CHAPTER 1 — The Night She Breaks the World

Ivy had fallen asleep with her hair still damp from her bath, cheeks flushed from too much birthday frosting, a paper crown slipping off her head every time she shifted. Maya fixed it once before tucking her in, though she knew it wouldn't last. The crown slid again immediately, and Ivy giggled, half-asleep, asking for "one more story" before her eyes closed.

Seven years old.

Maya wasn't sure how that happened so quickly.

She smoothed the blankets over her daughter, studied the soft slope of her lashes, and let herself breathe for the first time all day. Ivy always looked smaller when she slept—delicate in a way that made Maya feel the familiar pull of protectiveness in her chest.

She left the room quietly.

The hallway mirror caught her reflection as she passed. She almost didn't recognize herself the way the light thinned her features. Pale skin, dark hair slipping loose again, the soft doe-like eyes that made people assume she was gentler than she felt. There were lines around her mouth she didn't remember forming. She touched them without thinking, then dropped her hand and went back to her room.

She had barely settled into bed when the scream tore through the apartment.

Not loud at first—thin, frightened, like Ivy was trying to swallow it—but it sharpened on the second breath. Maya was already running.

"Ivy?"

Her voice sounded strange in the flickering hallway light.

She reached the bedroom just as the air shifted. A coldness swept across her arms, the kind that raised goosebumps instantly. Ivy writhed beneath the blankets, her face tight with fear, her hands curled into small fists as if holding onto something she didn't want to see.

Maya crossed the room in two steps and dropped to her knees.

"Ivy, hey—wake up. It's just Mom."

But Ivy didn't wake. Her body jerked instead, sharp and uncontrolled, her back arching. The dresser lamp flickered once, then steadied, then flickered again as though something pressed against the wiring.

"Ivy," Maya whispered, panic thickening her throat. "Come back to me."

Ivy's eyes snapped open. For a moment, Maya forgot how to breathe.The brown she knew so well was gone, swallowed by a strange amber glow that pulsed faintly, like heat rising from a flame. Ivy's gaze didn't feel like a child's for that heartbeat. It felt older. A knowing Maya didn't understand lingered there.

Then Ivy's body seized.Her limbs stiffened. Her head fell back. A low moan escaped her, caught between her teeth. Maya wrapped her arms around her daughter's small frame, pulling her close, trying to steady the shaking.

"Baby, look at me," Maya whispered, though Ivy's eyes had rolled back.

The temperature plummeted. Maya's breath turned visible. The lamp flickered harder. The overhead bulb buzzed, strained, like it couldn't decide whether to stay alive.

Then Ivy's voice broke through the trembling.

"He saw me." The words were small, a thread of sound barely woven into the air.

Before Maya could ask, the lights burst. A single sharp pop cracked above them. Glass scattered across the floor. The dresser lamp went next—shattering loud enough to make Maya flinch. Then the hallway lights. Every bulb in the apartment surrendered in a cascading series of pops that left the air thick with the faint smell of burnt filament.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Ivy went limp in Maya's arms.

For a moment, the only sound was Maya's breathing, uneven and unsteady.

She gathered Ivy with both arms, wrapped the blanket around her daughter's trembling body, and moved toward the front door by memory alone. The building groaned under the weight of a full power failure. Doors opened down the hallway. Confused voices drifted out. Someone cursed. Someone laughed nervously. Someone asked if anyone else's lights had blown.

Maya didn't answer. She pushed outside into the cold night.

She strapped Ivy into the car seat, brushing curls off her forehead. Ivy's eyelids fluttered, just enough to show a thin ring of that strange amber beneath the brown.

"He saw me," Ivy breathed.

Maya felt the floor of her stomach shift. A cold dread settled in her chest—the kind she'd spent seven years trying to outrun.

She couldn't ask more. She wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Rest," she whispered, cupping Ivy's cheek. "I'm taking you somewhere safe."

She drove with one hand clenched tight around the wheel, every red light a small eternity. The streetlamps flickered as she passed beneath them, echoing the way the apartment lights had fought to stay alive.

A Town Away...

A man woke with a jolt.

The dream clung to him like woodsmoke—visceral and haunting. A girl with dark hair. Wide, frightened eyes. A small voice calling him Daddy with an absolute, terrifying certainty.

He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to still the phantom ache beneath his ribs. It was just a dream. A ghost of a life he had no right to.

Then his phone buzzed. Once. Twice.

The screen cut through the darkness in a sharp, clinical white.

ALERT: Unauthorized Wolf Signature Detected. Location: St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Classification: Unregistered / Juvenile. Status: High-Energy Surge.

He went still. Completely, utterly still.

He stared at the words until they burned into his retinas. An unregistered pup. A surge that shouldn't be possible. The screen flickered, the signal jagged and unstable, humming with a frequency that made the hair on his arms stand up.

He looked back at the dark corner of the room where the dream-child had just stood. The air there was still vibrating, a low-frequency hum that seemed to sync with the frantic pulsing of the alert in his hand.

The dream's echo tightened its grip on his throat. He grabbed his keys and headed for the door.