The System

Dahlia's POV

What was wrong with me? I jerked upright the way people do in movies when they wake from a nightmare, wide-eyed and gasping, except this wasn't a movie, and I wasn't the slim girl with a mysterious past who gets rescued in the next scene. I was just me, fat and lonely and, as far as I could tell, completely losing my mind.

Then I heard the voice again.

[SYSTEM ONLINE. USER IDENTIFIED: MOON-BLESSED. STATUS: AWAKENING LOCKED POWERS …]

Was I supposed to feel honored? Blessed? Enlightened? All I felt was queasy and thoroughly confused. Had I just awakened a system, the kind we'd been taught about in science class? That couldn't be real, could it?

I clutched my pillow as if it were the only thing keeping me from a breakdown. A voice in my head was frightening enough, but this one was talking about powers as if I were the chosen one in some fantasy novel, and I half expected a fairy with a clipboard to appear and hand me a mission.

I blinked at the ceiling. “Okay. What on earth is going on?”

Maybe I was dreaming, or maybe I'd fallen into a sleep so deep that it had stopped obeying logic, but my fingers were tingling, my heart was hammering like a war drum, and the surrounding air seemed to vibrate. Or perhaps that was just me, shaking.

Something was happening, and it had started the moment I turned seventeen, with the dream of moonlight and the glowing woman who looked as though she'd gotten lost on the way to a royal wedding in another galaxy.

None of it was normal. I thought of calling Dad, then changed my mind, because he would only say I'd imagined it, so there was no point. I would have called my stepmom, too, if I hadn't believed we were close until she enrolled me in this school, and apparently that option was gone as well.

I slid out of bed like someone fleeing a crime scene, and the cold floor bit at my feet.

I glanced at the clock. “Oh, no.”

Biology started in a few minutes, and I needed to be there before Ms Hale. She was the kind of teacher who made you sleep with one eye open, and the way she smiled at me made my skin itch, as though she knew something about me that I didn't.

I hurried to my dresser, not that there was anything cute inside it. Fashion and I have a complicated relationship; it offers me tents or stretchy lies. Today I had no time to care, so I pulled on my black leggings, the ones that held on to me like a grudge, and a dark green hoodie that said, “Don't talk to me unless you're a snack.” My curls went into a messy bun, my edges were a topic I wasn't going to discuss, and I put on lip gloss, because I always did. If I really was losing my mind, which seemed likely, then I wasn't going to be caught dead without shiny lips, even if I'd be walking with my head down.

I covered the hallway as fast as I could. Today was not the day to look out for bullies, because all I cared about was getting to class before Ms Hale. It was just another morning at Northmont, where wolves ruled, secrets roamed the halls, and the only human there was trying not to end up as lunch.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Ms Hale had somehow beaten me to it. By the time I reached the biology class, my nerves were fried, and I felt as though my soul had left my body halfway down the hall, which should tell you how fast I'd run.

She stood with her head bent over the textbook in front of her, her posture perfect, her ice-blonde hair smooth, her lipstick red as fresh blood. She didn't look up when I slipped in, but I knew she'd smelled me. Her nostrils flared slightly, like a predator catching a scent on the wind. That's what wolves do: they sense you before you're even close, and funnily enough, I wished I could do the same, if only for that.

“Take your seat, Miss Reed,” she said without turning around. “Today's lesson will be… enlightening.”

Great, that wasn't suspicious at all. Either she hadn't noticed I was late or she was pretending not to.

I crept to my seat and tried to become one with the chair. The boy beside me, who had sideburns that looked like they kept their gym schedule, shifted a little farther away. I was used to it. My body took up space people would rather not share, and that was fine, normal, expected. “Today,” Ms. Hale began, marker in hand, “we're discussing lunar influence on blood resonance in hybrid wolves.”

Of course we were. Why not begin the day with something that sounded like a dark spell?

She turned to the board and sketched a wolf under a full moon. “As you all know, the moon does not simply affect our shifts. It speaks to our blood, activating dormant traits, enhancing aggression, and in rare cases… unlocking ancestral power.”

Unlocking? My ears perked up.

Ms. Hale's eyes flicked to me, only for a moment, but it felt as though she'd seen straight through me, and I shivered.

“Hybrid wolves, especially those with divine lineage, are more sensitive to moon resonance,” she continued. “Their systems may activate under emotional stress, physical challenge, or age milestones.”

Seventeen.

I swallowed. An age milestone, was it?

I took out my notebook and pretended to take notes, though what I was really doing was scribbling like a maniac: moon resonance? Ancestral blood? System = real?

The lesson went on, and students raised their hands and fired off questions while I stayed quiet, because something was rising inside me, a strange warmth, as though my body had become a clock counting down to something I didn't understand.

And then I felt it.

[SYSTEM ALERT: POTENTIAL ATTACK DETECTED. EVASIVE MANEUVER ADVISED.]

I blinked and looked up.

Three desks behind me sat Chloe, Brigg, and the twins, the usual suspects, known for being rich, ruthless, and allergic to the idea of a fat girl being smarter than they were. They were staring at me, and I felt it in my spine before anything happened.

Chloe leaned toward her desk, her fingers twitching. Brigg adjusted something under his sleeve. One of the twins whispered something and smirked.

[HOSTILE ACTION INCOMING. 3… 2… 1…]

I ducked.

A small glittering object, like a perfume bottle, flew over my head and smashed against the wall, and the room went silent

Ms. Hale turned slowly, her gaze hard enough to burn holes in the floor. “What,” she said, in a voice so calm that it made me want to hide, “was that?”

No one answered.

I sat completely still, breathing hard, trying to work out how I'd known, how I'd moved so fast, and how I wasn't covered in whatever that stuff was.

[SYSTEM NOTE: USER INSTINCT RESPONSE – ACTIVATED. LEVEL: 1.]

The system was real. It had helped me, and I didn't know whether to scream or cry.

Something inside me had woken up.