One

The oxygen monitor drops and I lay in the ICU, helpless and hoping I don't die. 

Wolves are not supposed to die like this. I am twenty-six years old, a Luna by birth, and my body is failing piece by piece.

They call it a rare sickness. Something with a long name and no cure. Something that started weeks ago with headaches and fatigue and ended with my organs turning against me.

I am dying.

And my wolf, Maya, is pissed. 

She has been silent for days. Long enough that I started to believe she was already gone and I was just a body waiting to follow. But now she thrashes inside me, slamming against my ribs like she wants out.

Her panic hurts more than the sickness.

Fight, Eve! Fight for us! 

I keep my eyes closed because if I open them, I'll have to see Lance, my husband and pack Alpha standing by that window with his shoulders blocking out what's left of the December light, and I'll have to reconcile the man I married with the stranger I'm listening to now.

"Pull the plug."

His voice is low. The same tone he uses in pack meetings when he's already made his decision and is just waiting for everyone else to catch up. 

Dr. Crystal's response cracks through the sterile air. She's my best friend, my doctor, my sister in everything but blood. 

"What?! I can't do that.” 

There's a hitch in her voice. "We haven't exhausted every option. There's still—"

"Hope?" Lance cuts her off. "Eve is suffering. Look at her. All bones and sunken eyes."

His breath hitches like he's about to cry. "She was strong her whole life. A Luna. A fighter. I know it's what she'd want. I won't watch this anymore."

I keep my eyes shut because crying with your eyes closed is easier. The tears just slip sideways into your hair, into the pillow. No one has to see. But my heart knows. Each beat sends fresh pain radiating through my chest.

Weak, Maya whispers. Our body is so weak.

"Please, Alpha. Three days." Crystal's voice drops, turns raw. “Allow me to exhaust all my options.”

"Three days?" He laughs, an ugly sound that doesn't belong in a room where someone's dying. "You've been saying that for weeks. She's not coming back. Look at her—suffering and trapped. Keeping her alive like this is cruel.”

Crystal's footsteps rush closer. I feel her hand on my wrist, checking my pulse manually like she doesn't trust the machines anymore. Her fingers are shaking.

"We can't give up on her. I won't pull the plug on my Luna and best friend."

"Don't twist this." Lance's voice hardens, but there's something underneath it. Something that almost sounds like grief. "She's my beloved wife. I'm trying to let her go with dignity."

"Then let me help her." Crystal's practically pleading now, and I hate that he's reducing her to this. "Give me seventy-two hours. If I fail, you can make your decision. But give her a chance."

Silence stretches so long I start counting my own heartbeats. 

"Twenty-four hours."

"Lance—"

"Twenty-four." His voice drops to that Alpha command that makes the air feel heavier. "If there's no improvement by then, we must let her go."

The medication makes everything fuzzy, but I can sense Crystal's agony radiating across the room. "That's not enough time," she whispers.

"That's all I can give." He sounds broken now. Genuinely broken. "I can't watch her suffer anymore."

I hear Crystal's footsteps retreating. The door opens and closes. And then it's just Lance and me and the machines singing their discordant song.

This is when he should break. When he should come to my bedside, take my hand, beg me to fight. 

Instead, I hear drawers opening.

The sound of metal scraping against wood. He let out an impatient curse, like someone searching for their keys when they're already late.

I keep my eyes closed, but every nerve in my body goes on high alert. 

"Where the fuck are they?" Lance mutters.

My stomach drops. 

He's looking for the folder.

The one under my mattress. The one containing every deed, every account detail, every asset my parents left me. Everything that makes me valuable beyond just being a warm body in his bed.

Everything I was planning to leave him.

He's at the foot of my bed now. I can feel him there. The mattress shifts slightly as he presses against it, searching.

A part of me wants to open my eyes. To ask him what he's doing. To give him a chance to have some excuse, some explanation that doesn't turn our entire marriage into a lie.

His phone buzzes. He hesitates before answering, and when he does, his voice shifts to something warmer. 

"Hey, honey."

Honey.

He's never called me that. Five years of marriage and that word never crossed his lips for me.

"Yeah. Still here."

A woman's voice filters through the speaker. I strain to hear over the beeping machines, over my own pulse thundering in my ears.

"Is it done?"

Three words. That's all it takes for me to wince. 

Lance sighs. "Not yet. She's still alive."

"Still?" The woman sounds impatient. Petulant, even. "You said she wouldn't make it through the week."

I know that voice.

Alice.

Sweet, broken Alice with her sob story about an abusive ex-husband. Alice who I took into my home, into my pack, helped rebuild her life from nothing. Alice whose rent I paid, whose medical bills I covered, whose tears I wiped away when she woke up screaming from nightmares.

Alice, who is apparently fucking my husband.

"She's too damn stubborn," Lance says, and I swear there's admiration in his voice. "But don't worry. She's out cold. Doesn't know a thing."

"I don't like waiting, Lance." Alice's voice turns whiny. "I'm tired of hiding."

"I know, baby. I know. But we're almost there. Just stay calm, alright? Stress isn't good for the baby."

Everything stops.

Not just my heart. Everything. The air. Time. The universe itself.

Alice is pregnant with Lance's child.

While I've been dying in this bed, he's been building a new life. A new family. With the woman I saved.

A sound tears from my throat before I can stop it. Not quite a gasp. Not quite a sob. Something animal and broken that doesn't sound like it could come from a human body.

Lance freezes. "Hold on," he mutters into the phone.

I feel him turn. Feel his gaze on me.

Don't open your eyes. Don't open your eyes. Don't—

His finger jabs into my arm. Hard enough that even through the medication fog, it hurts. He's checking if I'm conscious. If I heard.

"Eve?" His voice is cautious now.

Tears slide from my closed eyes, hot tracks down my temples into my hair. I don't move.

He leans closer. I feel his breath on my face—coffee and mint, familiar and revolting.

Then he whispers, so quietly I almost don't hear it: "Just die already."

Four words.

Four words that unmake five years of marriage.

My weak hand finds the emergency call button. I press it. The beep cuts through the room like a scream.

The door flies open so fast it crashes against the wall. Crystal bursts in, wild-eyed, and the sight that greets her must look insane:

My eyes wide open, staring right at him.

Lance is standing over my ventilator, his hand hovering near the plug.