"Sometimes my visions come so fast I can't tell what's real anymore," she admitted. "Past, present, future—they all blend together until I'm drowning in possibilities. Once I spent three days convinced I was living in six different timelines simultaneously."
The raw honesty in her voice penetrated the fog of memory. Sam's breathing slowed.
"How do you... handle it?" he managed, feeling his claws gradually recede.
"I find something real to hold onto. One concrete thing." She smiled faintly. "Usually it's Jinxie stepping on my face at 5 AM."
A startled laugh escaped him, breaking the last of the spell. The warehouse faded, leaving only the moonlit theater.
"Sorry," he muttered, embarrassed. "That hasn't happened in a while."
"Don't apologize for being human." She paused. "Or, you know, partly human."
As his focus returned, Sam noticed something strange—the walls around them were glowing faintly, illuminated by a soft blue light emanating from... them. The resonance of their shared vulnerability had triggered something magical.
"Sam, look." Delilah pointed to symbols now visible on the walls—intricate patterns that matched fragments they'd seen at previous theft locations. "It's like the theater is responding to us."
The metallic sound came again, but this time Sam recognized it—just the old heating system coming to life.
"You're right," he said, studying the revealed symbols with newfound clarity. "But I don't think we're the only ones it's been responding to."
Sam lowered himself into a theater seat, his body still humming with residual adrenaline. The symbols on the walls pulsed with ethereal blue light, casting strange shadows across the empty rows. Delilah settled beside him, close enough that he could detect the faint scent of lavender and something uniquely her beneath it.
"So," she said, breaking the silence. "Partial shifting during emotional distress. That's not in the standard werewolf handbook, is it?"
Sam snorted. "Right next to the chapter on proper full moon etiquette and how to stop shedding on furniture."
Her surprised laugh eased something tight in his chest.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice softer now. "If you don't mind me asking."
Sam stared at the illuminated stage. He never discussed this—not with pack members, not with Mac, not with anyone. Yet somehow, sitting in this darkened theater with symbols of ancient magic surrounding them, the words found their way out.
"Missing persons case. Three years ago. Young shifter who couldn't control his transformations." He flexed his fingers, relieved to find them normal again. "I tracked him to a warehouse where a smuggling ring was holding supernatural creatures for black market trade."
Delilah's sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the cavernous space.
"I went in confident. Too confident." His jaw tightened. "They were waiting. Had sonic weapons designed to trigger uncontrolled shifting. I lost it, went feral. My partner at the time—" He stopped, swallowed. "She got caught in the crossfire. Between me and them."
"Did she...?"
"She survived. Barely. Transferred to desk duty after that." Sam's voice hardened. "I should have maintained control."
Delilah was quiet for a long moment. "How do you do it? Keep all that locked down and not go crazy?"
A mirror of the question he'd wanted to ask her. Sam's lips quirked in a humorless smile.
"Who says I don't? I just hide it better than most."
Delilah bumped her shoulder against his. "Stealing my lines now, Wolfe?"
"Seemed like a good one."
They sat in companionable silence, watching dust motes dance in the moonlight streaming through the skylights.
"My grandmother had visions," Delilah said eventually. "She called them 'windows to elsewhere.' As I said earlier, I was five when mine started. Saw my teacher getting yellow roses from her husband and told her. What I missed in my vision was the divorces papers that accompanied the yellow roses. I mean seriously. Who gives his wife yellow roses and asks for a divorce? It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it."
Sam turned to study her profile in the dim light.
