LOGINKnox's POVShe was going to make a sound.I could see it building — the compressed shock finding the seams in her composure, looking for the exit. Her hand was still against her mouth but it was not going to be enough. The sound was coming and if it came the way it wanted to come the door was going to open and the nurse was going to be in the room before either of us could do anything about it.I moved.I closed the distance between the chair and the bed in two steps and I put my arms around her — carefully, the way you held someone who was fragile and also not fragile, someone who needed containing and also needed to feel that the containing was not a trap. I pulled her in and held on."Quiet," I said. Soft and close, near her ear. "Please. Stay quiet. I need you to stay quiet."She shook.Not crying — Ember did not cry easily and this was too large for crying. Just shaking. The specific physical response to information that was too significant for the body to process without some of
Knox's POVShe took a moment before she agreed.Not a long one — Ember was not a person who stalled when she had already made a decision. But she looked at me for a few seconds with the expression she used when she was checking the weight of something before she picked it up. Making sure she was ready for what it was going to cost her.Then she said, "Okay. Tell me."I started at the beginning.Not the very beginning — not pack history and bloodlines and the politics of the wolf world. Just the beginning that was relevant to her and to this room and to last night."I need to ask you something first," I said. "And I need your honest answer."She waited."Do you know anything about wolves?" I said. "Not the animal. Not the scientific version. The other version. The one that exists in stories and folklore and things people say are not real."Ember looked at me.Something happened in her face that was not quite surprise and not quite recognition — something between the two, the expression
Knox's POVShe looked at the blanket for a moment after she said it.Then she said, "I thought I was pregnant."I looked at her."At first," she said. "That was my first thought when the strangeness started. A few days after — after that night. The tiredness, the way certain smells were hitting differently, the feeling that something in my body had changed without my permission." She shook her head slightly. "That was the explanation I reached for because it was the most obvious one. The most human one.""And?" I said."And I took a test," she said simply. "Two of them. Both negative." She looked at her hands. "So that was not it. And I was relieved about that because the alternative would have been a very different conversation and a very different set of problems." She paused. "But the feelings did not stop. They kept coming and they kept building and they were nothing like anything I had a name for, so I filed it away and told myself it would resolve and kept going.""But it did no
Knox's POVBefore either of us could say anything else, Rebecca's phone buzzed.She looked at the screen. Then at the time. Then at the screen again with the specific expression of someone who has just remembered something that does not stop existing because other things are happening."I have a class," she said.Ember looked at her. "Go.""I cannot just—""Rebecca." Ember's voice was tired but clear. "You have been here all night. Go to class. I am stable, the doctor said so himself, and Knox is here."Rebecca looked at Knox. Then at Ember. Then at the door with the reluctance of someone being pulled in two directions and trying to be rational about which one mattered more."Claire is not picking up her phone," she said. "I have been trying her since last night. I'll find her in school and tell her what happened." She leaned down and pressed her hand against Ember's briefly. "I'll be back after the lecture. One hour.""Go," Ember said.Rebecca looked at me one more time. The look con
Knox's POVTen minutes.I counted them. Not precisely — I did not look at my phone — but I tracked them the way you tracked time when you were standing outside a closed door with no control over what was happening behind it. The corridor was quiet and the clinic sounds moved around us and Rebecca had stopped trying to get me to talk and was standing with her arms crossed looking at the same door I was looking at.Eight minutes in she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.Nine minutes in I heard the sound of movement inside the room.At ten minutes the door opened.The doctor came out.He looked at me. Then at Rebecca. His face was still in that careful neutral position — not giving anything, not suggesting anything, the face of a man who had received information and was processing it somewhere we could not see.He did not say a word.He walked past us down the corridor toward his office at the other end. His footsteps were even and unhurried and then a door opened and closed
Knox's POVI opened my mouth.She was lying and she knew I knew she was lying and in approximately thirty seconds I needed to tell her what I had told the doctor before the doctor told her himself, because the moment he walked into that room and mentioned a hereditary condition she had apparently described to me in detail, the whole thing collapsed.I needed thirty seconds."Ember," I said. "There is something I need to tell you before—"The door opened.The doctor came in.He had his clipboard and his white coat and the same careful neutral expression he had carried into the lobby two hours ago. He looked at me. He looked at Rebecca. He looked at Ember in the bed."Miss Cole," he said. "How are you feeling?""Better," Ember said. "Thank you.""Good." He moved toward the bed, positioning himself at the side of it with the practiced efficiency of someone comfortable in this space. "I need a few minutes with my patient." He looked at me and Rebecca. "If you would wait outside.""We can
Knox's POVThe corridor went quiet for about three seconds after Ember said it.Then I said, "Charlotte Mercer is your stepsister.""Yes.""Your father remarried.""Several years ago. Charlotte and her mother came with the deal."I looked at Ember. She was watching me with the specific stillness of
Ember's POVI looked at Claire. "Plan B for what?""She did not say what," Claire said. "Just that if the first plan didn't get them what they wanted, Plan B was ready.""Who was she talking to?""I don't know. A group of girls near the vending machines on the second floor. I didn't recognize them.
Ember's POVBy the next morning the story had already mutated again.Now it was Ethan attacking Knox in the dormitory corridor, Knox defending himself and Ember, school management being called in. Some versions had Ethan throwing the first punch. Some had Knox going after Ethan unprovoked. One vers
Ember's POVI knew something was wrong before I even left my room.I could hear it in the corridor. Not specific words, just the particular texture of voices that meant something had happened and people were talking about it. I had been on this campus long enough to know the difference between norm







