Chapter 5

Thea’s POV

I locked the restroom door and pressed my back against it.

My palm was still tingling. The right one — the one I'd used to slap a stranger across the face at a party I shouldn't have come to, wearing a dress I didn't own.

What was wrong with me?

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face. My hands shook. The fluorescent light above the mirror buzzed and flickered, casting everything in a sickly yellow.

He'd grabbed my necklace. Pulled it from under my dress like he had a right to it. And then his hand moved toward my collar, and every alarm in my body fired at once.

Maybe I'd misread it. Maybe he'd been reaching for the birthmark I'd had since I was born — the dark crescent shape at the base of my neck that Margot called ugly and Darcy called weird. Maybe he'd seen it and wanted a closer look for some reason that had nothing to do with what I'd assumed.

It didn't matter. His hand moved. I swung.

I splashed more water and straightened up, pushing wet hair off my forehead.

Something moved in the mirror.

I froze. For half a second — less than that, a blink — my reflection wasn't mine. The shape in the glass was low and dark, with a narrow skull and bright eyes that caught the light like coins. A wolf. Standing where I stood, watching me watch it.

I jerked backward. My hip hit the edge of the sink.

When I looked again, it was just me. Wet face. Wide eyes. Juno's black dress. My own stupid reflection staring back at me like I'd lost my mind.

Too many people. Not enough air. That was all. The party was loud and the dress was tight and I hadn't eaten enough today. My brain was filling in shapes that weren't there.

I dried my face with a paper towel and unlocked the door.

It was late. The party was still loud, but the heat in my body had faded to a low hum, and the hallway felt too quiet after everything that had happened. I had class in seven hours. More importantly, I had chores before that. If Margot's kitchen wasn't spotless by the time she came downstairs, she'd find a way to make the rest of my week worse.

I found Juno near the dance floor, still moving to the music, still smiling. When she saw me coming, she pulled me into one last hug — tight, warm, her chin on my shoulder.

"Text me when you get home," she said.

I promised I would.

The walk home was cold and quiet. My bare legs prickled in the night air, and Juno's dress felt thinner outside than it had inside. Margot's house was at the end of a street with no working streetlights. From the sidewalk, every window was black.

The front door was locked. Of course it was. Margot never left it open for me.

I went around the side and jimmied the basement window. The frame was old and loose — I'd done this enough times that I knew exactly how much pressure to apply. The window swung inward, and I lowered myself onto my bed, shoes first.

The basement was cold and dim. I stood in front of the small mirror nailed to the wall and peeled off Juno's dress. Carefully. I folded it along the seams, smoothed the wrinkles with my palm, and tucked it into the back of my closet where Margot wouldn't find it.

Then I pulled on my old sleep shirt. The same one from this morning, soft and shapeless and faded to a color that used to be blue.

Just like that, I was the basement girl again.

Cinderella after midnight, except my fairy godmother was a seventeen-year-old with a yellow hair clip, and the carriage was a window I had to climb through because nobody in this house would leave the door unlocked for me.

The necklace was gone.

I noticed the next morning, standing in front of the bathroom mirror after my shower. My neck was bare. The leather cord, the tooth — gone. I pressed my fingers to the spot where it usually sat, right below my collarbone, and felt nothing.

My chest squeezed.

I tore through my morning chores — dishes, floor, laundry — faster than usual. Margot shouted something about the eggs being cold as I grabbed my bag and ran out the door. I barely heard her.

It was just a necklace. A worthless necklace made of old leather and a dead animal's tooth. Margot had thrown it away thirteen years ago because it wasn't worth keeping. I had no reason to feel like someone had punched a hole through my ribs.

But it had been on my neck since I was five. Thirteen years. It had outlasted every pair of shoes, every hand-me-down, every foster check. It was the only thing I owned that had a story behind it, even if that story was about a man who left.

I tried to think about when I'd last felt it. At the party, before midnight. Then the burning started, and I'd gone to the restroom, and Soren had caught me — his hand on my neck, pulling at my collar. Had it come off then?

I went to the school restroom first thing. Got down on my hands and knees and checked under the sinks, behind the trash can, along the baseboard where the tiles met the wall. Nothing. The floor was clean except for a wadded paper towel and a pen cap. My necklace wasn't there.

If I stayed any longer, I'd miss first period.

I stood up, wiped my palms on my jeans, and turned to leave.

"Looking for this?"

The voice came from behind me. Cold, flat, unhurried.

I spun around. Soren was leaning against the hallway wall outside the restroom door. My wolf-tooth necklace dangled from his fingers, the leather cord swinging in a slow arc.

"Yes," I said. "Give it back. Please."

I reached for it. He raised his hand higher, lifting the necklace out of my reach. With his other hand, he caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted my face up.

"What is your problem?" My voice cracked.

He didn't answer. His gold eyes moved over my face, down my jaw, down to the bare skin of my neck where the necklace should have been.

Then he lowered his head.

I felt the tip of his nose brush the side of my throat, just below my ear. His breath was warm and slow against my skin, and something in my chest seized up. Not pain. Not exactly fear. Something deeper, something I didn't have a word for.

I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. My pulse slammed so hard I was sure he could feel it through my skin.

"It's you," he said quietly. "The girl from the restroom last night."

His lips were close enough that I could feel the shape of every word against my neck.

"I caught your scent."