MasukAvaThe first thing I heard was a low, tired voice, reading words I couldn't quite catch yet. My body felt heavy under the sheets, pinning me to the bed. I could hear the steady rasp of my own breathing. My open eyes blinked dryly in the dim light.I opened my eyes wider. A small, pale room with a c
AvaDad let go of the shackle and sat back, his face relaxing from the concentration. He was quiet for a long moment. Then his eyes met mine."Baby," he said gently, "do you want to know what happened?"Something in his tone made my chest tighten. I had a feeling that this was a truth I wasn't ready
AvaHe stepped out of the blackness, edging closer, until I could finally see him. Unbelievable. He was so young, the age he was when...when he died. His warm brown eyes, both of them, looked at me with a fond smile.I stared, my mouth hanging open, unable to make a sound. My dad. Standing in front
LeviI settled into the chair by her bed and took her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the back of it. "Hey, Ava. It's Levi," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I just talked to Sofia. We had some things to say to each other."I sat there, rubbing her hand, trying to find the words Maya and
LeviI sat with my father in his room, a week after Hilda's funeral. Some families had already packed up and left the pack after becoming human. Others had stayed, unsure of where else to go.My father wheezed beside me, the hiss of his oxygen tank an ever-present sound now. He was thinner, frail, h
MayaI zipped Sofia's dress as best I could with my good hand. The collar was tricky. I fiddled clumsily with the small metal fastening. "There, perfect," I said, releasing the dress and stepping back.Sofia blinked hard at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was pulled back in a neat bun. The dr
EvelynHilda made it halfway down the hall before she stopped cold and turned. “Why is there a full platoon guarding your property, Evelyn?”Her voice wasn’t angry, just flat. She could have asked whether I was planning to throw her in the river and she would have sounded exactly the same. I’d been
I stripped off the old bandage with a force I told myself was professional, not pissed. Beneath it, Thomas’s chest looked like a science project gone bad—three parallel gouges, edges blackening, the tissue around them turning a shade of gray you only saw in frostbite or advanced necrosis.The blood
SofiaMaya woke up thirsty, but that wasn’t what anyone remembered.What everyone remembered was the first thing she did with her new lease on life, which was to say a single word—one syllable, all vowel—and then stare at the ceiling like she’d never seen one before.I hovered, as usual. I’d never l
HildaThe whole city glowed from the underbelly up—every streetlight flickering against blown-out glass, every freeway ramp slicked in orange runoff and oil.I kept the car in the rightmost lane, hazard blinking, drifting slow past a line of half-lit billboards shilling bankruptcy lawyers and strip







