“I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Throw it!” Willa shouted. “You have to throw it!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tossed the magic stone at the vision, and I heard my mother scream before the forest collapsed inward.
“Come with me, quickly.” Willa’s voice brought me back, and she pushed me forward. I nearly tripped over my feet as I scrambled toward the fading purple beacon in the distance.
“You’re hurting me. Please look at me.”
I started to turn, but Willa pushed me again.
“Don’t look back,” she shouted while more of the forest collapsed inward, hounding our steps like a crumbing bridge. As the light grew brighter, I flew into nothing. Time froze, and I floated through a formless, silent void.
Everything returned to normal when I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the wind out of me.
“Aw shit,” Roscoe said, pulling me to my feet with his massive hands. “Are you okay?”
After catching my breath, I nodded. “Where’s Willa?”
“Right here,” she said from behind without even a hint of breathlessness. “That was impressive control.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way you resisted their calls. Not many can do that, especially on the full moon.”
“They almost got me,” I said, my breathing returning to normal. “They’re in my head.”
“Not anymore.” Willa tapped against something invisible at first, but it rippled with violet light similar to a rock falling into a pond.
“Cody?” Adam said, touching his face with his hands, almost shocked that he was a werewolf now.
“We’re okay,” I said, turning to Austin, who hadn’t returned to normal. “I’m letting you go. We’re not doing this to you anymore.”
He didn’t respond.
“Come on, Austin. Snap out of it.”
A little bit of life returned to his face, and his ears fell to the sides of his head. His irises remained baby blue as tears soaked his fur.
“Austin?”
He remained silent, but he stared at Adam like a terrified dog backed into a cage.
“What’s wrong with him?” Adam asked. He tried to reach for Austin’s hand, but the werewolf cowered away.
“Do you remember what happened?” I asked, noticing the dog tags now around Adam’s neck. “Why do you have those?”
“That’s what she told me to do.” Adam looked down at his chest. “She said that when I turned, I could do what you did if I put them around my neck while I was on top of him. That was when everything got fuzzy.”
“What are they, exactly?” Willa asked. “They must hold a lot of significance if the coven could use them for control.”
“They belonged to his pack he lost in the military,” I said, watching as Adam’s expression turned to horror.
He quickly unlatched the chain and fastened it around non-responsive Austin’s neck.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “He never told me that. He just said they made him look tough.”
“This sets us back considerably,” Willa said. “You did something you shouldn’t have, Adam. This ability would never come naturally to you.”
