"Look at the bite impressions," Gavin says. He taps one of the photos. A close-up of the throat wound — clinical, measured, a ruler alongside the marks for scale. "Three forensic teams analyzed these. None of them could identify the species."
"I know. I read the —"
"You read summaries. You read redacted reports filtered through your legal representation. These are the originals." He taps again. "The bite radius is fourteen centimeters. The canine depth is three point two centimeters. That's not a dog. Not a coyote. Not a domestic animal of any kind."
"They said wolf. The initial report said —"
"The initial report suggested wolf based on canine spacing. The follow-up rejected it. Wolf bite radius maxes out at approximately twelve centimeters for the largest recorded specimens. This exceeds that by a significant margin."
He pulls another photo. Torso. Four parallel lacerations across the chest, deep enough to expose muscle. Measurement markers along each one.
"Claw spacing — six point eight centimeters apart. Wolf averages four to five. The depth is nearly double what a natural wolf can produce." He looks at me. "Whatever did this wasn't a typical wolf. And it wasn't human. It falls somewhere in between, and there isn't a forensic database in the country that has a category for it."
The room is too bright. I can feel my pulse in my temples and my hands are gripping the arms of the chair.
"There's one more thing." He pulls a page from the file. Not a photo — a lab report. Dense with text, columns of data, highlighted sections. "Blood analysis from the scene. Three samples were collected and typed. Two matched Curtis James. The third was unidentified."
"Unidentified."
"It didn't match you. Your blood was drawn at intake the night you were found. Full panel. The third sample from the scene doesn't match your blood type, your DNA profile, or any profile in the national database."
I stare at him.
"There was a third blood sample," I say slowly. "At the scene. And it wasn't mine."
"Correct."
"So someone else — something else — was in that basement."
"That's one interpretation."
"What's the other interpretation?"
Gavin closes the file. Folds his hands on top of it.
"The other interpretation is that the blood was yours — but not the version of you that was on record. Your intake blood draw was performed while you were unconscious, approximately two hours after the incident. If your physiology was in a state of transition at the time of the event, and had reverted by the time the blood was drawn, the samples wouldn't match."
Transition. Lumi's word. Dropped into Gavin's mouth like a key turning in a lock.
"You think I was — different. During those four hours. Physically different."
"I think nothing about that night makes sense under the assumption that you're a baseline human." He stands. Picks up the file. "The bite pattern is too large for a wolf but consistent with a shifted canid. The claw spacing matches an above-average shifter in partial or full shift. The unmatched blood is anomalous unless the source was undergoing a physiological change. And you — a fourteen-year-old girl with no combat training, no weapon, and no history of predatory behavior — were the only living person at the scene."
He says it all clinically. No accusation. No comfort. Just the facts arranged in an order that points somewhere I've spent four years refusing to look.
"An interim review has been requested," he says. "The Panel will convene within the next two weeks rather than the originally scheduled six. The yard incident with Leo accelerated the timeline. They'll want to see your full evaluation file, your blood work, and the updated scent reactivity data."
Two weeks. Not six. The clock just cut in half.
"I'm also recommending that the Panel reopen the forensic analysis of the James incident using shifter-specific diagnostic criteria. The original investigation was conducted under human forensic protocols because no one flagged you as a possibleshifter at the time. If they had —" He pauses. Chooses his next words. "The evidence may read differently through the correct lens."
"The correct lens being that I'm not human."
"The correct lens being that you may not have been fully human on the night in question."
He holds the file out. Not giving it to me — showing me the cover. The red tag. Death on record — unresolved.
"Unresolved," he says. "Not closed. Not convicted. Unresolved. Do you understand the difference?"
