Alpha Squad: Boot Camp

Chapter Two

Chapter TwoFelicity Weir had a lot on her plate. She had just returned home after spending all day at the shifter camp, making sure the new arrivals from the continent found their bearings, and she was beat. Almost every day at the camp was a struggle. The way the management ran the place was so inefficient, Felicity wondered how they ever achieved anything at all.

Just as she sat down on the sofa of her modest apartment, her phone was ringing again. No rest for the wicked.

The caller's number was withheld, but that was hardly unusual these days. Lately she'd been getting more phone calls from people she didn't know than her own family.

"Hello?" she answered.

There was a pause, but then finally, a familiar voice started to speak. "He's been at it again."

Felicity grabbed her notepad and a pen and readied herself. This man, whoever he was, had been giving her anonymous tips for the better part of a fortnight.

"More cattle?" she asked.

"I wish it were so. No, another human death this time, I'm afraid."

Felicity stopped scribbling. This was bad. The third murder in just over a week; this was sure to create a panic.

"Same M.O.?" she asked.

"We—they had to fingerprint him to determine his identity. He was mauled beyond recognition."

Felicity bit her lip. Ever since the secret Alliance had fallen apart, and their leader, Adrian Blacke, had been arrested by the human government, she had been drifting without any purpose. The incoming refugees gave her something to focus on, but she'd never expected for things to turn this ugly. Someone out there was intent on making all shifters look bad. That was the only explanation that made sense to her. The families she worked with every day at the camp were just as terrified about the new status quo as the locals in town were. They were honest, hard-working, and just trying to keep themselves and their families out of harm's way. None of them seemed capable of murder.

"Where?" she asked.

The man went on to explain the circumstances under which the body was discovered in some woods on the outskirts of town. The crime scene was just a moderate walk away from the shifter camp. Once he went quiet, Felicity knew that was all she was going to get out of him.

"Thank you. I will keep an eye out," Felicity said, then ended the call.

This was how her arrangement with the mysterious caller worked. She couldn't be sure how he’d found out about her, but in a small town like Sevenoaks, people liked to talk. And her presence in the camp had been a topic for speculation for many, until someone or other inevitably put two-and-two together and figured it out.

Felicity Weir was a bear shifter. She could pin-point the exact timing when the locals discovered this fact. The change in how everyone acted around her had been abrupt.

But Felicity had kept a level head. She had never planned on revealing her identity to the world like those people in the New Alliance had done some months ago on television. But she could understand their motivation. Still, they had made life much more difficult for everyone in her shoes. Shifter folk who had been living in secret among the human population all their lives and who now no longer knew how to deal with their new reality.

Should one come out and risk being ostracized by former friends and acquaintances? Or was it best to continue following the old ways, hoping that one's secret was never exposed?

Felicity felt strongly about her community and her species. The most important thing to her was to help her people and make a difference somehow. In a way, she had made her choice the day she walked into that refugee camp to offer her support to the newcomers.

But this… Felicity stared down at the words she'd hastily scribbled onto the notepad.

Murder. Human male. Mauled beyond recognition. Deer Park.

As soon as the media got wind of this, tempers would flare yet again, just as they had done after the previous attacks. Things were obviously escalating. At first, when only animals had been harmed, even Felicity wondered if some of the younger shifters from the camp had decided to go for a hunt and gotten carried away.

All shifters, herself included, had certain instincts and urges, after all. Hunting was not an uncommon activity among her kind.

But as soon as human victims started turning up, she changed her mind. Why would someone give up his or her entire life to come here and then cause trouble by attacking the local population? It just didn't make sense. And such violence, too. The particulars of the three murders turned her stomach.

She sighed and sat back with her eyes closed.

Who could have done this? Would it ever end?

After staying like that for a few more minutes, she tried to shake off the growing dread in her heart and recompose herself. It had been hours since her last meal; the volunteer work had kept her too busy all day.

It would be too easy to just call for a pizza, but she forced herself into action anyway and headed for the kitchen. There she switched on the radio and waited for the music to do its job.

Instead, voices started to fill the small kitchen. A panel discussion about exactly the topic she had wanted to find distraction from.

Rather than listening in on the heated debate about whether or not shifters were a threat to society, she switched the device off again and quickly made herself a sandwich. No way would she find rest after this latest tip. She ate in a rush, then put on an extra layer of warm clothes and headed out the door. The police might have left the crime scene by now, giving her time to inspect it and perhaps find a few clues human eyes would have overlooked.

Felicity carefully scanned her surroundings as she entered the Deer Park. According to the information she had received, the crime scene was supposedly situated along the western side of the park.

Every so often, she stopped and listened for any unusual activity, but could not detect any. All was calm. The only noises she could hear were those of the local animals going about their evening routines.

Twilight had descended on the park, meaning that this was the time of peak activity for the local deer as well as certain other wildlife. The herd was moving in the opposite direction of the area where the crime scene was supposed to be, meaning Felicity soon found herself surrounded by silence.

She approached the area that the police had taped off, all the while looking over her shoulder to ensure she was not being followed or watched.

Only when she was certain that she was all alone did she approach the tape boundary and crawl underneath to get a closer look at the scene.

She was light on her feet like only a shifter could be, and made sure she did not disturb anything.

The body had been taken away quite some time ago, but the scent of blood still clung to the moist air. This was where the victim was attacked and had died, she was certain of it. There was blood evidence all over the trees that stood guard around the unfortunate man's last resting place, which in her mind ruled out the possibility for it being a body dump.

The previous attack sites had been similar. The bodies were never moved, they were just left wherever they had fallen.

If she was still considering the possibility of a shifter hunting party gone awry, the fact that the bodies were never moved seemed to prove the opposite.

Predators tend to retreat to a safe place to consume their prey. They wouldn't be this brazen.

Felicity took position right next to the bloodstained moss where the body must have fallen and looked back to where she had just hiked in from. This part of the park wasn't at all secure. The trees were loosely planted, with large of gaps in between. And the underbrush had been cleared only last season. If Felicity had to pick a spot to tear apart freshly caught prey, this would not have been it.

Still, she couldn't very well tell the local police that. They knew too little about shifter behavior to take her concerns seriously. To them, she would just be one of the enemy, trying to dissuade them from investigating a serious threat based on speculation and vague theories.

No, she would have to find out the truth on her own.

It was almost dark now, though that didn’t bother her too much. She was able to see just fine in this light.

As much as it repelled her, she got down onto her haunches and carefully inspected the blood-soaked ground. Moss, pine needles, and fallen leaves from the earlier shedding deciduous trees in the park probably made this a challenging environment for the police forensics to do their work. At least that was what Felicity assumed.

Her eyes were able to focus on every detail, even the smallest particles mixed in with the loose soil, if only she could stand the stench of blood long enough.

In the end, something did catch her eye. A glimmer of something shiny stood out against all the dull organic matter. It was a tiny metal fragment.

She carefully picked it up and held it up to her nose. Blood.

Could this be a piece of whatever weapon had caused all this damage?

Felicity retrieved a resealable bag from her pocket and dropped the splinter into it, sealing it tightly before stuffing it into her jacket pocket. She got up again and couldn't help but shake her head at the whole scenario. If someone had told her a couple of months ago that she would find herself in the woods, investigating a crime scene and securing evidence in spare sandwich bags from her kitchen, she probably would have laughed.

And yet here she was.

Her moment of contemplation did not last. She was startled by footsteps and voices approaching from the east; a group of people—humans, judging from the heaviness of their footsteps—was heading toward her.

She quickly checked the area to ensure she hadn’t left anything behind and crouched underneath the boundary tape again. Then she broke into a jog heading in the opposite direction: west.

The humans were far away enough that they shouldn’t have heard her, and still, she thought she heard rustling behind her. Someone was following her!

That was when her instincts took over; within a split second, she transformed and broke into a sprint, heading as far away from the crime scene as she possibly could.

She couldn't be sure exactly who was after her; the headwind meant that she couldn’t catch her chaser's scent. Still, someone that fast had to be super-human. Perhaps it was just one of the refugees who had wandered into the woods for an evening stroll. Perhaps it was nothing.

Or perhaps, it was the murderer…

Felicity's instincts did not allow her to take any chances. Even if it was nothing, she still did not wish to be discovered tampering with evidence of a crime. That would only raise questions.

And so she did not look back, just went hell for leather straight across the park until she could no longer hear anyone behind her. The strange presence that had followed her must have given up. Perhaps he wasn't fast or motivated enough to maintain that kind of pace. Either way, she was finally alone again.

She was safe.

Rather than double back and risk running into this person again, she took the long way home.

Although she had left the latest murder scene with more questions rather than answers, something felt different now. There was someone else out there whose motivations she could not yet understand.

Combine that with the growing protests of the local human population to close the camp and deport all its residents… and the pressure was on. One way or another, Felicity had to figure out who really was behind all these attacks before something even worse happened.