Chapter 111 Shadows and Suits
Malia's POV
Modern Werewolf Dynamics is typically the highlight of my day—Professor Navarro is enthusiastic, the content captivating, the lectures genuinely thought-provoking instead of recycled textbook material.
Today it is TERROR.
When I walk in, every student is looking at me. Not even trying to hide it. It’s just full-on, naked staring coupled with whispered commentary I can hear perfectly with my super hearing.
"Can’t believe she actually showed up."
"...kissing his brother, I mean how desperate."
"Always knew she was somehow ‘off’—"
I slide into my usual spot in the back, ducking my head, playing to make myself invisible. July tried to persuade me to skip, to hide away in her dorm until this blows over, but I can’t. Not giving them the satisfaction. Not showing I’m too scared to deal with having made a mistake.
Even if I am.
Professor Navarro comes in, his usual warm smile wavering slightly when he sees that I am there. He heard. Of course he heard.
Everyone’s heard.
The video has gone viral. By lunch, students from other colleges were sharing it. At suppertime it was circulating on supernatural social media networks from around the region.
This morning I woke up to find three different emails from campus administration regarding "conduct concerns."
Wtf!
The class starts and I don't hear a single word of it. Just sit there and feel about a dozen pairs of eyes on me, hearing the whispers that never quite stop, watching phones angle toward me to capture more footage of the unstable hybrid's public humiliation.
A paper plane glides down onto my desk. I unfold it with shaking hands.
Homewrecker in capital letters, along with a simple sketch I’m not supposed to look too closely at.
I crumple it in my hand without responding. I won't give them that. Another lands. Then another: Slut. Psycho. Go back where you came from
Professor Navarro is at the board, writing something about pack hierarchy structures. He doesn't see. Or perhaps he does and simply doesn’t want to get involved. Easier to turn a blind eye than to take action.
I stare shaking hands in my lap. The power is humming under my skin in response to humiliation and rage and it wants out.
I presses my palms to my thighs and takes a breath. Don’t lose control. Not here. Not again. Would just prove everything they’re saying.
The class is endless. And when it does, the students file out one by one, each making sure to give me a look of disgust, to whisper loud enough for me to hear, to take videos of me on their phones like I’m some sort of exhibit in a zoo.
Finally I get up and collect my things when the room is almost empty.
Professor Navarro is coming toward my desk. “Miss Reed. A word?”
My stomach drops. “Yes, sir?”
He looks toward the door to make sure we are alone “I just want to see how you are doing I know--” He stops to find the right words. “--this week has been hard for you.”
Difficult. That's one way to put complete annihilation of my life.
"I'm fine," I lie.
“Are you?” His eyes are warm but probing. “Because if you just need a place to talk, counseling services, academic accommodations, whatever—”
"I'm fine," I say again with more determination. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t look persuaded but nods nonetheless. "My door is always open. If you need thing.”
I nod but don’t trust my voice, then I flee into the hallway.
It’s the change of periods, the hallways are full of students rushing to their next commitments. There is a marked decrease in noise when I step out. Conversations pause. Heads turn.
I keep walking, eyes forward, trying to ignore it all.
Someone’s phone is playing an audio version of my voice from yesterday, crying, begging Aiden. They cropped the video to loop the most embarrassing parts.
A nearby group of young people are laughing.
I increase my pace. Turn the corner following the stairs.
And stop dead.
Madame Vesper is standing in the hall outside her office, but she’s not by herself. Two men stand to her right and left — both wearing pricey black suits, exuding power and wealth. Tall both of them, wide, powerful, such strength that my wolfg instantaneously wants to bow and submit.
Pure-blooded wolves. Probably high-ranking, looking at the way they move. I duck into the entrance of an empty class, half hiding but not far off enough to distance myself from listening to their talk.
“—the situation is deteriorating more quickly than we expected,” one of the men says. His voice is deep, well-bred, and has the sort of accent that insinuates money and long standing lineages."The incident involving the girl was bad enough, but now—"
“Now she’s exhibiting other signs of instability,” Vesper cuts in smoothly. "Emotional volatility. Relationship complications. Public altercations. All consistent with what we’re monitoring.”
I shudder at that. Monitoring?
“And the power manifestations?” Now the second man speaks — older than the first, grey at the temples, eyes keen as a hawk’s. “Are they confirmed?”
“Several witnesses have said he was exhibiting above average strength during the fight training accident.” Vesper's tone is clinical and impersonal. “Way outside the limits. The damage already sounds —”
“Alpha-level strength,” the first man finishes. “Into a mixed-blood . That shouldn’t be possible.”
“That’s not right,” Vesper concurs. “Which is why we need to keep this under wraps before it gets any more attention. The council is already questions. The word is if we find you have an unstable manifesting powers that she shouldnt have—”
“It makes the institution look bad,” says the graying man. “You in particular, since she’s the one you flagged first.”
Flagged. She flagged me. Before all this started happening.
“I was thorough,” Vesper replies coolly. “Her application had raised red flags — the documentation of her lineage was inconsistent, there were gaps in her family history, her bloodwork had an_apologetical results. I told them it wasn’t a good idea to let him in. The diversity initiative overruled me.”
“And now we have a situation,” the first man states. Now we’ve got a situation,” Vesper confirms. “One that needs handling swiftly and quietly. Before she injures anybody else. Before her power escalates any more. Before—"
She pauses. “—before any questions are asked the wrong questions about where those powers come from.”
Silence. Heavy, loaded.
"Are you sure about the bloodline?" The gray-haired man’s voice lowers.
"As close as I can be without a full genetic analysis," Vesper says. “But the signs are there. The power manifestations. The aggressive tendencies. The inability to control herself. All consistent—”
She suddenly stops. One of the men has a raised hand, pointing at something I can’t see.
“We’re not alone,” the first man says quietly.
My heart stops.
I flatten myself out against the doorframe, hold my breath, and pray that they aren’t able to hear my heart pounding so loudly.
“The hallway is under surveillance,” Vesper says dismissively. “And students know better than to eavesdrop.”
“Nevertheless.” The gray-haired mans voice is warning. "Let's continue this discussion in a more private place. Your office?”
"Of course."
Footsteps. Advancing. Shut the door.
I'm petrified for a solid minute before I finally gather up the courage to move.
I’m so nervous I’m shaking. My thoughts are racing.
They were talking about me. The girl. The one they have to contain. The one with power manifestations she shouldn’t have.
Uncertain bloodline.
Before bad questions are asked in wrong places of: Where does that power come from? What is that mean?
I’ve always known my family history is tangled. (
My mom died when I was little. My dad raised me by himself, didn’t say much about my mum’s side of the family except the odd thing about “complicated supernatural genetics.”
I'm a hybrid—part wolf, part human, I have more wolf than human traits, but just enough of both to make me seem like an outsider. Thin down. Diminish.
I'm just not weak anymore. I'm slamming people against walls. My hands shimmer with an energy that shouldn't be there. My eyes flash wolf-gold when you’re not supposed to have wolf eyes.
Where those capabilities are originating.
As if they know something. As if there’s answers they’re hiding from us.
Before all this, Vesper had already flagged me. I was never recommended for admission. Is watching me, taking notes on everything waiting for me to prove her right.
Or waiting on something else to happen?
The power beneath my skin pulses—stronger now, responding to fear and confusion and the terrible certainty that I'm caught in something much bigger than I understood.
I want to go. Need to find a place to hide out so I can think, so I can figure out what I just heard.
I slip out of the doorway and make a dash for the stairs, keeping my head down, avoiding the eyes of the students who are still staring and whispering and recording.
My phone buzzes. I ignore it, buzzes again. July.
July: “Where are you?” I’m worried.
July: Please answer.
July: There's a lot of dirty laundry being aired. I need to know you’re all right.
I stare at the messages. Want to respond. Want to tell her what I just heard, ask her what it means, let her help me figure this out.
But the words down the hall ring in my head:
Before she hurts someone else. Suppress it quickly and quietly. The council is already smelling trouble.
What if answering the call puts her in jeopardy? What if having me— the unstable hybrid, the one they're watching, the one that has to be contained — as her mother makes her a target too?
I turn my phone off completely.
The corridor lies ahead of me – too bright, too open, too packed with spectators who can’t wait to see me fail.
I keep walking anyway.
Because what choice do I have?
I'm being watched by men in expensive suits who have far more power than I can possibly imagine. I'm developing powers I shouldn't have. I'm apparently part of some bigger deal that has to be “taken care of quietly and quickly.”
Neither of us know what it means. Don't know who to trust, no clue what I am becoming.
The power pulses again — stronger, insistent, as if it's trying to tell me something.
Like it knows what I don’t.
I burst through the door of the building and into the crisp, white afternoon. The quad is packed with students hustling to their next class, and most of them look up when they catch sight of me. I disregard them all.
Go to the only place that ever felt safe — the woods at the edge of campus, where trees provide cover and shadows conceal secrets and no one can see me break down. But I can feel people are looking at me, even as I walk. Not only the students.
Something else. Someone else. Watching. Monitoring, documenting. Waiting for me to prove them right.
Or waiting for something worse to happen.
The question that keeps circling my mind, getting louder with each step: What am I?
Not what they told me. It isn’t only a simple hybrid with diluted bloodlines.
Something else. Something they're watching. Something they're trying to contain.
Something they raised a red flag about before all of this began, as if they sensed what was to come.
Like they've been waiting for it.
The trees welcomes me as always, their shade cool and forgiving. I brace myself against the closest trunk, sliding down to rest on the soil beneath me and at last allow myself to recognize the panic tearing at my chest.
I'm not just losing control. I'm something they're scared of. Something they have decided is dangerous and has to be reined in.
And I don’t know why… or what they're going to do.