"Get — away —" He can't finish. His jaw stretches. His spine bows. He drops to his knees, his bones reorganizing under his skin, the moment his body stops being his.
The sound. Worse up close. Fur pushes through the skin of his forearm — the one holding me — and his fingers elongate.
I did this.
Fully formed. Not a question. Not a maybe. Torres in the common room. Leo right now. My presence. My proximity. My scent, my touch, whatever this is.
I did this to him.
On the other side of the chain link — right there, right there, close enough to touch if not for razor wire and ten feet of air — RJ is slamming into the fence. Not pacing. Slamming. His body hitting chain link with force that should break bone, bouncing off, hitting again. The fence shudders with each impact. Razor wire sways. And the sound from his throat — all animal, all aimed at getting through the metal to get to me.
Leo's shift completes. The wolf — smaller than Torres's, darker fur — scrambles up. Staggers. Turns in a circle like he doesn't know what his body is. Then bolts. Across the yard.
The other Red House guys have scattered. Pressed against buildings. Whatever energy just ripped through me and Leo and RJ, the whole yard felt it.
"Jesus Christ."
Stone. Back from the fight. Standing at the edge of the chaos with a look I haven't seen from any staff here. They've all been controlled. Clinical. Even Sven's fear was managed.
Stone looks horrified.
His eyes go from Leo — running, stumbling, crashing into the building wall, yelping — to me — to RJ throwing himself into the chain link. Comprehension.
Radio off his belt. "I need containment in the north yard. Now. Resident shift in progress, first-time, running loose. And get someone on the inner run — RJ is in a state."
Crackle. Voices. A door bangs open.
Stone speaks to me. Fast.
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
He looks at my wrists and something in his face closes. The warmth from the walk, the patience, the quiet humanity. Gone. Replaced by a man whose job just got exponentially harder.
"This goes in your evaluation file," he says. Quiet. "All of it."
"I didn't do anything."
"I know." He stands. Watches Leo being corralled by two staff members with a blanket and a catch pole. The wolf is cowering against a wall. Shaking. "That's the problem."
More staff. Someone handles RJ — not by going into the run but by deploying something at the gate panel, and three guys with equipment I don't recognize enter the run and RJ backs up, snarling, but stops hitting the fence. Someone escorts me inside.
My room. Bolt.
I sit on the bed. Both hands in front of me.
Left wrist: the skin looks the same. But I didn't imagine it. The mark that flickered when the circuit completed. Brief, faint, impossible. But real.
Something is in me.
Something that connects to RJ. Something that connected to Leo and made his body rip itself apart. Something that rippled outward.
I triggered his shift. First time.
Lumi said transition. She said the body always knows first.
She didn't say it would do this.
