Chapter 2: The New Haunt

The rest of my day went by normally, and I’m again super grateful that the public library is on my way home from work.

However, acidic guilt still churns in my gut from earlier. I can’t shake the encounter of walking past a man wearing a purple, yellow, and green striped T-shirt and mardi gras beads, holding a ripped ‘Lycans Matter’ sign.

He went to the Lycan Rights march, and he wasn’t even a Lycan.

I don’t know how people find the courage to go to those things. Maybe I’m just too hung up on what happened to my dad, but I can’t even bring myself to follow any of the LycanPride accounts because I don't feel proud that I am one.

I just feel scared.

From the Shiftok video I watched, everyone was just walking, holding signs, and wearing purple, green, and yellow mardi-gras beads around their necks. Then the video shook and people screamed. Red-wearing LyCan’ts had ambushed the protestors.

Even though the video was blurry, I saw a bearded man’s eyes glow emerald green, a sign the LyCant’s had almost provoked him into shifting. However, he remained in control and I’m relieved.

My phone vibrating on the plastic-covered hardback mystery romance novel I checked out from the library pulls me out of it. I just can’t wait to get home, curl up into my spot on my worn-out sofa, crack open a beer and just pretend I don’t have to do all of this again tomorrow.

My car squeaks to a stop at the red light in front of my apartment. The speakers are pumping Hayley Kiyoko’s ‘Girls Like Girls’ when a purple, green, and yellow neon sign flickers on down the road.

My pulse quickens in curiosity, and before I know it, I turn on my turn indicator.

The lit sign read ‘Lycantina’ in green cursive with a purple crescent moon above it and a yellow pool cue running through it. I can’t believe that someone had the balls to open a Lycan bar in Centerburg of all cities.

The light turns green, and I breeze through the intersection and park next to a motorcycle in the small lot. I let my blue Mazda idle and flip down my car’s visor to check my reflection. For once my blue eyes don’t look bloodshot from staring at monitors all day.

“Okay, if it’s scary, I can just leave,” I give myself a pep talk, turn off the ignition, and get out of my car.

My mother would say this was totally normal, but my father would tell me I’m being stupid.

‘Don’t let anyone know your secret. Nothing good comes out of being special. Stay under the radar and stay alert.’ My dad says whenever he’s had more than one whiskey soda.

I pause at the door, my hand trembles on the black painted door handle. I can’t hear anyone inside. I sniff, and the lack of the smell of sweat, liquor, beer, and food tells me it’s not crowded.

If that human could go to the Lycan Rights march, I can do this.

I grab the handle again and push.

A bell alarm jingles, one too quiet for a human to hear, as I enter what just may be the coziest dive bar I’ve been to. The lights are dim, and the exposed brick walls decorated with street art pull my mouth into a small smile. My pulse slows as I see the solid, worn wood bar in front of bottom-lit liquor bottles that sparkle in all different hues of reds, browns, ambers, and even blues.

It’s not the wide selection of liquor that relaxes me though, it’s the buff, tan-skinned, dark-haired man with his back to me.

My nose tingles. He smells like amber, welcoming and warm.

He’s a Lycan.

“Hey, welcome to LyCantina! It’s our soft opening, and the audio system isn’t rea—” he says with his back to me, then turns around, his eyes behind his glasses widening.

“–You’re a Lycan too!” he exclaims.

He looks sort of familiar, but I swear I’ve never met him before.

“Uh, yeah.”

Any sort of witty response dies in my mouth because I can’t remember the last time I met a Lycan who was around my age in Centerburg. Growing up, I didn’t have any Lycan friends, and no one knew I was one, especially not Donovan.

A part of me is excited to talk to him, but another part of me still thinks this place is too visible. What if someone from work sees me, or my car?

“Hey, I’m Ramon, sorry if I was rude. I moved here a few months ago, and I didn’t expect the whole, ‘if you build it, they will come’ thing would work.” Ramon apologizes with his hands up.

He looks earnest and kind with a lot of tattoos across his bulky forearms.

“No, you’re fine. I’m just… not out? I don’t know. I’m not very good at…I need a cheap drink,” I stammer, but commit.

“Now those, I can do. What can I get you…?” Ramon pauses and I realize he’s waiting for my name.

“I’m Mackenzie, Mack for short, and I’ll just have a vodka cran.” I swallow my doubts and sit in a dark green high-top bar chair.

I love bars where the stools have a back rest, and this place even has purse hooks! I put my book and my phone on the bar.

Okay, I’m sold.

“Comin’ up, Mack.” Ramon grins through his beard.

The big muscles and beards aren’t really my thing, but he manages to pull it off without looking too intimidating. Ramon takes out a bottle of vodka that definitely isn’t cheap. I must’ve made a face because he puts out a finger.

“Don’t worry, I’ll use the good stuff and charge you for the cheap swill.” Ramon smiles and mixes the drink.

“Oh, thanks, Ramon.” I unlock my phone and see some notifications from Hannah.

[ Hannah Bestie <3

| 4:10pm

| My guild needs a dps. Bjarken the Brash took us out.

| Join ussss.

Rolling my eyes, I keep reading.

| 7:43pm

| Heyyyy, still at work?

[To Hannah Bestie <3

| 7:49pm

| Sorry bout ur game but nt playing!

| Left work…

| I’m at a new Lycan bar on my street.

| It’s nice, Lycan bartender!

“You just made the same face my cousin does when I post a bad meme,” Ramon says.

“It’s just my friend. She loves that new game ‘Sparkleaf Station’ and keeps trying to make me join her cult,” I snort, and Ramon busts out laughing.

“She’s a Sparkie too? I’m sorry you lost your friend to the cult, but she’s in good hands.” The bearded bartender smirks and pushes my drink and receipt to me.

I take a sip of the liquid, and I’m happy that the snap of vodka isn’t too strong.

“I give up, does anyone else on Earth not play that game, or am I literally alone?” I groan.

When I say the word ‘alone’, I try to ignore the dull pang in my chest.

“My—” The tattooed bartender is cut off by his phone dinging.

I motion for him to check it and watch as his dark brown eyes light up like sparklers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re human, Shifter, or Lycan, everyone has the same giddy, wondrous look when they get a text from someone they’ve fallen for.

“Someone got a text,” I tease.

Ramon’s cheeks darken.

“Guilty. I got no poker face,” Ramon chuckles and puts down his phone. “I just started getting serious with someone here, and I really like her. She’s even cool with me being a Lycan. She wants to do something fun this weekend, but I got nothing.”

“What’s she like?” I ask.

“She’s fun. Pretty. Doesn't play Sparkleaf, so you have one other person who hasn’t drunk the kool-aid. Um, she says she likes the outdoors but isn’t ‘outdoorsy’,” Ramon rattles off.

I stifle a laugh because that’s such a ‘guy’ response.

“Hmmm, why not take her on a picnic? Parks here are great,” I suggest, taking another sip of my drink.

“Epic idea. I can make sandwiches with that fancy bread from the bakery…and bring some beers! Hell yeah! Thanks, Mack,” he smiles, and that’s when I see a bruise on his jaw through his thick dark beard.

He’s the Lycan from the Shiftok video!

“You were at the Lycan Rights parade, the Shiftok video.” The words tumble out of my big mouth.

“It went viral? Greeaat,” Ramon responds with sarcasm and tense muscles.

“I’m afraid so. It makes the LyCan’ts look way worse though,” I say.

The bar falls into silence.

“I don’t think my pulse has ever raced that hard, not even when I shift. When the LyCant’s showed up, I knew that it would get ugly, but I had no idea it’d go that far. But for me, it’s important. We all got our own thing we stand up for, you know?”

“Yeah.” I take a long sip of my drink.

Yet, I don’t agree because most days I’m just fighting for the motivation to get out of bed. There’s a bit of an awkward pause, but then he changes subjects.

“Whatcha reading?”

“It’s called ‘Rain Clouds in May’. I’m a sucker for books that can put me in the shoes of a woman who has the agency to change her life, help people, find love, and save the day.” I turn the book around to face Ramon.

“The only book I’ve read in years is the service manual for my motorcycle,” Ramon admits.

So that’s his motorcycle out front!

“You should definitely take her on a ride on your motorcycle too,” I point, taking another sip.

“Oh, already did. It’s how I got my second date!” The tattooed bartender grins and I laugh.

The front door opens, and my heart skips a beat. I’ve forgotten this is a bar and that other people can just walk in. I can tell that they’re two Shifters by the pheromones they give off.

Lycans give off a level of pheromones so light that Wolf Shifters can’t smell it. It’s perhaps the one advantage that Lycans have over Wolf Shifters, that we can sense them, but we just seem like humans to them.

“Awesome, I love dive bars! Oh, Claire, babe, do you wanna shoot pool later?” A female shifter asks another female shifter behind her. They’re holding hands as they beeline to the bar. Green, purple, and yellow beads bounce around their necks.

“Yeah!” The second one with glasses says.

They remind me that not all shifters are like Paul or D’Angelo.

“Welcome to Lycantina, what can I get you both?” Ramon greets and my phone goes off.

[ Hannah Bestie <3

| 8:28pm

| Really? Take me nxt time!

| Wed?

[To Hannah Bestie <3

| 8:29pm

| Yeah, probs can.|

| :)|

I put my phone away and pull out my wallet and take out some cash, looking at the receipt. My drink isn’t finished, but I’ve hit my limit of social interaction.

“Hey, I gotta go! This place is cool, and so are you, Ramon.” I say his name to really learn it and slip the cash into the tip cup.

“If you think I’m cool, you come back when my cousin, Angie, is working,” Ramon says as he hands two pints of beer to the smiling Shifter couple. “Get home safe!”

Another female Lycan here in Centerburg? Maybe I can make a friend.

My thoughts go back to Roxy as I drive home, thinking about her voice and how she said I was cool and asked how I was. I wonder what she teaches.

As I enter my apartment lobby, I nearly trip over a package. The package is from a high-tech security equipment company, and on the typed label read ‘Roxy Santos’.

I wonder what that’s all for.