Chapter 2

“What are you trying to get me to sign, Wendy?”

My grip on the phone tightened instantly, the elder’s words — “must be signed within six days” — still reverberating in my ears.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, shoving the phone into my clothes. “Just a follow-up confirmation from the doctor.”

“You’re lying.”

Miranda’s voice slithered through my mind like ice over a frozen lake, sharp and merciless.

“You really think you can hide it from him? What does he even see you as? Less than a dog.”

He suddenly seized my wrist, the pressure nearly enough to shatter bone.

“Unlock it.”

“The password’s my birthday.”

He typed in 0617. The screen stayed black.

On the second attempt, a vein on his temple began to pulse.

“You told me your birthday was June 17!”

Miranda cackled. “Five years of marriage and the only date he remembers belongs to a dog.”

“That’s the birthday of the Pomeranian you gave Penny.”

“Five years of marriage, and you remember a dog’s birth, not mine.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Wendy, I...”

“Enough!” I wrenched my arm from his grasp, my nails raking a red line across his wrist.

“You remember the day she fled her wedding vow for word, but last year, when I was burning with fever ironing your moon-crest embroidered suit, you took Penny out to her favorite restaurant.”

“Enough!” Alpha John snapped coldly. Behind him, his wolf shadow flared, baring its fangs.

“Penny already swore before the Moon Goddess. It’s you who refuses to move on.”

I didn’t respond. I walked past him and headed upstairs.

Just as I reached the top, Penny’s saccharine voice chased after me.

“John, look at the gift I picked for Wendy…”

She swung the shopping bag into my room.

She saw me in the room, holding my late brother Ronald’s backpack, grieving in silence.

“You’re still keeping Ronald’s stuff? So morbid. Dead people’s things bring bad luck.”

My hand froze on the drawer handle.

Inside lay Ronald’s heart transplant consent form — the signature line still blank.

“Don’t touch that.”

“I’ll be gone soon,” I said softly. “Then you’ll finally have everything you’ve always wanted.”

“Oh no,” she stepped closer, her voice venomous, “I haven’t taken everything yet.”

Then, she screamed and fell to the ground, red marks “appearing” on her wrist.

“Wendy, I just wanted to look at your dad’s ring…”

The ring wasn’t worth much — but it was the last thing I had of him.

The only thing that hadn’t yet been stolen.

She held up her bare hand, nails secretly digging into her flesh.

“Why did you hit me?”

Alpha John stormed in as Penny pointed at me, trembling.

“She said… said she hated me for stealing Ronald’s heart!”

“You’re insane!” He gripped my jaw, his fingers biting into my skin.

“Ronald died of heart failure!”

I stared at Penny’s hidden hand.

On her middle finger was Ronald’s graduation ring — the one I had left by his urn.

“One week ago,” my voice turned eerily calm.

“The hospital found a matching heart. The day before surgery, we were told the donor backed out.”

Penny’s smile faltered for a second before she burst into tears.

“John, she’s lying again…”

Miranda observed coldly: “Her left eyelid twitched twice — classic sign of a lie.”

Then, “accidentally,” Penny knocked over the urn on the nightstand.

Ronald’s ashes spilled across the floor, mixing with his beloved dried sunflowers.

“She couldn’t even spare the dead,” Miranda whispered. “And you still want to forgive her? She’s the real stray dog here.”

Miranda’s ethereal claws sliced the air, forming a shimmering ward.

“She deliberately struck the moonstone seal with her elbow. That dust she scattered with the sunflower petals — that’s silver poison powder. It’ll keep a wolf’s soul from ever reincarnating.”

“You spilled his ashes!” I lunged forward —

—but Alpha John’s slap landed first. The edge of his ring tore my lip.

Then came my mother’s wolfbone staff, slamming into my back.

“Throwing a fit over some ashes? You’re just like your wretched father — pathetic!”

“You finally understand,” Miranda’s voice was gentle, too gentle.

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding. They’ve been killing your brother together — from the very beginning.”

Penny crouched beside the ashes, dabbing a bit on her fingertip and smearing it at the corner of her eye.

“Wendy, I’m sorry… The truth is, John begged the doctor to give the heart to me. He said he couldn’t live without me.”

She leaned into my ear.

“Did you know? The night before Ronald’s surgery, I unplugged his monitor.”

I stared at the faint needle scar on her ring finger — the one she gave herself while faking heart failure.

Alpha John was cradling her now, checking her “wounds.”

My mother delicately wiped the ashes from Penny’s shoes.

No one saw the blood trailing down my palm as I picked up the shards of Ronald’s urn.

I closed my eyes.

Six more days.

And I’ll be free — forever.