Chapter 2

The room was a blur of pale, terrified faces. Children. So many of them, all dressed in fine clothes, their eyes wide with a fear that mirrored my own. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I couldn't breathe. My power was a ghost, a memory. I was blind, deaf to my own blood.

"Choose, Annabel," Ethan' s voice cut through the haze. "The clock is ticking."

The high-society vultures watched me, their faces a mixture of morbid fascination and disgust. They were here for a show, a spectacle of cruelty to spice up their jaded lives.

My eyes scanned the crowd of children, desperately searching for a sign, a flicker of recognition. An amber glint in the eye, the unique warmth of my lineage. But there was nothing. Just fear.

Then, a small girl with hair the color of wheat took a hesitant step forward. She was tiny, clutching a worn teddy bear. Our eyes met, and she mouthed a single, silent word.

"Mama."

My world stopped.

She took another step, her small hand opening to reveal a bracelet. It was made of simple, colored beads, a trinket I had woven in the final days of my pregnancy. I had made nine of them, one for each of my children, a small piece of me to hold onto until I woke up.

A wave of relief, so powerful it almost buckled my knees, washed over me. It was her. My daughter.

I opened my mouth to declare her my choice, to use my 'Vigilante' power to shield her.

But then I saw it.

A glint in her eyes. It wasn' t the warm, earthy amber of a Skinwalker. It was a cold, sharp, unnatural blue, like chips of ice. It was the color of Sabrina Fowler' s eyes.

A trap. The bracelet could have been stolen. The word a coached lie.

My mind, sharpened by a lifetime of hiding, of survival, took over. The love, the desperate hope, receded, replaced by cold, ruthless logic. If this was a trick, and I fell for it, one of my real children would die. I couldn' t risk it. I couldn't save them all if I acted on emotion. I had to be as cruel as my tormentors.

The game master looked at me. "The Vigilante must choose who to protect. The mob must choose who to eliminate."

I took a deep breath, my voice shaking but firm.

"I protect the boy in the corner," I said, pointing to a quiet child who had hidden himself away from the others. I had no reason, just a blind guess.

Then came the vote. The guests whispered among themselves, pointing fingers. Sabrina leaned over to a portly man beside her, her red lips moving silently. The man nodded and stood up.

"We vote to eliminate the girl with the bracelet," he announced. "She seems too eager. It' s a classic Mafia bluff."

A chorus of agreement followed. The vote was unanimous.

"No," I whispered, a fresh wave of horror washing over me. What if I was wrong? What if my logic was the real trap?

The game master declared, "The girl with the bracelet has been voted out."

Sabrina rose from her chair, a triumphant smirk on her face. She walked towards the little girl, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

"Come here, little monster," she cooed.

The girl didn't cry. She stood her ground, her small body trembling. As Sabrina reached for her, the girl lunged forward and bit her hand, hard.

Sabrina screamed, yanking her hand back. A line of blood welled up on her pale skin.

Ethan was there in an instant, his face contorted with fury. He grabbed the little girl by the arm, his grip brutally tight.

"You little freak!" he snarled.

He ripped at her hair, pulling her head back. Taped crudely behind her ear was a small, matted patch of coyote fur, coarse and dirty. He tore it off.

Underneath, revealed in the dim light of the ballroom, was a patch of shimmering, silver-fox fur. The unmistakable mark of my bloodline. The true sign of her Nahualtse.

It was her. It was my daughter. They had disguised her, hidden her true nature to fool me.

My soul shattered. A silent scream ripped through me, but no sound came out.

Ethan looked from the fur to me, his eyes empty of recognition, of love, of anything human. He saw only the monster Sabrina had convinced him I was.

Without a word, he threw my daughter to the ground. He pulled a small, ornate pistol from his jacket.

The little girl looked at me one last time, her eyes, now shining with their true amber light, filled with a hurt so profound it broke me.

"Mama," she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek. "You didn' t choose me."

Then Ethan fired.

The sound echoed through the ballroom, a final, deafening crack. The high-society guests gasped, murmuring amongst themselves about the "freaks," the "monsters" I had brought into their world.

I could only stare at the small, still form on the floor, my heart a gaping, bleeding wound. I had killed her. My own daughter. I had played their game and I had killed her.

Ethan' s cruelty was a bottomless pit. And I had just fallen in.