“It was tragic.”
Dad's laughter rumbled through the kitchen like distant thunder, warm and genuine and absolutely devastating in its ordinariness. Because this was what we were fighting for, wasn't it? Not just the grand gestures or the dramatic declarations, but mornings like this. Coffee and French toast and the simple miracle of being known by people who chose to love you anyway.
“Promise me something,” Mom said suddenly, and there was something in her voice that made me look up from my plate. Something that sounded almost like urgency.
“Anything,” I said, because when Anna Harrington asked for promises, you gave them without question.
“Promise me you'll be careful. I know things feel safe here, feel settled, but the world is bigger and stranger than it used to be when we were younger.” She reached across the table, fingers finding mine with the kind of desperate precision that spoke of fears she couldn't name. “Promise me you'll look after yourself. And each other. You and Evan, I mean. Look after each other.”
The request felt weighted with something I couldn't identify, heavy with implications that seemed too large for a kitchen conversation about love and life choices. But Mom's eyes were serious, almost pleading, and I found myself nodding before I could think of reasons not to.
“I promise,” I said, meaning it more than I'd meant anything in a long time. “We'll look after each other.”
“Good.” She squeezed my hand once before releasing it, and the moment passed into something lighter. “Now finish your breakfast before it gets cold. I didn't slave over a hot stove just to watch you pick at perfectly good French toast.”
“You didn't slave over anything,” I pointed out, but I was already cutting into the stack she'd piled on my plate. “You made French toast. It's literally bread soaked in eggs and fried in butter.”
“Exactly.”
This was perfect. This moment, this kitchen, this family. It was everything good about coming home, and I wanted to hold onto it forever.
The forest feltdifferent that afternoon, charged with the kind of electricity that came before storms. I'd been walking for an hour, camera hanging heavy around my neck, trying to capture the way autumn light filtered through pine branches and failing to find anything worth keeping.
Maybe it was me. Maybe the restless energy that had been building under my skin since breakfast was making it impossible to see beauty in anything that didn't involve Evan's hands or the way he said my name like it was something precious.
Pathetic. I was pathetic and lovesick and probably needed to get laid more than I needed to take meaningful photographs.
But then I heard it. A snarl that didn't belong to anything that should have been living in these woods, followed by a scream that was definitely human and definitely terrified.
I was running before conscious thought caught up with instinct, camera bouncing against my chest as I crashed through underbrush toward the sound of violence.
The clearing opened before me like a scene from a nightmare. Sienna was pinned beneath something that had probably been a wolf once but now looked like hunger given form and fangs. Her clothes were torn, blood painting abstract patterns across her arms and throat, and she was fighting with the desperate fury of someone who knew they were about to die.
The rogue was massive, easily twice the size of any normal wolf. Its fur was matted with things I didn't want to identify, and its eyes held the kind of emptiness that spoke of intelligence devoured by rage.
I should have run. Should have gone for help, found actual werewolves who knew how to fight these things, done anything other than what I actually did.
Instead, I stepped into the clearing and shouted, “Hey!”
The rogue's head snapped toward me, jaws opening wide enough to showcase teeth that belonged in fossil exhibits. Sienna used the distraction to roll away, clutching her injured arm against her chest, but she wasn't moving fast enough. Wasn't going to make it to safety before the thing decided to finish what it started.
“Leave her alone,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “You want to hurt someone, hurt me. I'm right here.”
Stupid. So unbelievably stupid. But Sienna was someone Evan cared about, was pack even if I wasn't. And sometimes stupid was the only option that let you sleep at night.
The rogue took a step toward me, muscles bunching beneath filthy fur, and I found myself raising my hand like I could somehow ward off a creature that could snap my spine like kindling.
What happened next defied everything I thought I knew about physics.
Something shifted in the air around me. My hand moved without conscious thought, palm facing outward like I was trying to stop traffic instead of a creature that could bite my head off without breaking stride.
The rogue froze mid-lunge, suspended in air for a heartbeat that lasted forever. Then it was flying backward, not thrown so much as dismissed, like the forest itself had decided it didn't belong and politely but firmly escorted it out. The sickening crack of tree bark splitting echoed through the clearing as the creature hit pine and bounced, scrambling away with whimpers that sounded almost confused.
I stared at my hand. Ordinary fingers, ordinary skin, ordinary everything. No light, no visible power, no indication that anything supernatural had just happened. But the forest around me felt awake. Watching. Like I'd just knocked on a door I didn't know existed and something vast had answered.
The silence stretched too long, filled with whispers I couldn't quite hear and the sense that I'd just crossed a line I couldn't see back over.
“What the hell was that?” Sienna gasped, struggling to her feet with movements that spoke of injuries worse than what I could see.
