I try to push past her, but the floor sways. “Just a migraine,” I manage. “I think I’ve been in the darkroom too long again.”
She hesitates. “Do you want me to get Red?”
“No. Please. I’ll be fine. I just need to lie down.”
She nods slowly but is clearly unconvinced. I keep walking before she can say anything else.
It feels wrong to go into Rowen’s room without him, so I turn into my room and shut the door, sitting on the edge of the bed. My body trembles, and cold sweat trickles down my back. My shoulder throbs where the mark is—steady, rhythmic. Almost like a second heartbeat.
I dare not touch it. I don’t want to feel the burn.
It’s only hurting because I’m thinking about Rip. That’s all this is. His voice. The memory.
Pressing my palms over my ears, I reach for silence. But to my horror, the whisper is still there. Not words anymore. But a sound, a steady back and forth. Like breathing.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Stop,” I murmur. “Please stop!”
It doesn’t stop.
This can’t be happening. It can’t. “Make it stop!”
I dig my elbows into my knees and rock, praying to a force I’m not sure I believe in. “Please make it stop.”
The whisper in my head doesn’t answer. But it doesn’t leave either. It lingers, patient. Waiting.
Maybe I really am losing my mind.
I curl onto my side and pull the blanket over my head. It smells so wrong, feels so empty without Rowen.
Gods.Rowen.
Where is he? My chest burns. My eyes sting. And for the first time, I understand what my mother must’ve felt—how terror can live inside you and wear your own voice.
I’m going crazy.
It’s happening.
I’m going—
Rowen can’t know about this. None of them can. If they knew it was happening—that I was turning into my mother—they’d toss me to the street for good.
I need to hide it. Shove it down and control it. Pretend I’m fine.
For how long, though?
Mom suffered for over a third of my life before eventually taking her own life. Do I really think I can outrun that? Hide it from the pack forever?
Is that going to be my fate too? Losing myself bit by bit until I jump off a bridge?
I don’t want to become her. Not now. Not when I finally have something worth staying for.
But I can feel it starting.
And there’s no way to stop it.
23
ROWEN
