When Jennifer woke up, it was just another Sunday.
2 p.m.
She was starving.
Again, she neither had the skills nor the ingredients to whip up anything in her kitchen, so she did what she always did — ran downstairs and across the street for a quick coffee and her two regular hotdogs.
She hit her first complication the moment she stepped out of the lift.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Jen."
Right. Her building now had a werewolf warrior on guard duty in a doorman suit.
There were also maids in black dresses and stiff white aprons bobbing curtseys as she passed. The doorman kindly accompanied her all the way just to open the lobby door for her. Outside, along the side of the building, a few thugs loitered casually, tucked just in the shadow, smoking and "keeping an eye on things".
One of them winked at her.
Frank's men.
This was her reality now.
Even as she crossed the street, she became acutely aware that it would be impossible to re-enter her building without multiple people knowing she was the kind of lady who bought and ate hotdogs in pairs.
Unacceptable.
So instead of grabbing her food and running straight back upstairs, Jennifer had to engineer a workaround.
She bought the two hotdogs from the stand. She didn't even have to order. The hotdog man had already started bagging them with her usual mustard-and-relish combination the moment he saw her walk out of the building.
She paid him first, then slipped into the coffee shop next door.
Now here was her genius.
Instead of leaving through the front and strolling the dozen steps back to her building under public scrutiny, Jennifer exited through the back.
There was an alley behind the row of shops. Not the dangerous, dimly lit kind. Please. Jennifer was not about to endanger her life for the sake of an extra hotdog.
It was 2 p.m. on a bright Sunday afternoon. The alley was wide and surprisingly clean. There were dumpsters, yes — but her neighborhood was more Sesame Street than Gotham. More Oscar the Grouch's hangout than crime syndicate headquarters.
Sometimes kids played soccer or hopscotch back here.
There were also a few small stores. Jennifer stopped by a tiny grocer and picked up a loaf of bread, milk, a dozen eggs, and five apples.
Respectable groceries.
While the elderly shopkeeper slowly counted out and packed twelve eggs one by one, Jennifer wolfed down one of her hotdogs and drank her coffee.
Ah. That hit the spot.
By the time she stepped back toward the main road, she was respectably armed with household necessities, one remaining hotdog, and half a cup of coffee.
She was so smart.
She took one step off the curb—"Watch out!" the hotdog man yelled.
There was a screech.
The sound of rubber tearing against asphalt.
Jennifer barely had time to turn her head before a blur of dark movement slammed into her from the side.
Strong hands gripped her waist.
The world shifted.
Her groceries tipped; apples rolled.
A car shot past where she had been standing less than a second ago, horn blaring.
Jennifer found herself pressed against a solid chest, her feet no longer touching the ground.
"Ms. Jen."
The voice was low. Controlled. Dangerous.
Damien. He set her down behind him in one smooth motion, placing himself between her and the street.
His leather jacket had fallen open. His shoulders were tense. A faint, almost inaudible growl vibrated through the air.
"Better get back into the building, Ms. Jen," he said, eyes fixed ahead. "That looks bad."
Jennifer adjusted her grip on her coffee.
"Oh," she said faintly, peering around him. "That does look bad."
The asphalt in the middle of the road was warping.
Twisting.
Like someone had taken reality and was stirring it with a spoon.
The air thickened. A low hum built beneath the sounds of traffic and shouting.
Then the street split open.
A vortex of swirling light and shadow spun into existence, expanding outward in a widening spiral.
Windows flew open.
"Ms. Jen! Alpha!" EJ's red head popped out from an upstairs window. "Boss says get back inside!"
"You get back inside!" Damien shouted back, "Didn't you say your face was precious?"
Four more precious faces appeared beside him. And several phones.
Several very active phones.
"It's like Pandora Awakeners Online in real life, people!" one of the boys shouted into his livestream. "Yo, this CGI is insane!"
"Bro, tag PAO official!"
"Is this a marketing stunt?!"
Pandora Awakeners Online — PAO — had been the hottest game in the world for over a year. In Jennifer's notes, it was the ultimate EA Sport empire and, secretly, a virtual training system designed to identify and train Awakeners through what players thought were game simulations.
The livestream battles were legendary.
Millions watched.
No one knew they were real.
No one was supposed to know.
So why—Why was a portal opening in broad daylight, in the middle of a residential street, while half the neighborhood was filming?
The vortex pulsed once.
Twice.
The ground trembled beneath Jennifer's sneakers.
She tightened her grip on the grocery bag.
She hadn't even finished her second hotdog.
This was extremely inconvenient.
Damien's growl deepened, no longer subtle.
Behind them, more wolf warriors were already moving into formation.
"Inside," Damien said quietly.
The portal flared.
And something inside it moved.