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I turned toward Mom. “Has anyone confirmed that the Fletchers did this?”

“No,” she said. “But the way the canisters were created, I’d say the chances are pretty high that some teenagers are behind this.”

I scanned the tree line. The council responders had established a perimeter. Pack members were grouped away from the houses. Two adults checked vehicles and property access.

Everyone had reacted correctly. Without me.

I had collapsed while the pack handled itself.

Then another question displaced it. “How did everyone get out?”

Jason and Byron exchanged a look. Mom’s gaze moved across the lawn. I followed it.

Sloane sat on the gravel with Patty beside her.

For a moment, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Sloane shouldn’t have been there.

Mom had removed her from the group chat. She had no reason to know what had happened.

Yet she sat on pack land covered in soot and pale wolfsbane dust, with a torn strip of fabric tied around one forearm. Her clothes were filthy. One knee of her leggings had ripped open, and bruises were already forming along her arms.

She looked dazed and beyond frightened. Her hands hung limply between her knees as she stared at the houses.

“She got us out,” Mom said.

I looked at her. “What?”

“Sloane heard the broadcast somehow.”

“She isn’t in the chat.”

“Apparently the emergency system still sent the alert to her inbox,” Byron said. “Removing someone from the standard group doesn’t immediately remove them from the emergency recipient list.”

I would have corrected that security flaw under any other circumstances, but nothing about the explanation mattered now.

Mom continued. “She drove here, went inside, stopped the first device, opened the windows, and began pulling people out.”

I stared at Sloane again. “How many?”

“All of them.”

The answer didn’t make sense.

Mom pointed toward the neighboring house. “She cleared most of that one too before the council team arrived.”

Little pieces returned. Not memories exactly. Sensations. Arms locked under mine. My boots dragging over a floor. Someone coughing close to my ear. Sloane speaking through strained breaths.

You can hate me when you wake up.

I had thought it was a dream. Another fragment surfaced.

I just need you to be alive when you do it.

My heart thudded painfully.

I looked down at my shirt. The collar had stretched out of shape.

Sloane.