Mason and Zack tore through the crowded streets, their footsteps pounding against the pavement.
Behind them, the shifters were gaining.
Zack: "Left!"
Mason followed him around a corner.
They suddenly burst into a massive crowd leaving a subway station.
Hundreds of people filled the sidewalk.
Zack grabbed Mason's wrist.
Zack: "Don't stop!"
They pushed through the crowd, ducking between people and disappearing beneath umbrellas and backpacks.
The leader appeared at the corner seconds later.
Leader: "Find them!"
His group scattered.
But Mason and Zack were already gone.
Zack pulled Mason into a narrow alley.
Mason: "Where are we going?"
Zack: "Somewhere they won't find us."
He stopped beside an old metal fire escape attached to an apartment building.
Mason looked up.
Mason: "Seriously?"
Zack: "Do you have a better idea?"
Mason: "...No."
Zack climbed first.
The metal stairs rattled beneath their weight as they hurried upward.
One floor.
Two.
Three.
Mason glanced down.
The crowd below had swallowed the street completely.
Mason: "I think we lost them."
Zack: "Don't say that yet."
They reached the top floor.
Zack pulled out a key.
Mason stared at him.
Mason: "You have an apartment here?"
Zack unlocked the window.
Zack: "Yeah."
Mason climbed inside.
Mason: "You could've mentioned that."
Zack: "We were being chased!"
Mason: "Fair point."
Zack climbed through after him and quickly shut the window.
The apartment was small but comfortable.
A couch sat against one wall, a kitchen occupied the other side, and several books were stacked beside a worn wooden table.
Mason looked around.
Mason: "This is where you've been living?"
Zack nodded.
Zack: "For the last two years."
Mason noticed something sitting on a shelf.
A small muddy photograph.
He walked closer.
It was a picture of two children standing in the woods.
Mason stared at it.
It was him and Zack.
From the day before Zack disappeared.
Mason: "You kept this?"
Zack looked away.
Zack: "Of course I did."
Mason turned toward him.
For the first time since they had reunited, neither of them knew what to say.
Then—
BANG.
Both froze.
A sound came from the fire escape outside.
Mason whispered:
Mason: "...They found us."
Zack slowly shook his head.
Zack: "No."
Another metallic clang echoed outside.
Zack's eyes narrowed.
Zack: "There's no way they could've tracked us that fast."
Mason: "Then what is it?"
Zack stepped toward the window.
His wolf suddenly growled.
Not them.
Zack stopped.
Zack: "Mason..."
Mason: "Yeah?"
Zack stared at the window.
Zack: "Something else is outside."
The lights in the apartment suddenly flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then went completely dark.
A voice whispered from the other side of the window.
"Zack..."
Zack's face went pale.
He knew that voice.
He hadn't heard it in ten years.
Zack whispered:
Zack: "That's impossible."