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Move them.

Go back.

“I have to⁠—”

“Sloane, look.”

She turned me toward the lawn. People covered the grass. Responders moved among them with masks, tanks, blankets, and medical bags.

Grandpa coughed into a towel while Grandma held his hand. Jason had regained consciousness. Julie sat beside Caldwell, who was wrapped in a blanket and breathing through an oxygen mask. Hilary sat beside them.

Trevor stood nearby, crying openly and pretending he wasn’t.

Hudson was still unconscious, but his breathing had strengthened beneath the oxygen mask.

The council responders had both houses contained. Windows stood open. The smoke had begun clearing. Everyone was outside.

I blinked.

The world returned all at once. The shouting. The smell. The cut on my arm. My burning lungs. Pain through every muscle.

Patty still held me. “You got them out.”

I looked at Hudson. At Caldwell. At the family scattered across the grass.

Safe.

My knees stopped supporting me. Patty tried to catch me, but I dropped hard onto the ground. Gravel dug into my skin through my leggings. I didn’t care.

“I got them out.”

“Yes.”

The answer broke through the last of the panic.

I covered my face. Tears came before I could stop them. Patty sat beside me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I leaned into her, coughing and crying until I could no longer separate one from the other.

Across the lawn, Hudson lay under the open sky. He was alive.

Every person I had deceived, disappointed, and loved was still breathing.

They might never forgive me. Hudson might wake up and ask me to leave. Grandma Ruth might never add another capitalized message beneath mine. Caldwell might turn away the next time I reached for him.

I had no control over any of that. For once, I understood that I wasn’t supposed to.

They would make their choices, and I would live with them.

But everyone was safe.

Even if I never spoke to any member of the pack again, even if this was the final moment I occupied their land, I hadn’t left them inside those houses.

23

HUDSON

THE ONBOARDING PROCESS WAS EXHAUSTING

Consciousness returned in fragments. Cold air against my face. Grass beneath my hand. Someone coughing nearby. A pressure over my mouth and nose that vanished the moment I tried to pull away from it.