Sadie Hart by Cry Sanctuary

both ways before crossing the street.
    It wasn’t until they were both surrounded by
trees, the scent of decomposing leaves and acorns strong in the
air, that Ollie spoke, her voice a low, half-whisper. “I always
wanted this stupid case.”
    She glanced over her shoulder in time to see
a smile steal over Sawyer’s face. “Not me.”
    “No? Then what did you think you were going
to do? Why’d you take the job if not to catch the bad guy?”
    Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Lot of
reasons. Never wanted to be the victim again.”
    That, Ollie could understand. Even before the
Hunter, she’d known what being a victim was like. As far back as
her memories went, she knew what it felt like to be powerless,
scared, unable to help herself or anyone else—her father’s fists
had taught her that lesson.
    “And, well, I thought it was about time
Shifter Town Enforcement opened its doors to other shifters. Not
just dogs.”
    Especially since the killer who had kidnapped
Sawyer had been a rogue Hound on a mission to rid the world of all
lion-shifters. He’d killed seven people and kidnapped five,
including Sawyer and her young niece. Thankfully, one of the other
people he’d kidnapped had been Lennox, and she’d turned the tables
on him and helped Sawyer escape. Still, for the most part, Ollie
was still aware that there was a divide between STE and the
shifters they were supposed to protect.
    Enforcement considered their primary mission
to be the protection of humans from shifters. Shifters had, for the
most part, gotten the shitty end of the deal—most wound up dead
long before they ever saw a jail cell. That was actually what the
rogue Hound had been counting on. Mass extermination, while using
his Hound magick to cover his tracks, so that in the end, he could
get off scot free.
    They walked in silence for a while, Ollie
trying desperately to forget the man who’d killed so many people,
who’d kill again soon if she couldn’t stop him. He was a demon she
couldn’t escape, one who had claws hooked so deeply into her soul
that he followed her constantly, a second shadow. In a fury, she
lashed out, her boot sending a rock skidding up the sidewalk before
it disappeared into a clump of grass.
    “Lennox re-ordered flyers of the sketch you
had done after—”
    Sawyer didn’t have to finish. The moment
Ollie had gotten back to Enforcement after being held captive by
the Hunter, she’d worked with a pair of sketch artists to whip up a
composite. They’d flashed it around the news for weeks. Nothing. He
was ordinary. The kind of face most people would see on the street
and forget.
    To Ollie, he was burned into her memory like
he’d been branded into her brain. She’d never forget the wayward,
almost boyish smile, or the way it twisted when she said something
he didn’t like, the dimple on his right cheek suddenly cavernous.
Dark. He’d dressed in plaid and jeans, his body lean and muscular,
more than fit enough to do the job.
    More than anything it was the wolf she hadn’t
forgotten. The brilliant gold eyes that seemed to light up when
they caught the moon’s silver light, lantern-bright in the dark.
He’d been blacker than any shadow, a sleek eidolon that could
vanish into the night as if he’d never been there at all.
    In the end, the sketch had simply taunted her
more. The Hunter had stared at her from paper, his brutal eyes flat
under the hard, graphite etchings of a pencil. The cruel line to
his mouth looked ordinary. The dark, dangerous dimple was simply a
line on the page. Even on paper he mocked her.
    Ollie wrapped her arms around herself,
refusing to acknowledge the nagging sense of powerlessness, and
turned back towards Enforcement.
    It only took one other person to see him, to
recognize him, and that could be all they needed. Just one. It was
a shred of hope Ollie clung to, a prayer she dared whisper again
and again. The devil couldn’t be invisible. Sooner or later,
someone had to see him for what he