Chapter 2
Chapter Two
My shoulder clips the door frame as I stumble out, barely registering the twinge of pain. I softly close the front door behind me, shuffle down the garden path, and step onto the street. Rows of identical cookie-cutter houses stretch in both directions, prim and proper under the bright spring light.
I never liked this house. I never liked this street.
The gated housing estate where you are expected to wash your car every Sunday, keep your lawn trimmed to regulation height, and ensure the grass stays the right shade of green—hours of care for something that will inevitably grow back.
And if you didn’t conform? The gossipy neighbours would make it their mission to let you know. The sneers. The passive-aggressive remarks. It always felt suffocating.
I glance around the pristine, silent street and feel the most overwhelming urge to shout: “Paul, at number seven, is smashing the granny out of his wife’s sister!”
Now that would give them something to gossip about.
But I don’t. Barely.
Instead, I clamp my mouth shut, scuttle down the road, and unlock the car. I drag my numb, emotionally drained body into the driver’s seat. The door closes with a heavy thud that reverberates through me. I lean back with a groan.
I still need to do things before I can get the heck out of here. The last thing I want is to stay on this street a second longer, but these tasks won’t wait. I pull my laptop from the passenger seat and open it.
First stop: the home security system.
“Dumbarse,” I mutter when I see it’s been switched to privacy mode. Of course, Paul forgot that I designed the damn thing. It records everything outside the house—cars, doors, the lot. I’d set it up after a string of local break-ins. Privacy mode shunts those recordings into a separate folder. A few quick clicks later, I locate and download the files. I don’t look at them—the dozens of files. I don’t need to. Just knowing they are there is enough for now.
Next: the bank accounts.
I log into our joint accounts and transfer half the savings to my personal account.
“I will find a solicitor tomorrow,” I murmur, closing the laptop and setting it aside.
Last stop: my phone.
I hesitate for a moment. I’d chuck the whole thing in the nearest bin if I didn’t need it for work. But I do—I’m self-employed. To avoid being driven mad by the cheater’s incoming calls, I block all personal numbers. It does not take long—my friendship circle is embarrassingly small. Paul never liked any of my friends.
I slip the phone into the centre console, put on my glasses, and start the car. My hands shake as I grip the steering wheel. I take a deep, shuddering breath, but it does not help.
My skin crawls. All I can smell is them. Their coupling. They had sex in my bed. The evidence of their betrayal feels ingrained in my nose, clinging to my skin, hair, and clothes.
I want to shower. I want to scrub myself raw.
Rapid breaths whine through my tight throat. My internal temperature swings wildly between boiling hot and frigid cold. My head is spinning. I need to get a grip.
“Lark,” I whisper, “you can do this.”
I clench the wheel tighter, willing my hands to stop trembling. I can’t lose it now—not when I’m about to drive. I’ve kept my cool until now.
Well, mostly. My lips twitch with a bitter laugh as I think about the flower display in the kitchen. At least they will know I left of my own volition and haven’t gone missing, sparing them the need to call the police.
“I’m too old for this shit,” I grumble, leaning back and letting my head thud softly against the headrest. I trace the bright blue sky with dry, unblinking eyes.
It’s a beautiful day.
How dare it be beautiful?
It should be raining, at least. Thunder. Lightning. Some sign from the universe to mark the wreckage of my life.
A wild idea bubbles up in my mind. I let it simmer, swirling around with the rest of my chaotic thoughts. Calmer now, I check my mirrors, glance over my blind spots, and slip the car into first gear. Robotically, I drive away from the shitshow that was my life.
The town fades behind me, its familiarity blurring into insignificance. Before I know it, I’m on the motorway, heading north toward the Sector Border.
I never thought I’d willingly drive toward the shifters.
Part of me—the broken, miserable part—wants to pull over, crawl under the nearest bridge, and wrap myself in a blanket of cardboard boxes. To give up. To just… stop.
But another part of me, the enraged, determined part, burns hotter. It wants to succeed. To thrive, if only to shove it in their faces. To scream, “I don’t need you, so eff off!”
Bitter pain, I realise, is one heck of a motivator.
I drive for hours, the road blurring into a monotonous ribbon beneath my tyres. I force my mind to stay blank, refusing to pick apart my life with Paul. There’s too much to untangle, too much pain clawing at the edges of my thoughts. Sobbing uncontrollably while behind the wheel isn’t exactly safe.
So I focus on the engine’s hum and the blur of signs flashing by. For now, that’s all I can manage. The miles roll by as I stop only for fuel and cheap essentials: a few changes of clothes and toiletries—just enough to last until I’m settled somewhere.
And then I see it.
The Sector Border.
It looms in the distance, crawling up the horizon like a jagged scar cutting the sky. An impenetrable wall of magic, concrete, and electrified fencing spans the width of the land, dividing the shifters from the rest of the country—and the other human derivatives.
Derivative is the term people use.
Our DNA is still human—just with a twist. A splash of extra junk DNA that works differently, making some of us stronger.
Different.
Fangs, claws, and magic.
Vampires, shifters, magic users, and the rare, prized pure humans—we all fall somewhere along a spectrum of strength, with some unlucky individuals carrying a mix of DNA that cancels itself out, leaving them next to useless.
Some say derivatives are a natural evolution. Others spin tales of alien intervention. Supposedly, elf-like beings tweaked our genome—probably the same theorists who think aliens built our ancient ruins.
Science has not pinned down the origins of derivatives, and most theories are quietly dismissed. Maybe the governments know more, but if they do, they are not talking.
Considering we don’t even know all the species lurking in the deep ocean, it’s not a stretch to imagine there’s more about our genome that science has yet to figure out.
Forty years ago, everything came to a head. Xenophobia reached its peak, and society ripped itself apart.
We were killing each other. Pure humans, delicate in comparison, teetered on the edge of extinction. Death rates spiked. Birth rates plummeted.
For the derivatives—especially the blood drinkers—this wasn’t sustainable. They needed pure humans to survive.
The government had no choice. They passed laws that changed everything: the derivatives would govern themselves.
Sectors were drawn up, dividing the country into pieces. Each species ruled its own.
And the fragile peace began.
Geographically, the shifters reign in the north, where the environment is harsh, wild, and staggeringly beautiful.
I glance again at the horizon-stealing barrier. It’s a monstrosity, and the sight of it sends a shiver of apprehension down my spine. The shifters are territorial, and their borders reflect that.
They don’t just guard their borders—they fortify them.
They maintain two borders: the internal one that leads into the heart of their empire, where only those with the correct DNA can enter, and the external one, the one looming through my car window.
This barrier separates the Human Sector from no-man’s-land, a five-mile-wide, ninety-three-mile-long strip of neutral ground known as the Enterprise Zone. The area hosts national businesses where shifters coexist with other derivatives. Despite its collaborative nature, the security here is nothing short of airtight.
Entry into their territory isn’t casual—it demands either a valid work visa or the explicit backing of a shifter sponsor.
Before I can even consider crossing into their sector, I will need to secure a qualifying job first.
Pure humans, vampires, and magic users aren’t as rigidly separated as the shifters. The borders exist, but they are far from the military-grade fortresses the shifters have erected.
The tightly controlled Human Sector is in the centre of the country.
Below us, in the southeast, the vampires dominate the financial and political heart. Vampires, of course, are different. Their borders barely feel like boundaries. They want humans to visit—for dinner, if you catch my drift. Their sector borders feel more like invitations, with flashy buildings, vibrant nightclubs, and an entertainment culture designed to lure you in.
Magic users—mages, witches, and wizards—inhabit the southwest, where the air hums with latent power.
What everyone calls magic has a scientific explanation: it’s a form of energy manipulation.
Pure humans perceive only a narrow slice of reality. Their senses are limited—six million receptor sites in the nose compared to more than a hundred million in a dog. And that’s just smell.
Something unique in a magic user’s brain allows us to manipulate the invisible forces of the world, such as magnetic fields, dark matter, and the substructures of reality. In essence, we manipulate gravity, mass, and molecular vibrations, using what humans can’t see and what science has yet to fully understand to create incredible things.
As my vision wavers and exhaustion claws at me, I know I’m done for the day. I pull into the car park of a popular chain hotel. The sky is darkening, and I don’t want to be on the streets after nightfall.
A yawn cracks my jaw, and booking a room feels like a chore. I power up my laptop, clicking through the motions to avoid having to talk to anyone more than absolutely necessary. If I can walk in, flash my ID, and get a key without speaking, that’ll be perfect.
I don’t have the energy for small talk. Tonight, the entire world can get lost.
While waiting for the hotel’s booking system to update, I stare at the dusky sky, tapping my fingers on the keyboard’s edge.
This is it.
It’s time to put my shaky plan into action.
As a freelancer, I’ve worked with shifter businesses on and off for years. I’m not a superstar, but I’m good at my job, and people know I get things done.
Ten days ago, I received a job offer from the Shifter Ministry to help develop and implement a new defence system. It’s an incredible opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime kind of role.
But I dismissed it immediately, certain Paul wouldn’t want me working for the shifters, let alone for their government.
I didn’t even tell Paul about the offer.
He has never been good with the other derivatives, and the contract would require relocation. Even if his record was squeaky clean, he wouldn’t have moved with me, no matter the prestige or benefits.
Paul won’t admit it, but I know him too well. It’s in his eyes, in the way he tenses when derivatives are mentioned. Like most pure humans, he is scared—scared of our differences, scared of our perceived weaknesses. That’s why we lived smack bang in the middle of the Human Sector, on a gated estate where everything was controlled and contained.
The real kicker?
Both Dove and Paul are members of Human First, an anti-supernatural group. Idiots.
The Ministry undoubtedly has them on a watch list. I always steered clear of their nonsense, favouring tolerance and common sense. My job requires the highest security clearance.
Poking the supes is asking for trouble. I told them countless times not to mess with them; some of the stronger vampires can read your thoughts.
I glance down at the email I’ve pulled up. It’s time to implement the first part of my plan. I never officially turned down the shifter job—life had been too hectic, especially with the big project I wrapped up today. Writing the rejection email was on my to-do list for tomorrow morning.
How fortuitous.
Now there’s nothing stopping me.
I’ve got nothing better to do, nowhere else to go, and it’s not like things can get any worse.
This job will give me more than a salary. It will give me a home, a fresh start, and an adventure. I rub the pale, empty skin of my ring finger, the absence of my wedding band achingly obvious.
It’s a chance to go somewhere the past can’t follow.
I read through the details of the offer again, the words blurring slightly in the dim light of the car and the harsh brightness of the screen. Then, quickly and decisively, I type out my acceptance, including the hotel’s address so they can send over the paperwork.
If they are still interested, they will contact me.
I exit the car, smoothing down my trousers as I gather my things. Chin up, shoulders back, I walk toward the hotel entrance.
The automatic doors slide open, and I’m greeted by a blast of sickly warm air that follows me into the lobby.
The hotel is standard—clean, efficient, and utterly forgettable, just like every other chain hotel. The air is tinged with the faint scent of freshly brewed coffee from the restaurant in the corner, mingling unpleasantly with the sharp pine scent of the floor cleaner.
I nod hello to the receptionist and give him my booking confirmation number. Moments later, I’m holding a keycard and heading to the lift.
I scan the card, hit the button for the fourth floor, and lean back against the cold, brushed steel wall. There’s no mirror, but the black strip above the buttons reflects my face.
“Huh.”
I look exactly as I did when I left work this afternoon. Not a hair out of place, not a hint of the turmoil churning inside me. It’s impressive, really, how much of the pain I feel is invisible, etched nowhere but within.
The lift pings, and the doors slide open. I quickly find the room, and when the door clicks shut behind me, the dull, safe uniformity of four solid walls settles something inside me.
It feels as though I’ve finally stopped running.
I drop the shopping bags onto the suitcase holder next to the wardrobe, kick off my shoes, and strip out of my clothes.
The shower beckons.
Hot water pounds against my shoulders, runs down my face, and pools at my feet. I scrub at my skin until it’s bright pink, hoping to wash away the smell, the betrayal, the day.
But no matter how hard I scrub, it’s still there.
I’m surprised I don’t cry now that I’m safe and alone. I thought I would. I thought tears would come rushing out of me like a dam breaking, but instead, there’s… nothing.
The numbness settles over me like a second skin, wrapping me in an emotional lockdown I can’t break through. Somewhere in my mind, a little voice screams, What the heck is wrong with you? Why aren’t you more upset?
I just feel hollow.