Chapter 38 Bethany's Choice (Bethany POV)
The Silvercrest common room had been converted into something between a shelter and a prison. Twenty-three students crowded into a space designed for fifteen, all of us watching the news feeds on our phones while "guards"… senior pack members with rifles… stood at every exit. For our protection, they said. To keep Julian out.
It felt a lot more like keeping us in.
I sat on the floor near the window, back against the wall, trying to make myself small. Old habit. Years of suppressants had taught me how to be invisible, how to take up as little space as possible, how to blend into the background until people forgot I was there.
Except I couldn't blend anymore. Not since I'd stood up in the Eclipse Chamber. Not since my name appeared on Julian's list of awakening subjects. Now everyone was watching me… some with sympathy, some with suspicion, a few with outright fear.
"Do you think he'll come for you?" Rebecca Park… no relation… asked from the couch. She was Silvercrest too, sixteen, never had trouble shifting, came from a pure bloodline that stretched back six generations. The kind of wolf I'd spent my whole life envying.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "Maybe. The list said I was scheduled for 'awakening' during the Concordance. But that's two days away. He might not..."
I trailed off. Because we all knew he might. Julian had proven he could go anywhere, do anything. Locked doors and armed guards hadn't stopped him yet.
"I still can't believe you're one of them," Rebecca continued. Not cruelly, just stating fact. "You've been here since freshman year. We took painting together sophomore year. You seemed so... normal."
"I thought I was normal," I said. "That was kind of the point."
"But now you're not." This came from Michael Torres, Ironwood, leaning against the opposite wall. "Now you're chimeric. Packless. Potentially dangerous."
"She's not dangerous," Sarah Martinez snapped. She was one of the other suppressed students… Nightshade, had come forward in the Eclipse Chamber right after I did. "She's a victim. We all are."
"Victims who might go feral during their first shift and kill everyone in the room," Michael shot back. "That's what the Alphas are worried about. That's why we're locked in here together… containment. If one of you snaps, at least the damage is limited to other suppressed students and expendable guards."
"We're not expendable," one of the guards said quietly. Nobody believed him.
Sarah stood up, fists clenched. "We didn't ask for this. We didn't choose to be suppressed. And we're not going to apologize for existing just because it makes you uncomfortable."
"I'm not asking you to apologize. I'm asking you to acknowledge that you're a threat."
"That's enough." Ms. Lin's voice cut through the rising argument. She'd been sitting in the corner, silent until now, but when she spoke everyone listened. Art teacher privilege, maybe. Or just the calm authority of someone who'd navigated this exact situation years ago.
She stood, moved to the center of the room. "Everyone who's not suppressed, give us the room. Now."
"We're supposed to supervise… " one of the guards started.
"You're supposed to protect us from external threats. Not from ourselves. Out. All of you."
There was resistance… muttering, concerned looks… but Ms. Lin had that teacher energy that made even armed guards obey. Within two minutes, the common room was empty except for the five of us: me, Sarah, Christopher Lang (Nightshade, sixteen, sandy hair and nervous energy), Marcus Kim (no relation to Meredith, Ironwood, seventeen, built like he should be good at sports but moved like he wasn't sure how his limbs worked), and Ms. Lin herself.
The door closed. Locked from the outside. Still imprisonment, but at least now it was just us.
"Okay," Ms. Lin said, sitting on the coffee table so she could see all of us. "Let's talk honestly. No guards. No judgment. Just us."
Christopher spoke first. "I want to shift."
The words hung in the air for a moment.
"Me too," Sarah said.
Marcus nodded. "Same."
Everyone looked at me.
I thought about the files I'd read in Ms. Lin's office. About the choice she'd explained… take suppressants forever and stay safely human, or stop taking them and risk everything for the chance to be whole.
I thought about the colors I'd been seeing since I stopped taking my pills. The sounds. The way I could smell emotions now… fear, anger, hope… all mixing together in the confined space. The way my body felt wrong, like wearing clothes two sizes too small, everything constricted and compressed.
I thought about my art. How flat it had always seemed. How I'd spent years trying to capture vibrancy I could barely perceive, trying to paint feelings I couldn't quite access.
And I thought about the wolf I'd felt stirring inside me since the suppressants wore off. Patient. Curious. Waiting.
"I want to shift too," I said quietly. "I want to see what I really am. What I was supposed to be all along."
Ms. Lin's expression was complicated… pride and concern in equal measure. "You understand the risks? Without pack bonds, without the traditional support structure, first shifts are dangerous. The wolf can overwhelm you. You can lose yourself."
"We'll have each other," Sarah said. "That's a kind of pack, right? Chosen instead of born into?"
"It's untested," Ms. Lin warned. "Pack bonds form over time, through trust and shared experience. You four barely know each other."
"We know we've all been suppressed," Christopher said. "We know we've all been lied to. We know we're all facing the same choice. That's more shared experience than some packs have after years."
"And we're all terrified," Marcus added. His voice shook but held. "That's bonding, right? Shared terror?"
Despite everything, I smiled. "Very bonding."
Ms. Lin looked at each of us in turn. "I can't stop you. I won't stop you. But I need you to understand… if you do this, if you stop suppressants and force the shift, you're choosing pain. Probably trauma. Possibly death if it goes wrong."
"We've been in danger our whole lives," I said. The words came out stronger than I expected. "Hidden danger. Secret danger. Danger we weren't even allowed to know about. At least now we get to choose. At least now we're aware."
"And we have each other," Sarah repeated. "That has to count for something."
Ms. Lin stood. Walked to a cabinet in the corner, unlocked it with a key from her pocket. Inside: art supplies, obviously, but also something else. She pulled out a small wooden box, brought it back to the coffee table, opened it.
Inside: dozens of orange pill bottles. Different names on each label. All suppressants.
"These are confiscated medications," she said. "Students who tried to stop taking them without supervision. School policy requires faculty to collect them for 'proper disposal.'" She made air quotes. "I've been keeping them here for years. Just in case."
She started pulling out specific bottles, checking labels, setting four aside.
"Christopher Lang. Sarah Martinez. Marcus Kim. Bethany Park." She pushed the bottles toward us. "Your pills. Taken from you at various points over the years when teachers or staff noticed you weren't complying with your medication schedule."
Christopher picked up his bottle. Shook it. Half full. "You kept them all this time?"
"I kept them because I believed someday students would need proof. Evidence. Or ammunition." Ms. Lin smiled sadly. "I didn't expect you'd use them to stop taking them forever."
"How long until the suppressants wear off completely?" I asked. "Until we can shift?"
"Everyone's different. Depends on how long you've been medicated, your body's natural resistance, your wolf's strength." She looked at me specifically. "You stopped five days ago. Based on the symptoms you described… the sensory overload, the failed shift attempts… you're close. Maybe twelve hours. Maybe less."
"The full moon is tomorrow night," Sarah said. "Will that affect it?"
"It will make the shift more intense. More unavoidable. The moon pulls at every wolf, but for first shifts especially, it's..." Ms. Lin searched for words. "Overwhelming. Beautiful. Dangerous. All at once."
Marcus was staring at his pill bottle like it might bite him. "What do we do? Just... stop taking them and wait?"
"That's the medical approach. Gradual withdrawal. Safe. Boring." Ms. Lin pulled out a fifth bottle… her own, I realized, with her name on the label. "Or you can do what I did fifteen years ago when I chose to stay suppressed."
She opened the bottle. Dumped all the pills into her palm. Walked to the window, opened it despite the lockdown, and threw them out into the night.
"You can make a choice," she said. "Actively. Consciously. Not just letting the suppressants wear off but rejecting them. Claiming your wolf. Calling her forward instead of waiting for her to emerge on her own timeline."
Christopher stood. Walked to the window. Opened his bottle.
Dumped the pills out.
"I choose," he said.
Sarah joined him. "I choose."
Marcus hesitated, then added his pills to the pile on the ground below. "I choose."
Everyone looked at me.
I held my bottle. Such a small thing. Orange plastic. White pills. The chemical prison that had defined my existence for seventeen years. The lie that had kept me safe and kept me small.
I opened the bottle.
Dumped the pills.
"I choose," I said.
The wolf inside me surged… not aggressive, just eager. Like she'd been waiting for permission. Like she'd known all along this moment would come.
Ms. Lin closed the window. "Okay. Then we do this right. Together. Supporting each other through whatever comes next."
She started rearranging the furniture, pushing couches and chairs to the walls, creating open space in the center of the room. "First shifts are physical. Violent. You'll need room to thrash without hurting yourselves or each other. You'll need grounding… physical contact with people you trust who can anchor you if the wolf starts to overwhelm."
She pulled blankets from a closet. Pillows. Built a kind of nest in the center of the cleared space.
"When it starts," she continued, "you'll feel like you're dying. Bones breaking and reforming. Muscles tearing. Skin stretching. Your mind will fracture between human and wolf. You'll be tempted to fight it, to resist, to try to stay yourself."
"Don't fight it?" Sarah guessed.
"Don't fight it," Ms. Lin confirmed. "Let the wolf have her turn. Trust that you'll come back. And if you don't… " she looked at each of us seriously, " …trust that we'll bring you back. That's what pack means. No wolf left behind, human or otherwise."
We settled into the nest… four teenagers who barely knew each other, about to undergo one of the most intense physical and psychological experiences possible. Ms. Lin sat at the edge, close enough to help but not so close she'd be in danger when things got violent.
"How long?" Marcus asked.
"Soon," Ms. Lin said. "Your bodies know what you've decided. They're already preparing."
She was right. I could feel it starting… heat building under my skin, muscles twitching with anticipation, my heartbeat accelerating. Across the nest, Christopher's breathing had gone rapid and shallow. Sarah's hands were trembling. Marcus had closed his eyes, lips moving in what might have been prayer.
"Remember," Ms. Lin said softly. "You chose this. You're choosing freedom over safety. Truth over comfortable lies. It's going to hurt. But pain means you're alive. Pain means you're real. Pain means… "
I screamed.
The shift hit like a freight train, no warning, just sudden overwhelming agony. My spine arched. Bones cracked and reformed with sounds like gunshots. My vision tunneled, then exploded into too much color, too much detail, every texture and shadow suddenly hyper-vivid.
Beside me, Christopher was screaming too. Then Sarah. Then Marcus. Four voices rising in chorus, human sounds giving way to something wilder.
Ms. Lin's voice cut through the pain: "Breathe! Four counts in! Four counts hold! Six counts out! Stay with me!"
I tried. Managed maybe two cycles before another wave hit. My hands… were they still hands? …clutched at the blankets. Claws, I had claws, five curved black points that tore through fabric like tissue.
"Good!" Ms. Lin encouraged. "That's good! Let it happen! Don't fight!"
My jaw was breaking. No, not breaking… changing. Elongating. Teeth pushing through gums that bled and healed and bled again. I tasted copper. Smelled fear… mine, theirs, everyone's mixing together.
Sarah was half-shifted beside me, caught between forms, panting. "Can't… I can't… "
"Yes you can!" Ms. Lin moved closer, touched Sarah's shoulder. "Feel us. Feel the connection. You're not alone!"
And somehow, through the pain and terror and overwhelming sensation, I did feel it. Threads forming between us… fragile, new, but real. Christopher's determination. Sarah's fierce will to survive. Marcus's quiet strength. And underneath it all, Ms. Lin's steady presence, anchoring us to something solid.
Pack. We were forming a pack. Not through blood or territory or Alpha command. Through choice. Through shared experience. Through being here, now, together in our pain.
The shift accelerated. My legs twisted, reformed, found new angles. My torso compressed, then expanded. Fur erupted across my skin… soft, brown, shot through with lighter highlights. My senses exploded.
And then, finally, blessedly, the worst was over.
I stood on four legs, swaying, trying to figure out how they worked. My pack… my chosen pack… stood around me in similar states of confusion. Christopher's wolf was sandy-colored, lean, all nervous energy. Sarah was darker, compact and fierce. Marcus was the largest, gray and solid.
We stared at each other.
Then Christopher's tail wagged. Just once. Tentative.
Sarah's answered.
And suddenly we were all wagging, and it was absurd and beautiful and I was crying except wolves didn't cry the same way humans did, it came out as small whimpering sounds that my pack answered with soft whines of their own.
"Well done," Ms. Lin said. Her voice was thick with emotion. "All of you. You did it. You made it through."
I wanted to thank her. Wanted to say so many things. But my wolf-throat couldn't make human words, could barely remember what human words were for.
So I just moved closer to my pack. Let Christopher press against my side. Let Sarah rest her head on my back. Let Marcus curl around us protectively.