The paranormal police weren’t like their human counterparts. The non-humans who worked here—and most of the humans too, I’d come to realise—did so to protect their community as much as police it.
And this recent outbreak of feral non-humans sent a ripple of unrest throughout our department. It was the same all over, especially where the other cases had happened. I’d been to most of them, seen first-hand how unsettled it made everyone.
At this time of night, the office was virtually empty, lights on in one other office on our floor. I nodded in greeting as I passed, receiving a wave in return.
Our office was at the end in the corner, a wide window overlooking the fields at the back. The harsh office lights made me squint as soon as I flicked the switch.
Fuck that.
I slapped quickly at the switch again, turning it off in favour of my desk lamp. The softer muted glow shed enough light for me to see the information board we’d set up soon after I arrived. That had been four weeks ago.
Only four weeks?
It felt so much longer.
The department as a whole had welcomed me with open arms, Max especially. I’d expected to remain on the outside of a group I wasn’t fully part of, kept at arm’s length for the time I was with them.
But that hadn’t been the case.
I’d come here to follow up on the cases of non-humans losing control seemingly out of the blue. The first had been in my hometown.
Home.
That wasn’t exactly true. I’d fled Bude after parting ways with Tombs and the Silver Arrows, ending up just outside of Bodmin.
The Silver Arrows had a reputation, one I’d tried so hard not to be a part of. But getting people to trust me, to believe that I wasn’t as bad as all the other members, hadn’t been easy.
A fucking understatement if ever I’d heard one.
But I’d stuck at it. Offering my help to the local paranormal police force whenever I could. Starting small and gradually building trust that seemed to have followed me here. Or more likely preceded me. I doubted they’d have taken me on so readily here without a glowing recommendation from Bodmin.
My mind drifted back to that very first case, and I glanced up at the board to find her name.
Mia Byrom.
A forty-two-year-old cat shifter who’d left her pack after losing her mate two years before. Choosing to live on her own in her grief instead of leaning on the family who were so desperate to have her back in the fold.
I’d met her once before, I remembered because she’d been one of the few who recognised me for what I was. Not many did.“You should be ashamed of yourself,”she’d murmured, a look of disgust in her eyes. Her words cut deep, because I was. More than she could imagine.
She was also less than impressed that the non-humans in the paranormal police were willingly working alongside a member of the Silver Arrows.
“Once an Arrow, always an Arrow,”she’d hissed at me. They were almost the exact same words Tombs had spat at me as I’d walked away from him. I didn’t hold any of it against her. She’d only been saying what everyone at that police station had first thought when I’d approached them. And I deserved every ounce of their doubts and mistrust. I’d had to earn their respect, their loyalty, and would probably have to do the same time and again with each non-human I met when they learnt of my past.
But I’d never had the chance with Mia.
Her pack had been a little easier to work with, more intent on finding out what happened to her than dwelling on my past acquaintances.
By all accounts, she’d withdrawn from all pack activities, sealed herself off in her home, only venturing out for supplies. And judging by the size of her when the hunters brought her body in, she hadn’t been doing that very often. Cat shifters were leaner than wolves, but still toned and muscular like you’d expect from a tiger or panther. Or whatever form they took when they shifted. Mia had been thin, way too undernourished to successfully morph her body into a form that came as natural to a shifter as breathing.
To not be able to do it would have had massive psychological consequences.
In the end, the conclusions by both the police and her pack were that grief had caused her to simply give up on living, finally losing control of her mind and body.
I had my doubts. The spitfire who’d given me a piece of her mind, although noticeably underweight, had seemed far from the point of losing control of her faculties. But then grief was unpredictable. Maybe I’d caught her in a rare moment of clarity.
If anything else had helped the process along, given her the nudge over the edge, it was gone from her system by the time she reached us. Nothing in her blood or on her body to suggest foul play.
The second photo on my board was twenty-two-year-old Ben Holder.
