My heart skips a long beat. I can't hear my breath. My head begins throbbing with all its might. I push Kyran away. "You lie, Kyran Wilson!" I make my way to the staircase when I feel an arm around my shoulder. 

"Where are you going?" Keanna asks me. I jerk away, snarling as I bare my teeth at her. Sadly, since I'm only in my human form, this behavior isn't that intimidating. 

"Home," I answer in a swift manner, putting one hand on the railing. "I've experienced too much already in less than twenty-four hours upon my Matching." 

I turn away and get a foot on the step, but Keanna grabs on tightly to my free wrist. "Oh, no you're not!"

"Why not?" I ask, gritting my teeth while forcing myself not to make contact with my best friend. 

"Because if you return, they'll know we've initiated you into the group, and they'll use you to track us down and execute us for treason," she explains, her voice going off rapidly. I don't feel the need to mention that Llwyd knows where I am. Or the conversation between Llwyd and I before they brought me here into this remote area. 

"Just tell us if you're in with our scheme to overthrow the sodality," Eileene interjects, stepping out of her grapple on Kyran. Her elliptical nut-brown eyes peruse my impatient visage with slim eyelids. 

"I don't know!" I protest gripping tightly onto to the railing as I grit my teeth. Is it not clear to anyone here that I want to get out of here? "I need more time to think this over." 

"You have until New Year's Eve to come up with an answer," Eileene says darkly. I swallow my breath in a hard gulp as her eyes narrowed to crinkled slits, prying their way into my soul, searching for my secrets. "And until then, you can stay with Keanna in her apartment." 

"You and my roommate are sure to get along well," Keanna remarks as she starts walking up the staircase. Making it to the first curve, she stops and looks down at me with her beautiful, crystalized honey nut-brown eyes with a tint of gold in her irises. 

Shrugging for no reason, I follow her and continue the conversation the entire way up the stairs of the basement. 

"So, does this roommate of your have a name?" I ask, my eyes lingering down one of the old portraits hanging loosely from the wall, threatening to crash into the railings. It draws my curiosity.  

The portrait displays a refined young woman, hair white as snow and tall as the ceiling. Her features are small and covered with fine powder and makeup as if there's something hideous behind the mask she wears. Her eyes, so round and soft, depict a hue as red as blood. In the background, I recognize the glass window and the couches - it was the living room of the Wellings' house.

I'm so drawn to the picture, I nearly miss Keanna's response to my question. Luckily, once I shake my thoughts away, I meet her eyes, and she repeats herself. "If she does have a name, I don't know it."

"What's she like?" I ask, wanting to know more about this roommate of hers. I need to know if this girl and I actually will get along well together. 

"Well," Keanna says, trailing off slightly before she pulls herself together when we round the second curve of the stairs. "She works at the cafe next door to the apartment building her and I live in. She makes smoothies and slushies. It's her passion, her zest for life." 

"Yeah," I say with a hesitant voice, catching up with her as she picks up the speed while making her way up yet another curve of wood steps. I pant under my breath one I'm right by her shoulder blade. "We have nothing in common."

"But once you - "

" - You don't know about her," I cut her off as we round around the last curve and make it to the door into the living room. "I can't trust your judgment if you don't even know her name." 

"I believe it's Grace," Keanna protests, turning the lights on as we enter the living room. The room seems no different than it did when I left it. "And I believe she's nineteen." 

"She's nineteen," I echo. Rubbing my ear vigorously, I laugh and turn to her as we reach the main door. "She's nineteen, and she let you in with no questions asked?" Keanna nods pressing her lips tightly together. I place my hands on my hips and ask once again, "No questions asked?" 

"Yes." Keanna is, of course, lying. She bites down lightly on her lower lip whenever she's about to lie to refrain from stammering or glancing from side to side to hint that she's making stuff up as she goes. I give her one of my stern looks - the look that no one likes, human form or wolf form. "She's my godsister, okay? Since I'm escaping the horrors of the sewers, I'm staying with her until I'm actually legally allowed to be on my own." 

Keanna opens the door, and we step into the great wide open. The sky is dark and misty with a coat of dazzling crimson hues. The fire blazed sun illuminates off the palm trees as city lights turn on in unison sequence. I inventory my surroundings. Huge beach houses line up in the sandy grass and go on forever, lining up with the road.  

People walking down the sidewalks look up at me curiously as if it's an odd sight for a young lady such as myself to be seen outside at this hour. A shiver spirals down my spine as I take in each and every one of their menacing looks. 

As we make out way down the sidewalk, I keep close to Keanna, careful not to make eye contact with the strangers that inhabit this otherworldly society known as Hialeah. I keep my head down and watch my feet move at a steady pace. 

After what feels like a good ten minutes, I see Keanna's footsteps come to a stop. As I slowly raise my head, my eyes follow where Keanna is looking. Her eyes fixate on the large, six-story building standing in front of us. It's made of rusty maroon bricks marred with close gaps in between. Its roof is made up entirely of chipped shingles. And from what little details I can see from across the street, the door is loose on its top hinge and can fall at any moment in time. 

"It's not best of living quarters," Keanna admits, looking down at her untied shoelaces. I nod in agreement as my gaze focuses on the dilapidated apartment building. "But Grace and I make the best of it."

As the stoplights go red, we cross the street to the apartment building, pushing the door open with a swing. In the center of the room behind an old desk that reminds me of the early Edwardian era. A frail-looking old woman looks up from her dusty papers, her spectacles falling from her nose but hang from her ears by beautiful beads of jade. 

"Good evening Miss White," the lady says with a shaking smile on her pale lips that were wrinkled like a prune. Without looking at the woman, Keanna waves and drags me along to the elevator. 

Thank goodness she's decided against using the staircase once again. Although the elevator is glitchy. It takes most likely a half hour to even make it to the fourth floor where we got off. I sigh and let my eyes trail along the long hallway of old doors with numbers engraved on the plaques. As people walk by, they kick up dirt along from the rug that goes on until the end of the hallway. 

Keanna jams her key into the keyhole in the doorknob. She squeezes her eyes shut and presses up against the door with all her might, grunting with displeasure. While she tries to open the door, I inspect the old dirty walls of made of small stones and painted over with various layers of teenage graffiti. The doors are spaced out at even intervals and spare no differences in their appearance. 

With an aggressive push with her feet and a bump of her hip, Keanna finally forces the door open a crack. She forces it to open the rest of the way. Feeling a cold pit in the bottom of my stomach, I quietly follow her inside. 

The first noise that comes to my ears are the sounds of two voices pounding on the floorboards above us, with shouts echoing in a foreign language that my ears don't seem to recognize. Maybe it's Latin I'm hearing. 

Our upstairs neighbors must love us, I think to myself with a quiet laugh. Dull thuds reverberate through the ceiling. They mesh together with the American Idol audition coming from the small kitchen joined with the roars of Keanna's favorite appliance - a blender. 

The living room suffers from the aftermath of a Hulu binge that no one wants to exactly clean. Two of my fingers hook into the back of my sneaker while Keanna clutches my arm. I'm meeting a human, I realize, and that puts a bullet right through my heart. 

"Where's Grace?" I whisper into Keanna's ear. She raises an arm and points to the girl behind the counter busily working with the blender while a pair of blood red beats pound against her ears with throbbing pop music that hasn't yet been reviewed by the Council of Wolves.  

Not far away, dirty dishes sit lonely in the sink, water dripping on top of them reminding me of how much I deplore Sundays - Sabia always made us do chores and go to church. So ... banal. Luckily, I'll never have to go back again. At least I hope not. 

After taking in Grace's surroundings, I decide to cruise her features. Her midnight tresses appeared to be wiry and thick as a rope, pulled back into a Grecian knot. 

As far as it seems, Keanna is right. Smoothies are a major thing in this cramped apartment, and different colors tend to paint the counters and linoleum-like floor.

As we watch, I notice Grace mimics those head bobbing people from that famous SNL sketch. My shoe clashes on the floor beside her and she tears out her earbuds, face growing red at her entertained audience. 

"Who's she?" Grace asks, pointing at me. I feel like burying my head in Keanna's cloak. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. 

"It's Betrys," Keanna answers in her usual joyous tone. "I've already told you so much about her." They say nothing for a couple of moment. All that lurks in the air is the awkward silence. "So ... can Betrys stay?" 

"As long as she works with me at the cafe," Grace says. She jams her phone into her pocket, and then she comes over, bringing us in for a big hug even though I could actually go without one, especially one from a stranger.

~

Hello, my hybrids. I really hoped you enjoyed chapter seven, and get yourself prepared for the drama scene in chapter eight. Question: who wants some more action in the story?

If you liked this chapter, don't forget to vote and comment. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. 

X Shay X