Chapter 32 CHAPTER 32
My legs gave out.
All four of them, at the same time, and I collapsed onto the carpet, a whimpering mess of white fur and chattering teeth.
"Sera, listen to me," Aunt Kelly's voice was somewhere above me but my ears were ringing so loud that she sounded like she was underwater.
"I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't—"
"You can. Breathe with me, baby."
I couldn't breathe, I didn't even know where my lungs were anymore. Everything was in the wrong place. My heart was beating in my throat, my stomach was where my ribs should be and my brain—
"Sera."
Aunt Kelly's wolf was gone. She was human again, kneeling in front of me, her hands on either side of my face. My wolf face. Her warm palms pressing against fur that shouldn't exist.
"Look at me. Just at me. Nothing else."
I looked at her. Her eyes were brown and wet and steady.
"Good girl. Now think about my hands. Feel them. They're touching your face. Your human face is underneath all of this. It's still there. You're still there."
I exhaled. Something left my body with the air. Not Sabrina, the resistance. The wall I'd built between us the second she first spoke.
The fur on my face thinned first. I felt it pull back under Aunt Kelly's fingers like water soaking into sand.
The rest followed but it wasn't fast. My spine curved back with a series of pops that punched groans out of me. My legs straightened, knees returning, ankles cracking into position.
It took twenty minutes of my body arguing with itself before I was lying on the carpet, naked, drenched in sweat, wrapped in the blanket Kelly threw over me.
Human. Well, not really.
I stared at my hands.
"How is any of this possible?"
"Your father was a werewolf. One of the strongest in this Pack."
"And Mom?"
"Human. She never knew."
"How do you hide THAT from the person you sleep next to every night?"
"Your father had his reasons."
"Everyone keeps saying that like it makes it better. He hid a whole wolf from me. He injected me with things to keep her trapped. Mom died not knowing the man she loved wasn't fully human. How is any of that okay?"
The pain crossed her face but she didn't dodge it.
"You're right to be angry."
"I'm past angry. There's a voice in my head and I just turned into an animal in your living room and you're sitting here like it's normal."
"It is normal. For us."
Us.
Such a weird thing when I've never really belonged anywhere.
I opened my mouth to fire more questions but my body chose that moment to remind me I'd just rearranged my entire skeleton. A wave of exhaustion hit me so hard my head dropped against her shoulder.
"I have more questions."
"I know you do. And I'll answer every single one of them. But right now, you need to go upstairs and sleep."
"I can't sleep, I have a wolf in my head!”
"She'll settle down. You both need rest. Tomorrow is school and trust me Sera, you won't get another proper night's sleep for about a decade."
"That's not comforting."
“That's your new reality unfortunately. Wolf training, academy classes and this whole Dawnbringer nonsense.”
“Dawn what?”
The word sounded familiar.
“Go to bed Sera.”
I wanted to argue. But my legs were jelly and my eyes were closing on their own and Sabrina had gone quiet.
I stood up, clutching the blanket around me, and walked upstairs on legs that felt brand new.
I fell into bed without showering. Without brushing my teeth. Without doing anything except pulling the covers over my head and disappearing.
"Goodnight Sera."
“Shh, sleep!”
The sun hit my face with the intensity of a personal attack and I rolled over, groaning.
"Good morning sunshine! We're going to have the best day!"
"My goodness Sabrina, do you have a volume button?"
"No but I have enthusiasm and you are in desperate need of it. Also, Tori is outside your door. She's been there for six minutes. Her heartbeat is annoyingly fast."
I frowned and pulled the covers back.
"Come in."
Tori opened the door and her face was... different. Not the cold, distant, I-have-better-things-to-do Tori. This one was smiling.
Actually smiling. At me.
"Morning Sis! I brought you breakfast in bed. Mom said you need to eat more now because of the shift and honestly I'm so proud of you. The way you handled it last night was incredible, most halflings take hours and you..."
Sis.
She's never called me that before.
I took the tray because I was starving and the food smelled incredible but the sudden warmth from someone who walked ahead of me at school for weeks sat uncomfortably in my chest.
"Thank you," I said, and I meant it for the food. Not for the act.
She lingered, hovering like she wanted to sit and chat and braid my hair or whatever sisters do but I focused on eating and eventually she got the message and left.
Getting dressed was strange. I could feel the fabric differently. Every thread, every texture against my skin was amplified. I put on jeans and a simple top and both felt like they were made of sandpaper.
Tori drove us to school. She was chatty. Pointing out things, filling silences I wasn't contributing to.
I didn't hate her, I just didn't trust the new version yet.
I walked through the school doors and everything was louder.
Footsteps, conversations, lockers slamming, someone eating chips three hallways away. My teeth hurt from clenching so hard.
Naomi found me before I found her.
"Girl, where have you BEEN? I've been calling you all—" she stopped. Looked at me. Really looked. "What happened to you?"
Oh, I forgot that part. My hair was longer and I remembered gasping when I looked at the mirror this morning.
My face, arms, everything was different.
"Trust me, you don't wanna know.”
"Oh, but I do and you're going to give me every single detail!”
"Yes Ma'am,” I forced a smile even though I was thinking of what lie would work.
We were walking toward class when the hallway ahead cleared the way people do when someone important passes through.
Kane.
Walking toward me. Smiling. Like he hadn't pinned me to a bathroom mirror with his hand over my mouth.
"Sera! Congratulations, I heard you finally..."
I don't know what he said after that.
My ears stopped working. Or my brain did. One of them switched off because all I could hear was the sound of his zipper in that bathroom.
And Sabrina heard it too.
The wolf had been there, trapped behind the wall my father built. She saw what Kane did through the cracks. She felt every second of it. She'd been carrying that rage as well as I had because she couldn't do anything about it then.
Now she could.
And so could I.
We agreed without speaking. No argument. For the first time since she appeared in my head, we wanted the exact same thing.
Him. Broken. On this floor. Now.
I launched.
My body covered the distance before anyone could blink. My fist connected with his jaw and the crack was so loud the hallway went silent.
He stumbled.
His friends froze.
"YOU DON'T GET TO TALK TO ME!" I screamed, hitting him again. Sabrina was in my arms, adding force I didn't have yesterday. "YOU DON'T GET TO LOOK AT ME! YOU DON'T GET TO SAY MY NAME!"
He tried to grab my wrists. I was stronger. That registered on his face; shock, confusion, then fear.
"Get him! Make him bleed!" Sabrina snarled in my head and I obeyed.
"Sera, stop!" Tori's voice came from somewhere behind me.
I couldn't stop. We couldn't stop. Every hit was for the event in the bathroom. Every hit was for his hand on my mouth. Every hit was for his "relax, enjoy it."
Kane got his arms up but I tore through his guard. My nails caught his cheek and blood sprayed across the white hallway floor.
"Sera, your hands!" Naomi's voice cut through everything else.
I looked down.
Fur. White fur, spreading across my knuckles, up my wrists.
No. Not here. Not now.
My spine cracked. In the middle of the hallway. In front of two hundred students with phones out and mouths open.
"SOMEBODY GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Tori was pulling at me but I was too heavy.
Kane scrambled backwards on the floor, bleeding, staring up at me with the same eyes that watched me cry in that bathroom.
"Sera please!" Tori was crying now. "There are humans here! Please!"
Humans.
Naomi.
I turned my head — half human, half something else — and found Naomi in the crowd.
Looking at what I was becoming.
Shit.