I didn't sleep at all that night.

  Hailey passed out sometime after midnight, when the growls and rumbles outside quieted. One moment she was sobbing into my shoulder, the next her breaths had gone soft and even, Mr. Winkle crushed between us like a sandbag. I carried her to the couch, tucked a blanket around her, and sat on the floor beside her, back against the coffee table, staring at the dark window.

  All around us the house murmured like a living organism. Old pipes. The fridge. The occasional creak that might have been the wind. Every time the silence stretched too long, my muscles spasmed, waiting for another sound from the yard. Another scrape of claws against the door. Another broken whimper.

  None came.

  At some point the black outside the window turned into smudged gray. Then lighter gray. I watched it like it was a show I couldn't turn off.

  My eyes burned, dry and full of sand. When I closed them, the afterimage of the house, the couch, Hailey's tangled hair remained stamped on the inside of my eyelids.

  Somewhere around the moment the first thin streak of pale light slid across the ceiling, I heard it.

  The front door.

  The soft thud of it closing, the quiet clunk of the lock, footsteps shuffling around.

  My heart sprang so hard it hurt. I was on my feet before my brain caught up, stumbling out of the living room on legs that felt like wet cardboard.

  Elise stood just inside the door, one hand still on the knob.

  For the first time since I had met her, she looked exhausted. Shadows bloomed under her eyes. A streak of dried mud ran along the hem of her pants. There was a tear in the sleeve of her blouse that had not been there yesterday.

  She still stood straight. Her shoulders were still squared. Her mouth still set. But the mask had slipped enough that I could see the strain underneath.

  "Is he," my voice broke on the first word, came out too high. I swallowed and tried again. "Is Dad… back?"

  Elise closed the door gently, like noise might break something fragile.

  "He is here," she said. "He's with Jack."

  "Where?" I demanded. "In the forest, in the yard, where is here?"

  She hesitated, and that single hitch made my stomach drop.

  "In the barn," she said at last. "For now."

  The world tilted, just a little. I grabbed the edge of the hallway table to steady myself.

  "You locked him up," I whispered.

  "It's not a prison." Her voice stayed calm, but her fingers tightened on the towel draped over her arm, wringing it once before she stilled them. "It's containment." A pause. "The forest amplifies instinct. Pack territory, family, anchors reason. He's closer to us now, closer to you and Hailey, and it's helping the fragments align."

  Fragments. Align.

  Like his mind was a broken mirror someone was trying to glue back together in the dark.

  I forced breath into my lungs. "What does that mean, exactly?"

  "It means he isn't feral anymore," she said. "He is no longer running away, nor is he trying to claw through walls. He hears us. He responds. He knows, most of the time, who and where he is. The more time he spends near home, the more his human mind will regain ground. But..."

  There it was, the word I'd been waiting for.

  "But?" I asked.

  "But he isn't ready to be around you girls yet," Elise finished. "He can feel you. Even from out there. It calms his mind. Unfortunately, it also agitates his instincts. Until his mind is properly aligned, we keep a barrier. Physical. Lockable."

  My throat hurt. "So the plan is to keep him in a cage like what? A rabid dog?"

  Her jaw tightened. For a heartbeat, something flashed in her eyes that looked like offense, then grief washed it out.

  "The plan," she said, "is that your father doesn't accidentally hurt the people he loves the most and doesn't get himself killed by someone who won't see the difference between bond sickness and common madness. The barn is a line that protects us all, Gabriel included. For now."

  For now.

  Everything was for now.

  None of this was the scene I had replayed in my head all night. No Dad walking through the door, tired but human. No hug that would make my ribs hurt in that good way that always made me feel safe. No whispered I'm so sorry, pup, I'm back, it is over.

  Instead, I got fragments aligning and a padlock on the barn.

  And still, under the disappointment, something small and stubborn sparked in my chest.

  Despite everything, he was home.

  Not miles away. Not lost among the endless trees.

  Not in the house, perhaps, but close enough.

  "How long," I whispered. "Until he's… you know, himself again?"

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  "I don't know," she answered. The tired honesty made me want to scream. "We take it hour by hour. That's all we can do right now."

  My mind pressed against my skull, overfull, like someone had poured too much water into a glass and it was just sitting there, tense, strained, waiting for the slightest nudge to spill.

  "Hailey's still asleep," I said, because it was easier than asking the real questions. "She cried herself out."

  Elise's face softened around the mouth, the muscles there easing a fraction. "Let her sleep," she murmured. "She'll need her strength."

  So will you, hung in the air, unspoken.

  I nodded, because I didn't know what else to say.

  A beat of silence stretched, thin.

  Something inside me shifted.

  "I can't sit here all day," I blurted. "Listening. Waiting. Wondering what is happening a hundred feet away beyond the closed door. I can't. I'll go crazy."

  Elise's brows drew together. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm going to school," I said. The words surprised me as much as her. Once they were out, they felt right. Heavy, but right. "I need something that is not… this."

  Her eyes searched my face, taking in the dark smudges under my eyes, the tremor in my hands, the way my shoulders hovered somewhere up near my ears.

  "The Greystone girl that came yesterday," she said slowly. "She asked you to return."

  I swallowed. Remembered the fear in Nell's eyes, the way her voice had cracked around Ethan's name. The way I had said yes, feeling like I was stepping off a cliff.

  "Yes," I said.

  Elise nodded once, like a piece of a puzzle had just slotted into place. "All right. Go then," she said. "Stay close to her. Don't wander off alone. Listen to everything she says. And, Kelsey…" Her gaze sharpened. "Remember what your grandfather said to you, keep your distance from the Greystone boy."

  Ethan. That's right. She didn't know about the current state of Ethan's condition. And if I'd understood Nell's warnings correctly, it needed to stay that way.

  I nodded, then turned toward the stairs, but stopped. "Can I see Dad? Just once. Just for a second. Through the barn door. Just to know."

  "No," she said. The answer fell like an axe. Firm. Unnegotiable.

  Anger flared, hot and useless. "He is my father."

  "And my son," she replied, voice low. "And Hailey and you are my granddaughters." She let out an exasperated breath. "Have you heard the words I've been saying? I'm not denying you because I'm cruel. I'm denying you because I love you all and I know what it will do to him, and to you, if you look at each other like this. Trust me on this. Not as a lupine. As your grandmother."

  The fight leaked out of me, slow and reluctant. I nodded, because arguing more would only make me cry, and I had cried enough for one week.

  Upstairs, I changed into jeans and a sweater that did not smell too much like last night. The mirror over the dresser showed a girl with hollow eyes and hair that had given up trying. I pulled it into a messy knot and pretended it helped.

  Dad's car keys hung on the hook by the door. My fingers hesitated a second before closing around them.

  The metal was cold. Solid. Real.

  "You know how to drive?" Elise asked behind me, slightly worried.

  "Yeah," I said. An image of Dad in the passenger seat, yelling at other drivers and pretending he was calm, flashed through my mind.

  Something flickered in her eyes, a tiny, pained, almost-smile. "Road to school is straight," she said. "Few cars. You will be fine."

  I wasn't sure whether she meant on the road or in general.

  Hailey still slept, curled on the couch, thumb near her mouth, Mr. Winkle under her chin. I stood there for a moment, watching her chest rise and fall, the way her lashes lay on her cheeks. My throat closed.

  "I'll be back," I whispered, more to myself than to her. "Don't burn anything while I am gone."

  Outside, the air was cold and moist. The barn loomed at the edge of my vision, a darker shape against the trees. I didn't look at it. My eyes wanted to. I kept them on the car.

  When I opened the driver's door, I was hit by the smell of pine air freshener, mixed with the faint hint of oil and sawdust from his boots.

  For a heartbeat, the urge to crumble right there in the driveway was overwhelming.

  What if Dad heard me leave? Would he understand? Would some part of him know I wasn't abandoning him?

  I pushed the thought away. I couldn't keep doing this to myself.

  I slid behind the wheel and gripped it until my knuckles went white. The seat belt clicked. The engine turned over with a familiar little cough.

  Normal.

  It felt obscene.

  I pulled my phone out with shaking hands and quickly typed a message to Nell:

  Coming in today.

  A few seconds later, the screen lit up.

  Good.

  We'll meet you in the parking lot.

  My heart ticked faster at the plural.

  I put the phone face down on the passenger seat before I could talk myself out of it and eased the car down the gravel drive.

  ***

  The road to Cold Creek High tunneled between trees. Weak stripes of sunlight sneaking their way through the thick branches. My hands clenched the wheel. My foot pressed the pedals. My eyes checked the rearview mirror, the speedometer, the curve ahead.

  I couldn't remember a single actual minute of the drive.

  My head ran in loops.

  Dad's eyes, reflecting moonlight.

  Elise's voice, fragments aligning.

  Jack's warning, this will end in blood.

  Nell's fear, Ethan is not well.

  Grandpa Gerard, half a world away, offering escape that didn't feel like escape at all.

  By the time the school parking lot came into view, my stomach felt like a Gordian knot.

  It was nearly empty. A handful of cars were scattered here and there. Thin groups of students loitered near the entrance, shoulders hunched against the cold, some with backpacks slung carelessly over one shoulder.

  Two lone figures stood at the middle of the otherwise empty lot. A wide ring of empty space surrounded them, like someone had drawn an invisible circle on the asphalt and everyone else had unconsciously obeyed it.

  Nell stood with her hands in her jacket pockets, weight on one leg, hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her jaw was set tight. Her eyes flicked toward me the second my car pulled in, like she had heard the engine from a mile away.

  Beside her, slightly in front, was Ethan.

  Even at a distance, my body reacted before my brain took notice.

  Pulse jumped, breath hitched. That stupid, traitorous awareness was suddenly there, reignited. Like it only turned on when he was close.

  He looked… different. Frayed.

  The lines of his face were sharper, like he had been missing sleep. Shadows carved hollows under his eyes. His shoulders were coiled so tight they looked painful. Even from inside the car I could see the tension in his hands, fingers flexing, unflexing in agitation.

  Then I saw his eyes.

  The irises were still that amber gold, but the pupils, they were huge. Blown wide, nearly swallowing the color.

  For a heartbeat I forgot how to inhale.

  What if this was a mistake?

  What if getting out of the car was the stupidest thing I'd ever done?

  If Elise and Jack were right, if I was literally a walking scent bomb, if the only thing between Ethan and a complete break was his own fragile will, then what the hell was I doing coming closer? This was insanity.

  Nell's gaze hooked into mine, steady and sharp.

  I forced my hand to move, turned off the engine. The silence that rushed in was worse.

  I opened the door and stepped out.

  Cool air hit my face. My breath puffed white. For a second, everything around me blurred at the edges, like a camera focusing on only one thing.

  Ethan.

  He had turned fully toward me. His entire attention snapped into place with an intensity that felt physical, like a hand closing around the center of my chest. The rest of the parking lot, the school, the other kids, all of it faded into background noise.

  His nostrils flared once, fast and sharp, and those dark, overblown pupils pulsed.

  His jaw, which had been locked so hard I could see the muscle jumping from here, loosened a bit. His shoulders dropped half an inch, barely enough to notice unless you were looking for it.

  A shadow of something moved over his face, something too quick to name. Or perhaps it was too many things to count.

  The corners of his mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile, not really. Just a tiny, involuntary lift.

  "Finally," he said.

  And his eyes, those endless pools of black, lit up like stars.