. Nadia glanced uncertainly around herself before pushing the mixture of quarters, dimes and nickels into the slot and picking up the receiver. She dug in her jean pocket for a scrap of paper with a phone number on it, the only number she had been able to dig up after a month of investigating. All she knew about David was from newspaper clippings, and what she'd been able to scrounge up online. Calling contacts from her old life had brought more questions rather than answers.

Questions like...where are you? What happened? Questions that she knew that she couldn't answer, at least...not right now. She wasn't sure about the answers, and really didn't want to burst anyone else's safe bubble. She punched the numbers harder than she intended to, her heart pounding louder in her head as she listened to it ring once. Twice. Three times. Her jaw clenched involuntarily as she heard a soft static that indicated that someone was listening.

Silence hung between them for a moment, as they both waited for the other to break the silence.

"David Christiansen?" Nadia finally ventured, her voice a squeak higher than she intended. She had wanted to seem cool and collected, businesslike.

"Yes, and you are?" The voice that replied was lighter than expected, and she strengthened her resolve.

"Nadia Allen." She said, hesitating again. "I saw you in the paper." She said, feeling hurried all of a sudden.

"And how can I help you, Nadia Allen?" Christiansen asked.

"Someone's chasing me." She murmured, dropping her voice. Her mother would have scolded her for mumbling, inaudible to most. Christiansen didn't miss a beat.

"Who?"

"I can't say." She admitted. "But I can't go to human police. I need...werewolf help." Nadia checked over her shoulder again, feeling the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Was someone watching her?

"Where are you, Ms. Allen?" He asked, his tone like glass, smooth but threatening to break with something more...tempered.

"Detroit." She answered, feeling a flutter of hope in her chest for the first time.

"I'm too far to be of help in Detroit." He said, sounding regrettable. Her heart sank for a moment, but then he began to speak again.

"I have a comrade in Detroit, someone who might be able to help you. Do you have a pen?"

And that was how she ended up circling Roseland Drive, searching the house numbers for the comrade of David Christiansen.