Chapter 4

Fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks of sitting in this room, staring at the same square of window, refusing to go down for meals because I couldn't bear the pity on my parents' faces — or worse, the silence. I hadn't eaten at that table since the hospital. I couldn't. My days blurred into each other — the same wheelchair, the same view, the same hours spent replaying every moment with Jason, searching for the exact instant I should have known. I never found it. Maybe that was the worst part.

My mind drifted to Jason—all his promises, all his affection, everything he'd made me feel. Hot tears slipped down my cheeks. I was heaving, unaware of anything around me. It hurt. It hurt so badly.

My father appeared at the door; I hadn't heard him knock. "I promise you, I will find Jason. I will get him. I promise you, baby girl, you will hurt no more."

"But Dad, I can't even walk. I'm on a wheelchair. It's been fourteen weeks now. I don't know how I'll survive this." I sobbed bitterly.

Dad looked at me and knelt beside my chair. His eyes were teary too. "It's okay, baby girl. It's okay. Your brothers and I are searching everywhere, far and wide, looking for him."

"Dad, his name was never Jason." My voice cracked. "His name was never Jason. If you want to find him, what ID do you have? He disappeared like smoke. Even the woman—Mara, or whoever she was—I don't even know."

Dad's jaw tightened, but there was no surprise in his face — only the grim look of a man hearing a wound described that he already knew was there. "I know," he said quietly. "The doctors told us. Even his workplace only knew a name that wasn't his."

"Mason," I whispered. Not even that had been real.

A memory surfaced, unbidden — Trinidad's voice, months ago, low and certain: "There's something off about him. I don't trust it." I'd rolled my eyes at him then. I'd been so sure I knew better.

I dissolved into fresh tears, and I hated myself for it — for how long I'd already cried over a man who had never once told me the truth.

"Calm down," Dad said softly. "You'll see. Trust me."

I wanted to believe him. I so desperately wanted to. But it had been weeks now, and every lead had gone nowhere. A man with no real name, no real job, no real past — how could anyone find someone who had never actually existed?

I'd been so consumed by love—or lust—that I'd never visited his house, never checked his details, never asked the questions that might have saved me from this.

Dad's shoulders shook. He pressed his head to my lap and sobbed like a child. I sobbed too.

My mother couldn't bring herself to enter my room; she couldn't bear to see me suffering in this wheelchair. One evening, she came to the door with a tray of food, her eyes teary but her voice gentle, and set it down at the table without quite looking at me. "You need to eat," she said softly. Then she turned and left before I could respond.

My brother Trinidad had gone silent—refusing to speak, refusing to eat with the family. Paschal wouldn't even come up to my room. Some nights, his footsteps stopped right outside my door, lingered there for a long moment, then retreated down the stairs without a word.

Dad left and I was alone.

I sat there long after his footsteps faded, staring at the empty doorway. The grief was still there, heavy and familiar, but underneath it something else had started to stir — something colder, harder. I thought of my father's head in my lap, sobbing like a child over a man whose real name we didn't even know. I thought of fourteen weeks trapped in a body that used to be mine. The sadness didn't leave. It just stopped being the only thing I felt.

By 10 p.m., I was still sitting by the window when a blue surge of light circled my hand, my wrist, my arms, its energy coursed through my veins and warmth flooded my spine. My feet lifted from the wheelchair seat. The ground fell away and my chair sat empty below me while I hung suspended in the air. My mouth opened but nothing came out.

The light stretched me—every organ, every bone. My legs straightened. My spine aligned. I stood. Energy surged through my veins. My muscles responded. My lungs expanded without resistance.

An invisible force pulled me toward the bush and my feet crossed the floor. The house was silent and Trinidad's car was gone from the driveway. Upstairs, my parents' footsteps creaked above and Pascal's empty chair sat by the door—his jacket missing from the hook.

I walked. Then faster. Then I was running—truly running. My legs pumped beneath me. My lungs burned. Wind rushed past my face. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Oh my God, I'm healed. I can run. My thoughts raced faster and suddenly, my body contorted as my bones shifted beneath my skin. A dull ache radiated through my limbs, like the worst flu of my life. I gritted my teeth but didn't scream.

My skin prickled as fur sprouted. Heat flooded my chest, spreading outward. It wasn't unbearable—more like stepping into a sauna after months in the cold.

I looked down at my hands and was horrified when I saw claws and white fur. I stumbled toward the stream. My new legs were unsteady but functional then the water's surface came into view.

A white wolf stared back at me from the reflection. Blue eyes. The same blue energy that lifted me up back home alive and pulsing.

I stumbled back, my breath catching. This wasn't possible. This couldn't be me. And yet every part of this creature moved when I moved, blinked when I blinked. Terror and something dangerously close to wonde r tangled together in my chest.

I am a werewolf.