Jacob chuckled darkly. "Hello, foxy."

I growled, gaining the strength to jump to my feet and throw myself at him. "Traitor!" I screeched, my fingers barely making contact with his shirt before I was shoved back to the ground by a bystander in the crowd that had been watching me run.

Jacob waved the man away, and he slunk off, leaving us in the middle of the track. The doctor tried to intervene, but Jacob held up a hand and stopped her.

I snarled at him as he stalked closer to me. On his next step, I shifted into my fox, shaking out my silvery pelt. The crowd sucked in a breath; this was the first time most of them had seen me. The doctors had asked me to shift in terms of studying, but I hadn't in front of a crowd.

But I stayed a fox, my pelt bristling as I weaved in front of him. I was ready to fight him with all I had. He was the reason I was here. He was how they knew about me. He was why I couldn't be in Xavier's arms right now.

He smirked before shifting himself, the shreds of his clothes floating down in tatters. His wolf was much bigger than I was, a mass of grey fur mottled in black and white and brown. He began to weave in front of me until we started circling each other. He waited, knowing either way I was going to make the first move. I was furious with him, and that made me reckless.

I leaped, my teeth bared and my claws outstretched. He didn't even move away, just let me ram my entire body weight against his. I knocked us over, sinking my claws into his shoulder as I snapped at his face. Within seconds, he had us flipped back over and his paw put pressure against my throat, blocking my airway.

He shifted, and his elbow stayed against my throat. I writhed and wheezed, flailing my paws against his human body as I tried to suck air into my lungs, but he didn't seem to care, even as I scratched up his muscular torso.

"You're weak, you're starved. You didn't stand a chance against me." His laugh was dark, "Xavier's looking for you, he's lookin' hard. But he'll never find you, because he's overlooking one piece of the puzzle: me."

I coughed, squirming against him until he finally stood up and walked out of the room. Someone threw him a pair of shorts as he went.

I rolled to my paws, hacking up spit and sucking in air as fast as I could. I didn't have the strength to shift back, so I merely let one of the men lead me back to the cell by the loose skin on the scruff of my neck. The second the gate locked, I collapsed on the floor, falling asleep in seconds.

When I woke, I found my body had naturally shifted back in my sleep, once I had gained the strength I needed. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it had to have been a while, because it wasn't long after I sat up that someone came in to grab Kallie and I for cleaning duty.

Carrying our buckets, we shuffled our way to the farthest room of the corridor, the one by the stairs that must've led to the rest of the Packhouse. I wasn't sure who had been in the rooms today, since I slept through the entire afternoon, but it looked hideous.

Streaks of maroon were smeared on the walls, along with grime and who knew what else.

The chairs weren't in place and the couch wasn't even against the wall anymore. I wasn't sure what went on in there, but I hoped the mess was from her fighting them. I knew we were all weak, starved and worked to the bone, but the little bits of spirit that shined from each of them once in a while gave me enough hope to continue to the next day.

Kallie dropped her bucket, not seeming to care the water sloshed over the sides and splat on the floor. She walked to the chairs, lifting with all her might to tip them back into place. Dropping my bucket next to hers, I rushed to join her, knowing there was a greater chance of the chair falling back on her than her actually setting it up right. It was taller than her, for the Goddess's sake!

We straightened the chairs and pushed the couch back in silence, too exhausted to even make any sounds. Finished, we collected the buckets and got to work on the walls, soaking the sponge and slapping it to the plaster, rubbing in circles until the grime was cleared.

We had an easy routine, she and I. Kallie was often my partner when it came to cleaning duty, and with her cell being next to mine we seemed to have bonded in a way I didn't think I'd get with any of the other girls. The men were smart, pairing an older girl with a younger girl, that way the job didn't take all night. When I was paired with Tulip — the ebony-skinned girl that was close in size with Kallie — we didn't talk, we only worked (though, I was able to discover she was eight years old). Kallie and I weren't like that. Usually, we refused to work in silence, constantly asking each other questions or making games out of the work. Usually she asked me questions, because the questions I asked her didn't lead very far with her impaired memory.

"What's your family like?" She asked me when we were about halfway done with scrubbing the floors. My knees hurt from kneeling the entire time, and my back was sore from running earlier that day, not to mention my throat from when Jacob pinned me. But I kept going, and I found the strength to talk to her, because I knew these moments meant as much to her as they did to me.

"Well," I stopped scrubbing for a moment, "I have two siblings, one is about Ivy's age, and one is about Tulip's age." I didn't mention my parents, knowing the one thing she remembered from before was her parents' deaths.

She grinned, tilting her head to look at me while she dragged the sponge across the floor. "What are their names?"

I surveyed the room, looking for any devices that might serve as cameras in here. I didn't think they'd go after August and May, but I couldn't risk anything; we didn't know if one of them — or both — might be a non-wolf shifter. There was nothing, and I had never experienced the feelings of being watched when I was on cleaning duty. It was kind of nice, a bit of peace in the midst of hell, I supposed.

"August is my brother. And May is my sister."

Her grin stretched wider, and she even let out a giggle. "April, May, August. That's funny!"

I let out a laugh along with her, "yeah, I'm not really sure what my parents were thinking."

She got quiet, and the only sound was the squeak of the sponge across the floor for a while. "I wish I knew if I had siblings."

"Maybe," I told her, not really sure if it was a good idea to give her hope, "someday we could find them."

She stopped, seeming to forget to breathe. "Really?"

"Sure!" And there I went, spiraling down a rabbit hole of lies. But I wanted her to have hope, even as I was starting to lose it myself.

She asked about my pack, and was in complete awe when I explained the mountains from back home. I wasn't sure if she'd ever seen mountains at all. None of us knew where she was from. No one even knew where they each were from themselves.

We talked, and I answered her questions until we finally dragged the sponges across the last section of the hall floor. As if right on cue, Kade, one of the men of the pack I'd become far too familiar with, descended the stairs and escorted us back into our cells.

Then dinner came, and, never making the mistake again, I inhaled every particle of it. Trays were taken and blankets were brought out. That night, I listened to Kallie tell me a made up story about her home. And while I knew she didn't remember, I wondered just how much of it was fake. All that information had to have come from somewhere, right?

The next few days were a rest for me as the other girls got cycled through. I spent the majority of them playing hand games or writing on the floor with Kallie. I even braided her hair. It was messy, seeing as the bars gave way to very little movement of my arms, but it worked and I was able to pull all the strands of her hair back. She loved it, constantly flipping it over her shoulder and whipping her head around until she became dizzy.

The other girls had gotten slightly more chatty over the last few weeks, too. Iris claimed I had something to do with it; somehow, I had gotten the girls to open up more than she ever could.

In the hours of sitting there, exchanging stories, both real and made up, I discovered each one's shifted form. Iris was a maned wolf, those long-legged wolves that almost resembled a fox with their orange and black pelts. She was the first to be brought here, and apparently spent a long time by herself. She knew each and every nurse, guard, and doctor by name.

"What about Jacob?" I couldn't help myself from asking one day.

"Jacob?"

"Yeah. He's a member of the pack, but he doesn't often come retrieve us. He's been in the track room a few times."

She had thought for a moment, "I can't recall his name. What's he look like?"

"Pitch black hair, shadowy jaw line, high cheek bones, always looks murderous and slightly creepy."

She laughed, "honey, you just described about every single man in this horrible place."

So maybe she hadn't seen him around. I wondered how long he had been sneaking off here, abandoning the pack he was The Beta of for this. What could anything here be so much better— unless. . .

Was Jacob the Alpha here? Was he just hungry for a higher title; did Beta not satisfy him enough? It was a plausible explanation, though it didn't really put into play the pack's obsession with non-wolf shifters.

Next was Rue. She was a coyote, and had been here for three years, since she was thirteen. Ivy was a fifteen year old panther, which I thought was awesome! I knew panthers could be extremely powerful. I was surprised she hadn't killed anyone here yet.

Sage's animal was pretty sweet too. She was only fourteen, but had shifted into an ocelot when she was ten. She showed us once, on a day she had extra energy. The cat's eyes were big, as were her ears and paws. And the pattern of spots displayed across her fur were beautiful. It almost made me wish I were an ocelot!

After Sage was Maple, and she was a fox like me, though she was a completely different species. Her fennec fox was tiny, sand colored, and had ears as enormous as a cartoon rabbit's! I found out she was eleven, and had shifted less than a year ago. She had been the newest arrival before me.

Then it was Tulip, the eight year old African wild dog. Her pelt was mottled in yellow, black, and white, and her face and ears sort of resembled a hyena. She was a lot cuter than a hyena, though!

And then there was Kallie, my newfound best friend. Her wild orange hair matched her tiger's pelt color, but she couldn't stay shifted for long periods of time. The cub's body was disproportionate, with paws too large to carry properly.

When learning about each of them, I learned that those who had shifted early in life, had animals that resembled their age. Kallie's tiger was a cub, Tulip's dog a pup, Maple's ocelot was still adolescent, and so forth. It was almost like they made appearances too soon and now had to grow with their human form. Though, the pup forms were incredibly adorable!

The girls had seen me when I fell asleep in fox form that one day after my skirmish with Jacob. They each had commented on the silvery fur on my chest and back. And how the orange splashes were really pretty.

"I didn't know silver foxes were a thing!" Maple had commented.

"I didn't know until I shifted! It was a surprise to the entire family."

One of the days, when the girls were being particularly quiet, I asked Iris what she thought we were being studied for. She seemed surprised I asked.

"When the doctors are here and we get poked and prodded, they are collecting samples to analyze in a lab." I had figured that much, but I didn't interrupt. "Apparently the main doctor is completely fascinated by us, the way we are what we are; why and how we are what we are.

"I was captured first, and I think it was the first time anyone had seen something other than a wolf. I'm a maned wolf, and those resemble a regular wolf pretty closely, except for the coloring and the obnoxiously long legs. They thought I had a gene mutation that caused the breed change, and the early shift. But then they discovered Sage, and that theory went right out the window. Not only were there wolf shifters in the world, but cat shifters too! They were perplexed, and the fascination grew."

"So they test our DNA, trying to figure out our gene code to find where it shifts. Why?"

"Well, then there's the ability testing: endurance, speed, strength. You're familiar?"

I nodded.

"The men that man-handle us started to realize we were stronger than they were at times, and it scared them. But it increased the doctors' curiosity. So they started working us, testing our limits and discovering our species' potentials. But they also weaken us with less food, horrible sleep, and chores that leave us crawling back to bed. Because we're stronger than them, and that scares them."

"Woah." I whispered. Suddenly everything made sense.

"Yeah. I also have a theory that they want us to be the next generation of their pack, and to be the ones that provide future generations."

"You mean. . ."

"Yep." Her lips popped on the P, her eyes dead serious with more fear in them I had ever seen from her.

"Well, good luck to them." I scoffed, and she looked taken aback by my casualness. "With the conditions we're kept in? Yeah right; I haven't gotten my period since I've been here! How do they expect us to populate the pack if we're not even remotely healthy enough?"

A bubble of a laugh burst through her lips, and it was my turn to be taken aback. Never once in my time here had I heard Iris laugh like that. And it kept coming, until she was curled in a ball and rocking back and forth trying to contain herself. I think it was more than my wits, I think what I said relieved her, because she realized I was right. If they kept us down here like this, they couldn't expect us to remain fertile!

"Thank you." She said eventually, wiping the tears from her cheeks that came with the laughter.

"For what?"

"For giving me hope. For giving all of us hope."

Rue—16

Imagined as Shailene Woodley

Ivy—15

Imagined as Genneya Walton

Maple—11

Imagined as Kylie Rogers

Iris—20

Imagined as Sarah Hyland

Kalmia—5

Imagined as Belle Henry