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Karen: She is a liar.

The sentence cut too close to my own anger.

Karen: Any affection she showed was part of maintaining access.

I opened the reply field.

Hudson: You do not get to decide what she felt.

I read it once. My thumb hovered over send. A heavy bang sounded somewhere nearby. I looked toward the apartment door. Glass shattered somewhere in Mom’s house. Then came coughing.

One person at first. Several more joined. A chair scraped hard across the floor. Something else hit the wall.

I got out of bed.

“Mom?” I yelled.

No answer.

The coughing intensified.

I crossed the apartment and opened the door leading into the private hallway. A pale cloud moved beneath the connecting door at the far end. Not smoke from fire. Too low. Too dense.

The air carried a bitter scent I recognized without being able to place. I started down the hallway, but my legs became weak after several steps. My fingers went numb.

I caught the wall. “Mom!”

The effort triggered a cough that tore through me. The cloud continued rushing beneath the door. Someone collapsed on the other side. The impact shook the frame.

I forced myself forward. Each step became harder. My muscles stopped responding correctly. My heart pounded without strength behind it. The bitter scent filled my lungs and spread through my body.

I reached the connecting door and turned the handle. My grip slipped. I tried again. The door opened several inches, and the cloud poured into the hallway.

My knees gave out. I hit the floor hard enough that my phone slipped out of my hand. It landed beside me.

Messages continued appearing in THE PACK.

My vision blurred. The standard chat would not be enough. People muted conversations. Messages could be missed.

I dragged the phone closer and opened the emergency menu.

PACK EMERGENCY BROADCAST

I’d set up the alert when I’d first been exploring the app in case of territorial attacks, missing children, fires, or any event requiring immediate response. It sent an audio alert directly to every contact’s inbox and bypassed muted settings.

I pressed the broadcast button.

“This is Hudson.” The words barely formed. I coughed, the thick air burning in my chest, and leaned closer to the phone. “Something broke in the house. There’s gas or powder in the air. It’s affecting⁠—”

My lungs seized, and I coughed again, losing several seconds as my vision blurred. The cloud was covering the entire hallway now.

I forced my voice into the screen. “Warn everyone. Stay away from the property. Call the council and emergency response. Do not enter without protection.”

The signal crackled. My arm weakened, and the phone slipped against the floorboards as my breathing became faint and uneven.

Another crash echoed from the front, but I couldn’t move. I thought of Sloane. My mind slipped, the edges of my consciousness fraying as the darkness pressed in.

I pressed my face toward the microphone and forced out one last, desperate warning: “Someone attacked the house. Tell Mom⁠—”