For one stupid second, my healer’s mind notices the wrong thing.
Control.
This wasn’t a blind charge. He didn’t tear through the whole door. He worked the frame until it gave.
The cot is shoved against the wall. The blanket is on the floor.
My journal is still on the table beside the bed.
He’s gone.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I step into the corridor and listen.
The compound is still, but it feels different this time. Not the comfortable quiet of evening settling in. The silence you feel before something goes wrong.
Very wrong.
Then footsteps.
Heavy. Uneven.
Coming from the east wing.
I’m halfway down the corridor when the scream reaches me.
Chapter 9
Him
The corridor stretches in both directions. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here. The door is behind me, broken, the frame splintered where my hands worked it until it gave. I can smell the fresh wood, sharp and raw, and under it the chemical edge of the room I just left. Sedative. Antiseptic. The fading ghost of her scent on the blanket I threw off.
The last thing I remember is her voice.Wait.Then the needle. Then dark.
Now this.
The light is wrong. Gold through windows, not white. Shadows that move because trees move, not because someone is walking behind glass with a clipboard. The floor under my bare feet is wood, worn smooth, warm where the sun hits it, cool where it doesn’t. I can feel the grain.
My hands are shaking.
Footsteps. More than one set. Coming from my left.
I spin toward the sound, and my shoulder hits the wall. The impact doesn’t steady me. My legs are wrong, too loose, still heavy and clumsy with whatever they put in my blood. The wolf is too close to the surface, half-formed, claws out and scraping the wood floor before I can pull them back. He’s taking over again. He always does.
A woman appears at the end of the corridor. White hair. Broad shoulders. She’s carrying something—a tray, a bowl, I can’t tell. She stops when she sees me.
“What—?” she blurts, before starting to back away.
I curl my fists at my sides and take a step forward. I’m not sure why. I don’t have any sort of plan at this stage. I just want to get out of here.Needto.
Her mouth opens.
The scream goes straight through my skull.
High. Sharp. Too close to the tone on the table.
My body answers before I do.
