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"Well," Corey said as we tramped down the front steps "It's not the first time we've had to leave a library But it is the first time I wasn't responsible"

"I was having a vision," I said "I can't control those"

"Uh, no, Maya Unless you snore during your visions, you were asleep"

"I don't snore" I looked at Daniel "Tell him I don't snore"

Daniel feigned great interest in the fountain Corey didn't ask how Daniel would know if I snored Daniel and I had been best friends since kindergarten Though our parents had decided sleepovers required separate roo side-by-side as we trekked through the wilds of Vancouver Island Not a voluntary hiking trip, either A helicopter crash had stranded us with Corey and three other friends That helicopter had been supposedly rescuing us from a forest fire that threatened our town, but it'd actually been kidnapping us Now, less than a week later, ere in the city of Vancouver, only the three of us left, the others captured by the people ere still fleeing

"You were exhausted," Daniel finally said "Corey and I slept on the ferry You didn't I would have let you keep sleepingbut the snoring was getting kinda loud"

I ailook

"Holy hell," Corey said "It's a sad day when I' to take the reins of leadership and suggest food It's nearly eight Maya, use that cat nose and lead us to dinner"

Yes, my dream hadn't been pure fantasy I was a shape-shifter I'd discovered ly, it marked the point where life went to hell--for all of us

I wasn't the only supernatural kid in our tiny town In fact, Salmon Creek seemed to have been built as a petri dish to resurrect extinct supernatural types Project Phoenix I was a skin-walker, like Rafe and Annie, a brother and sister who'd co for answers Daniel was a benandanti--a demon-hunter As for Corey, ere pretty sure he had powers, too, but we didn't knohat they were yet

And as for the people chasing us, it o groups, actually The St Clouds--who'd founded our town and Project Phoenix--and the Nasts, a rival supernatural corporation that thought we seemed like valuable coroups, and ere on the run, trying to find so else back, too: our parents They'd been told we'd died in that helicopter crash I'd been trying very hard not to think about that, what they were going through I just kept telling myself it would all be fixed soon It had to be

We ate dinner in a chain restaurant It wasn't one we knew, and we'd stood inside the door for fivelike country rew up in a town of two hundred people Put us in a metropolis of two million, and it didn'tthe same labels as every other kid--we still felt like hicks

"This is e need, guys," Daniel said after we ordered "A huge city where we can just blend in and lie low for a few days"

"I know," Corey said "But I feel" He looked around at the other tables and scowled "It's the St Clouds' fault All those years of stranger-danger classes, teaching us that no one outside Salmon Creek can be trusted They did that on purpose"

"I know," I murmured