Art does not belong to me! If someone knows the artist, please let me know so that I can credit them properly!

A few early morning stragglers wander by on the sidewalk, some holding phones to their ears and others anxiously flitting their gaze to the watches on their wrists. A man in a long, tan coat nearly sprints past an alleyway, a briefcase clutched tightly in his hand and his forehead creased with worry. He doesn't notice the pair of stark green eyes peering out at him from the gloom.

Noting the empty street, a young figure emerges from her hiding spot just long enough to take a deep inhale through her nose. Her eyes seem to glow as she lifts them to the sky, taking in the soft blue of the oncoming day.

Her fluffy black tail flicks as her pointed wolf ears swivel around, every muscle absolutely rigid. A siren wails in the distance. A few birds chirp. A voice rings out from a few blocks away, saying something that sounds like, "Ella, did you get the paper?!"

She ignores all the noises, finally relaxing her shoulders as she slips back into the alley. Nothing—or no one—found her. She's safe for another day.

She spins around and races towards the dead end of the alleyway. At the very end, she bunches her legs and leaps upwards, claws emerging from her fingernails just as she latches her grip onto a loose brick. She shifts her weight, her tail flicks sideways, her eyes dart from to and fro, and she throws one arm up to the next hold and hauls her body upwards as her feet find their own resting spots. With a few more quick hops, she reaches the building edge. Thrusting her arm up and over the ledge, she grits her teeth and swings her lower half onto the rooftop, landing on the gravel with a soft thump.

She gets to her feet, brushing off the tattered shirt hanging off her pubescent body and picking loose pebbles from the heels of her hands. She looks around again, tensing her muscles in preparation. She inhales again, her sensitive nose filling with the melting pot of scents all around her.

Constant vigilance is the only way she remains hidden. Keep an eye out, remain alert, never let your guard down.

Confirming the lack of spectators, she turns and takes off across the rooftops, arms swinging rhythmically by her sides as she pushes herself to go faster. As she runs, she feels herself grow more and more filled with pounding adrenaline as a different need floods through her.

She reaches a gap between two buildings, her pace never slowing. At the very edge, she shoves off and curls her body forward, flipping head over heels before straightening out and landing shakily on the other side. A wicked smile lifts her cheeks as she continuing along her path.

A water tower looms before her and she wastes no time in leaping up and grasping the ridge running all around its base, claws still extended so as to give her maximum grip. She flicks her tail and propels herself off the tower in another direction. She keeps running, chest heaving, muscles stretching and pulling with every move. Home is near. She can smell it.

It's nights like this that make her feel like she could be a ninja, like in those movies she sees playing in the windows she passes by.

She touches down on a final rooftop, skidding to a stop and staining her tattered black runners with dust. The space is empty save for a sizeable pile of wood and old pallets stacked up in one corner. The wolf girl sets her eyes on that pile, stalking towards it as she breathes in the scent of the air. A cool wind rustles her loose brown curls.

No foreign smells reach her, settling the rapid beating of her heart minimally. She reaches towards the pile and pries a rather wide plank of wood away, revealing an open space just large enough for a teenage girl to crawl through.

She drops to her knees, crawling into the little hovel before twisting her body around and settling the plank back over the space. Once again, her haven looks like nothing more than a pile of scrap wood. The makeshift home is instantly darker now with the absence of the sliver of daytime light, but that isn't a problem for her. In fact, she can see just fine.

The mutant settles down on the thin piece of foam that acts as her mattress, grasping an old blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders before pulling off her shoes. She shuts her eyes, taking slow breaths as her body starts to return to normal after all that running.

She knows that her situation isn't perfect, but she just counts herself lucky that she can find places like this to sleep and stow her belongings (which don't amount to much at the end of the day). She has a small blue backpack that she found when she just a pup, decorated with images of aliens and starships and galaxies far far away. Next to the backpack is a flashlight and a pocketknife, both scavenged, plus a large hoodie that she snagged off a Goodwill donations truck. The flashlight doesn't even work anymore, but she hangs onto it only because she hopes that one day she'll come across some batteries.

The backpack itself has a few items inside; a tiny plastic hairbrush, a keychain with a blue police box on it, loose change that she's picked up off the sidewalks over the years, and a really tattered copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The inside front cover has the name "Sharon Winchester" penned in lovely cursive.

She exhales heavily as her eyes flicker open, laying down on her foam bed and curling up in a ball, situating her hoodie beneath her head like a pillow. Her tail shifts and surrounds her legs, offering a little more warmth. She swallows and licks her lips, trying to make her mind go blank as she listens to the outside world begin to wake up.

"It's okay, Destiny," she whispers to herself. "You're safe. Just try to get some sleep."

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Destiny wakes when night falls again, as if her body is set with a silent alarm clock. She yawns and stretches out her stiff limbs, reaching one hand up to her neck and trying to massage a knot from it. She winces at the little shocks that traverse her shoulders at the massaging.

Her stomach growls, instantly making her lick her lips, her pointed fangs glinting as her mouth twists. Her thoughts travel to dinner as she wraps her arms around her stomach. There's only a few pickings for a mutant in her circumstances, but she manages.

She removes the plank over the door and crawls out of her shelter, checking for anyone nearby with a quick scent scan. Other than the normal scents of the street, nothing reaches her. With that in mind, she heads off in search of some kind of food.

The rooftops are silent as ever as she goes, the wind whipping her hair into a wild mess. She skids to a stop right before a gap too far for her to jump, her ears swivelling around and acting as a solar dish for nearby sounds. She clenches her hands a few times, releasing her stiff fingers gently as she bounces on the soles of her feet.

A delicious scent wafts by, making her pupils dilate as her mouth starts to water. She looks out at the nearly empty street where sure enough, the pizza delivery boy is driving along on his little red scooter. He hums along to the beat playing in his earbuds, completely unaware of the hungry wolf lurking above him. The pizzas in the back of his vehicle seem to call out to Destiny, only making her lust for it grow.

She slinks back and drops down the building's side into the nearest alleyway, utilizing the fire escapes to her advantage. Peering out of her spot, watching the scooter get closer and closer, she drags her tongue along her teeth and crouches low. Her claws extend and she bares her pointed fangs, readying for the hunt.

It's the wolf in her. She imagines the scooter and the pizza as an elk or some other creature that a wolf would hunt. That thrill makes her feel powerful and free, wild and untamed, and gives her the push she needs to chase down a moving automobile.

The scooter zooms past and she leaps out of the shadows and races after it at full speed, her feet hitting the asphalt almost soundlessly. The boy still doesn't notice the oncoming mutant as she pushes herself harder, almost running alongside the vehicle as she prepares herself for the stunt she's about to pull. She's done it before, but she's never gotten out of it without a few scrapes.

She lunges, twisting her body into a sideways flip. She sails over the back of the scooter and scoops two of the four pizza boxes out of the basket nimbly, her claws sinking into the cardboard to ensure that they stay in her grip.

She jolts to a complete stop as she lands back on her feet, shockwaves shooting up her legs from her ankles, but she doesn't acknowledge the pain. A burst of pride swells in her chest as the scooter zips away, her lungs burning with adrenaline and her breaths coming in quick puffs.

She glances down at the food in her hands, then looks around for anyone who may be watching her. The streets are silent, the street lamps casting little pools of yellow light onto the cool asphalt and the nearly starless sky void of birds.

She takes a long whiff of the air, smelling the usual scents of Manhattan at night. Nothing seems out of the ordinary at first glance, but that changes as soon she catches a glimpse of shadows on a lone building; four shapes watching her with eight of pure white eyes.

A growl rises in her throat as her tail fur prickles as she lifts her head and tries to catch their scent, but the wind doesn't carry it to her. Of course they're downwind, just her luck.

With nothing else she can do with the situation, she spins around and runs, breaths still fast and nerves still on edge. It isn't long before she gets back to her shelter, where she makes quick work of climbing in and covering the door up.

Her breaths come out hollow and shaky as she slips back onto her foam bed, hands shaking. Hopefully, those strange people haven't followed her. She doesn't need anyone finding her, because they'll judge, criticize, and remind her of everything that she wants to forget about what she is.