Exposed: A Book Bite

by H. D. Gordon

  Exposed

  A Book Bite

  H. D. Gordon

  Copyright © 2021 H. D. Gordon

  Published by H. D. Gordon Books

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Try Moon Burned

  Also by H. D. Gordon

  About the Author

  1

  12:31 a.m.

  The bell over the door dings, but I pay it no mind.

  I’ve got an important decision to make.

  Cooler Ranch Doritos or Nacho Cheesier?

  Balancing the other items I’ve picked out on one arm, I snatch the Nacho Cheesier from the shelf and hug the bag to my chest to free up my hand for other selections. Stalking down the aisle, I spot a peanut butter and chocolate treat and pounce on it like the predator I am.

  I can feel the guy behind the counter watching me, his gaze flicking between where I am and the old box television mounted on the wall near him. I look down at the junk food in my hands. Should last me long enough to make it home and bury myself in a pile of wrappers, crumbs, and regret.

  I nod at my job well done and carry the stuff up to the counter, where I stand on my tiptoes so that I can hover over its surface and let my precious picks scatter before the cashier.

  The man—tall, white, and beer-gutted—eyes my selections before sucking his teeth and beginning to ring them up. Don’t judge my junk food, Larry, and I won’t judge the stench of your body odor currently choking me.

  Larry—I have no idea if that’s what his name is, but it fits well enough—takes his time bagging my items, his attention divided between me and the television.

  “You believe this shit?” he asks, nodding toward the screen.

  I suppress a sigh, taking the bait and looking at the screen.

  “Another police shooting of a supernatural has caused protests this evening in the downtown area of Philadelphia,” reads the newscaster.

  Video of throngs of people flooding the streets outside local businesses, chanting and thrusting signs into the air, flashes on the screen.

  The newscaster continues, “The death of Edmond Jackson, an individual from Northeast Philadelphia of werewolf descent has caused an uproar among the community, making the third death this month involving police and a supernatural in the United States.”

  The man behind the counter snorts and shakes his head. “Fucking animals,” he grumbles at the protesters on the screen. “I say good riddance.”

  My jaw clenches, but I say nothing.

  Just ring up my HoHo’s, Larry, and shut your damn mouth.

  “Goddamn beasts,” he grumbles, shaking his head. “They just show up and think they can take our jobs, our women, our land.” He sucks his teeth again and looks at me like he’s waiting for my agreement. His voice lowers a fraction. “I say shoot ‘em all.”

  Finally, finally, racist-ass-Larry puts my final item in the bag and presses a button on the register. My jaw is clenched tight enough to ache—the only way to keep in the verbal response that wants to come spilling out.

  “Fourteen-o-three,” he says.

  I toss a twenty dollar bill on the counter rather than handing it to him, because I can be petty like that.

  Larry snatches up the bill and makes my change, still shaking his head at the story on the screen. I pocket the money and scoop up my purchases, not bothering to respond to Larry’s, “Have a good night.”

  As I’m exiting, a man in all black brushes by me and into the convenience store. The hair on the back of my neck rises as our shoulders brush.

  Then the door closes behind me, leaving the black-clad stranger on the other side, and me standing on the sidewalk.

  Just walk away, Harper, I tell myself. This ain’t your circus, and it sure as shit ain’t your monkeys.

  I look down at the plastic bag in my hand. Chips and candy, cakes and sandwiches, even some pre-cut fruit, all awaiting me. Just walk away, and in five minutes I could be sitting on my couch, covered in crumbs and wrappers, my most natural state.

  I glance over my shoulder and into the fluorescent-lit space of the store, dissected from the scene inside with the shadows of the night wrapped around me.

  Sure enough, the black-clad stranger has donned a ski mask, and is standing before the counter with a gun drawn, pointed right at Racist-Larry.

  Good riddance.

  The thought flies by my mind, the man’s own words playing back in his most inopportune moment.

  I say shoot ‘em all.

  On the heels of this thought, another:

  The right thing will not always be easy, Harper. More than enough, it will be just the opposite, but you should try to do it anyway.

  Mother. Fucker.

  With a sigh, I turn on my heels and head back into the convenience store.

  The bell dings over my head.

  The masked gunman and now-terrified-Racist-Larry turn to face me. I take a fraction of a heartbeat to bemoan my choice, then I move.

  Fast.

  Too fast for the likes of them. They are only humans, after all.

  The man with the gun swings the barrel toward me, but I am in front of him before he completes the movement. I take the weapon from him swiftly, easily. It is in his grip one moment, and then, it is in mine. I dismantle the weapon in the next breath, removing the clip and popping out the bullet loaded into the barrel.

  Then I crush the rest of the weapon in the palm of my hand, warping the metal beyond repair.

  The two men stare at me in horror. I can’t tell if Racist-Larry is more afraid of me or the man who’d been holding him at gunpoint only seconds ago.

  “You’re one of them,” the previously armed robber says, disgust dripping from the words. A glance at Larry says he is thinking the same.

  I don’t give a verbal response because the genius takes a swing at me. I catch his arm and twist, snapping a few of the bones inside. The man howls out in pain, the wolf in me perking up at the sound.

  “You stupid b—”

  I slam his head into the counter, hard enough to put him out, but perhaps not do any longterm damage. He crumples to the floor before he can finish the rest of his ironically accurate insult.

  I sigh and look up at Larry.

  He holds a shotgun that he must’ve retrieved while I’d been saving him from dumbass over here. I stare into the two dark holes of its barrel, thinking: Seriously?

  I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

  “Get out,” Larry says. I can smell the fear on him the same as I can read the hatred written on his face.

  Larry pumps the shotgun, creating a duel click that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I’m a pull of the trigger away from meeting my maker.

  “Get out, and don’t come back,” Larry says. “Your kind a
in’t welcome here.”

  I glance down at the unconscious, human male on the floor by my feet, and back up at Larry.

  “Fucking animals, right?” I say, and shove my way out the door.

  2

  6:00 a.m.

  Bells tinkle as my alarm goes off.

  My Gods, it can’t be time to wake up already. I swear I just closed my eyes an hour ago.

  I pluck my phone up from the end table beside the couch upon which I lay, squinting at the screen. The evidence of my junk food binge lies around me like carcasses, crumbs cascading down my shirt as I blink at the numbers on the phone, confirming the worst.

  It is time to get up and ready for work.

  Devil’s ball sac.

  With a groan, I drape my forearm over my face and steal a handful more minutes of rest. Then I drag myself out of bed and to the bathroom, where I shower, brush my teeth, and take care of business.

  Thirty minutes later, I’m out the door, looking the least shitty I can manage after eating all that junk I’d bought last night. I tell myself that I gotta get a hold on my cravings and appetite. Perhaps a good hunt would help ease the rabid hunger.

  How long has it been since I shifted and ran, anyway?

  Too long, since I can’t offhandedly remember. And after the encounter with the douchebags at the convenience store very early this morning, I could certainly stand to blow off a little steam.

  A calm wolf is a smart wolf.

  I release a breath, holding onto this reminder as I head to the office, which is a gauntlet of patience-testing and keeping one’s emotions in check. Especially now that humans know about the existence of supernaturals.

  The world is changing as we know it, and every Tom, Dick, and Jerry has a damn opinion about it.

  Most of the people I work with are humans, and they do not know that I’m not like them. They have no idea that I’m a werewolf. And why would they? Supernaturals have been working alongside them, living in their communities, teaching at their schools, attending their churches, for forever, and they’ve never been the wiser.

  Until a certain group of supers had to go and make national news. Fucking camera phones. Stupid ass internet. I supposed that if those young shifters had never come out to the public and put on that display of theirs, other supernaturals would have done so eventually, and the secret was bound to get out at some point. But that didn’t keep me from being angry with them for it. What made it their decision to expose supes when it had affected all of us?

  I guess I was getting old, because I just did not understand the younger generation. The world was changing, all right, and the rest of us were just trying to keep up.

  I pull into the parking garage outside the building in which I work and let out a sigh at the prospect of going inside. Another day, another dollar.

  “Smile, Harp,” says my mother’s voice in my head. “You have the tendency to look very wolfish when you’re not smiling. And the last thing you want to do is scare the humans. The secret of our existence is our greatest strength. Always remember that.”

  Well, it’s all gone to hell in a hand-basket now, ma, I think as I put my old Toyota into park and grab the ID badge I keep dangling from my rearview mirror, slipping it over my head in a final ritual before surrendering my freedom.

  Nine hours, including lunch. Then I could go home.

  I clamor out of the vehicle, balancing my phone, keys, and coffee and slinging my backpack over my shoulder. I check the watch on my wrist—it’s digital, because ain’t nobody got time for that analog shit.

  It reads: 7:56

  I put some pep in my step, knowing how the director gets when I’m even a few minutes late. The parking garage is about half full, and I had to ride up to the fourth floor to find a spot. I see the elevators ahead, and beeline toward them.

  I check my watch again: 7:58

  Shit.

  Forget the elevators, I think, steering instead toward the edge of the garage. I reach it and climb up over the guardrail, taking a single glance at the four stories between the ground and my feet and making sure there are no witnesses.

  Then I leap over the edge, airborne for a handful of seconds before landing easily on my feet. A bit of coffee sloshes out of the little hole in the lid of my cup. I lick it up and take a sip.

  Skirting around the edge of the building, I slip inside.

  My watch reads 8:00 a.m.

  3

  8:05 a.m.

  As soon as I enter the building, I know something is wrong.

  I pass by Henry at the front desk, with his wrinkled Hawaiian shirt and slightly bowed posture. He smiles when he sees me, but there’s something behind it that makes me pause.

  “Good morning, Harper,” Henry says.

  “Good morning, Henry,” I reply.

  “Mr. Humphrey wants to see you in his office,” he tells me.

  My stomach twists. Mark Humphrey is the senior director, and I’d recently been moved to the position of being his little bitch. (The technical title for it is “administrative assistant,” but I’m all for calling a spade by its name.)

  I halt with my hand hovering over the elevator call button.

  “Did he say why?” I ask Henry.

  Henry sucks in a breath. The sound is so subtle that if not for my wolf hearing, I wouldn’t have picked it up. My head tilts as I sharpen my hearing and pick up the unsteady tripping of his heart.

  He knows something that he’s not telling me.

  I leave the elevator and approach the front desk behind which he sits. I notice his throat bob as I near, pick up the increasing pace of his heart, and that smell…

  Fear.

  Yes, I’m sure of it.

  Henry and I have always been cool. My heart drops at an inkling that shoots across the sky of my mind, but I draw a breath and vow not to freak out until I know what exactly is going on.

  “Henry,” I say, as cooly as I can manage. “What is it?”

  Henry holds my gaze for a moment, his gray eyes wary for a few heartbeats before he blinks and lets out a sigh. He pulls his cellphone from his desk drawer and pokes at the screen before turning it toward me.

  At first, I cannot process what I’m seeing.

  “You’re all over the news, Harp,” Henry says, and still, it doesn’t quite process.

  I stare at the screen; a video set in a convenience store. I watch as a man in a black ski mask enters, brandishing a gun at another man behind a counter. Even though I know what is going to happen next, I still can barely process it.

  A woman enters. She’s got dark auburn hair and olive skin, and is wearing a fuckin’ cool The Flash hoodie and Converse shoes. The scene from last night replays in my head along with the one on Henry’s phone screen.

  If not for the fact that this whole situation sucks ass, I would admit that I look pretty badass as I disarm the robber and then leave him unconscious, totally saving the damn day.

  Then I see the cashier pump the shotgun and aim it at me, and the reality of the situation steals over me.

  On the screen, my face is clear as day, from my big amber eyes to my full lips and high cheekbones.

  Motherfucker, I think.

  In front of me, Henry nods his agreement.

  “So…what are you, Harp?” Henry asks, withdrawing his phone and laying it on his desk.

  I’m in shock, that’s what I am.

  My secret is out. Not just to a few people, but to the whole Gods damned world. My first instinct is to run, but where would I even go where that video wouldn’t follow me? I have to swallow before I can speak.

  “I’m a person, Henry. Just like you,” I reply. Then I head back to the elevators, feeling his gaze on me the entire time.

  The elevator dings. The doors slide open. I step on in a sort of daze.

  Everyone knows.

  How did I let this happen?

  The elevator doors slide open in front of me. Again, the urge to run strikes, but I hear my mother’s voice, as I so
often do in times of crisis.

  Be brave, little wolf. Always be brave.

  Right. I step off the elevator and square my shoulders. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I can’t help what I am anymore than anyone else can. I draw a breath and eye the doorway to my right. Humphrey’s office.

  I swallow and step into the doorway, pushing the door open a little bit so that I’m visible. Somehow, I muster a smile.

  “Good morning, Mr. Humphrey,” I say. “You wanted to see me?”

  Mark Humphrey sits behind his large mahogany desk, bespectacled eyes staring at his computer screen, drawing up to me slowly. He wears a gray suit with a polka dot bowtie. He’s a small man, with a thin build and a height that reaches an even five feet and five inches. He’s got to be nearing sixty, but his tightly trimmed goatee and hair are a solid brown that does not occur in nature.

  “Come in, Harper,” he says. “Shut the door and have a seat.”

  My mind flashes back to all the times in school when I’d been called to the principal’s office. I shut the door and take a seat in the chair across from him.

  Silence stretches between us, as if he expects me to say something. I don’t. Instead, I raise my eyebrows.

  You called me in here, I think, and wait him out.

  Humphrey lets out an exaggerated sigh and closes his laptop. Then he leans back in his chair and eyes me.

  I want to, but I refuse to squirm.

  “I’m assuming you saw the news,” he says.

  My head tilts. My nerves are fading away and being replaced by indignation.