CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:DISAPPEARING.

     DISAPPEARING 

I locked my door.

Not dramatically shut it like I wanted someone to notice. I closed it slowly, carefully, then turned the key and stood there with my hand still on the knob, listening.

Nothing.

No footsteps. No voices. No knocking.

Good.

I slid down until my back hit the door and sat there on the floor like my legs had simply decided to give up on me. The room felt too quiet, but also safer that way, like silence was a blanket I could hide under.

My breathing was wrong. Too shallow. Too fast. I pressed my palm flat against my chest, counting like I had learned to do years ago.

One. Two. Three.

It did not help.

My wolf was not pacing anymore. She was not watching. She was not tense.

She was gone.

That scared me more than anything that had happened on the training field.

I stared at my hands. They were steady now, like nothing had happened, like I had not stood in the middle of the training ring earlier while the ground tilted and voices overlapped and someone shouted my name like it was a command instead of a warning.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead against them.

I was sixteen again.

Not literally. I knew that. I knew where I was. I knew how old I was. I knew this was my grandparents’ mansion and not the dormitory room back at my former pack.

But my body did not care about facts.

My body remembered.

“Again,” someone had said earlier today.

Not shouted. Not angry. Calm. Professional.

Again.

That word always did this to me.

I pressed my fingers into the carpet, grounding myself in texture. Soft. Clean. Expensive. Nothing like the rough dirt of the old training grounds where people pretended pain was character building.

A knock sounded at my door.

Soft.

I flinched anyway.

“Emily,” Grandma’s voice came through the wood. “It’s me.”

I did not answer.

“Dinner is ready,” she continued gently. “You didn’t come down.”

I closed my eyes.

I could picture her standing there, hands folded, face worried but controlled. She was good at that. At caring without overwhelming. At loving quietly.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, my voice sounding smaller than I wanted.

“That’s alright,” she replied. “Would you like me to bring something up anyway?”

“No,” I said quickly, then added, “Please.”

There was a pause.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave it outside, just in case.”Footsteps moved away.

I waited until they faded completely before letting my head fall back against the door.

This was familiar. The shutting down. The retreat. The instinct to disappear before someone decided I was difficult.

I pushed myself up slowly and moved to my bed, curling into the corner closest to the wall. The blankets were heavy enough to press me down. I wrapped them around my shoulders like armor.

Someone knocked again, firmer this time.

I did not jump. I already knew who it was.

“Emily,” Grandpa Matteo called. “Open the door.”

“I’m fine,” I said automatically.

“That is not an answer.”

I stared at the far wall.

“I just need some time,” I said. “I’ll come down later.”

There was silence on the other side.

Then, “Did something happen at training?”

I hesitated.

“No,” I lied.

Another pause.

“You left in the middle of a drill,” he said. “Daniel said you stopped responding.”

My fingers tightened in the blanket.

“I got tired.”

“Emily.”

His voice was calm, but it carried weight. Alpha weight. The kind that used to make my stomach twist when I was younger.

“I said I’m fine,” I snapped, then immediately regretted it.

Silence again.

“I will not force you,” he said finally. “But we will talk later.”

Footsteps retreated.

I let out a shaky breath I did not realize I was holding.

Daniel.

Of course he told them.

I did not blame him. He had looked concerned, not annoyed, when it happened. When my body stopped reacting to commands. When my vision tunneled and the sounds blurred together like I was underwater.

“Emily, look at me,” he had said.

I remembered that part clearly.

I remembered standing there while another warrior swung at me, slow and controlled, meant to teach defense. I remembered my arms not lifting in time.

I remembered hearing laughter.

Not present laughter. Memory laughter.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“Again.”

“Stop flinching.”

“Let her take the hit. Maybe that will wake her wolf up.”

I curled tighter into myself.

It was not the warriors here. It was not Daniel. It was not the training itself.

It was the idea that my body was no longer mine once I stepped into a ring.

I checked my phone. No messages.

Good.

I did not want to explain. I did not want reassurance. I did not want someone to tell me I was safe now.

I had learned, very early, that safety was temporary.

Another knock.

Lighter this time.

“Emily,” a voice said softly.

My breath hitched.

It was my brother.

I stared at the door, my heart thudding harder than before.

“I brought you tea,” he added. “Grandma told me chamomile helps.”

I almost laughed. It came out as something closer to a sob.

“I’m not coming out,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he replied immediately. “I’m not asking you to.”

I frowned.

“I’ll just sit here,” he continued. “On the floor. We can pretend we are both avoiding responsibilities.”

Despite myself, I snorted.

“You don’t even know me,” I said.

“I know you enough,” he replied. “And I know that when people say they’re fine too fast, they usually are not.”

I did not respond.

I listened as he sat down, his back sliding against the door on the other side.

We stayed like that for a while.

Then he spoke again. “Daniel feels bad.”

That caught my attention.

“Why,” I asked.

“He said he should have noticed sooner,” my brother said. “That your eyes changed.”

I swallowed.

“They always say that,” I muttered.

“Say what?”

“That they should have noticed,” I replied. “After.”

There was a quiet hum of understanding from the other side of the door.

“You don’t have to go back out there,” he said.

“I know,” I answered.

“But you think you should,” he added.

I did not deny it.

That was the worst part.

I stayed curled up on my bed long after the hallway went quiet again. Long after the tea cooled on the floor outside my door. Long after the mansion settled into nighttime stillness.

I could not sleep. I couldn't cry.

I simply stayed where I was, locked away from the world, because staying inside had always been the only way I knew how to survive when my past caught up to me.

And somewhere deep inside, my wolf remained silent, like she too had quickly learned that disappearing was safer than fighting back.