I stared at my reflection in the dressing mirror. A disheveled mess stared back—wild hair sticking up at odd angles, dark circles carved deep beneath my eyes like bruises. I looked like I'd been through a war.
Maybe I had.
It was 7:45 AM. I'd barely slept. Two hours, maybe less, spent tossing and turning while my brain replayed everything on an endless loop.
Werewolves are real.
Benny is one.
Alistair is also one.
The entire building is full of them.
And unfortunately, it wasn't a dream.
Everything was real.
Fuck.
I could still feel the weight of all those stares from yesterday as Ieft the building. The employees—pack members—watching me leave, curious and assessing. Like they were trying to figure me out.
The bus ride home had been torture. I'd chosen public transit thinking there was safety in crowds, but then I'd tensed up every time someone got too close. Every brush of a shoulder against mine sent my heart slamming into my ribs.
Paranoia. Who was a wolf among them? Who wasn't? Could they smell me? Did they know where I'd been?
When I finally made it to my apartment, I'd locked everything. Deadbolt. Chain. Even shoved a chair under the doorknob like that would actually stop anything with claws and teeth.
I'd checked under my bed too, half-expecting to see Benny lurking there with golden-rimmed eyes and a beastly body.
Nothing was there.
It felt ridiculous, but I couldn't stop.
In the end, my fear had only allowed me two hours of sleep.
I stood up from the mirror and headed to the bathroom, desperate for the shower to wash away some of this exhaustion.
The warm water cascaded down my stiff body, temporarily relieving the knots in my shoulders. I tilted my head back, letting it soak my hair, and my hand brushed against something cold at my neck.
The silver chain.
I'd put it on yesterday in the bus—cautiously, like it was armor in this newly twisted reality.
But then I frowned.
Wait.
How had Alistair been able to pick it up if he was also a wolf? Shouldn't it have burned him too?
Were hybrids immune to silver?
I sighed and reached for the soap, lathering it over my arms.
What the hell had made Janet so obsessed with this chain from the beginning? Did she know something about lycans?
I finished up and got out of the shower, still deep in thought, and carefully dried my hair with a towel.
The truth was, I knew almost nothing about Janet. Except that she'd absolutely hated me—or at least, it had felt that way. She'd tried to kill me more times than I could count when I was a kid. Fits of rage that came out of nowhere.
But sometimes, in between the chaos, she'd do nice things. Cook my favorite meals. Take me to school. Brush my hair gently before bed.
Janet had always been paranoid. She'd talk to herself incoherently about mindless things, muttering under her breath like she was arguing with invisible people.
And she would call me her wildflower.
"My wildflower," she'd say, her voice soft and distant. "You always grow beautifully no matter where you are. Harsh or calm."
Then she'd panic if the chain wasn't around my neck. 'Protection,' she'd said once, right after beating me so badly I couldn't go to school for a week.
But I'd never hated her. Never resented her.
Because even though she was hard on me, cruel, even, she cared. In her own broken way, she cared.
She was raising me alone. Without a father.
I didn't have a father.
Or at least, I'd never known him.
There was no way to ask Janet what she might have known. She'd developed schizophrenia—or what the doctors called schizophrenia—and later died.
But something clearly wasn't right.
The only person who'd ever been close to my mother was Lindsey. Janet's best friend. My aunt.
I fished my phone out of the mess of blankets on my bed and dialed her number while pulling on a pair of black pants and a navy blue shirt.
Lindsey picked up right before the phone stopped ringing.
"Chloe?" Her voice was cautious, surprised.
"Hey, Aunt Lindsey."
The greeting was awkward. We hadn't spoken in two years.
Lindsey had kept most of Janet's stuff after her death. I hadn't wanted it. I wasn't that close with my mother—even though she was my mother—and it felt like Janet would've wanted Lindsey to have it anyway.
"Is everything okay?" Lindsey asked.
I paced around my room, the phone pressed tight to my ear. "I need to ask you something. About Mom."
A pause. "Okay..."
"Do you remember anything about her that seemed... weird? Off-balance? Out of touch with normal reality?"
Lindsey laughed, but it sounded strained. "Honey, your mother was always out of touch with normal reality."
"I'm serious." I stopped pacing. "She was paranoid, even before the schizophrenia diagnosis. She'd mutter stuff about protection. What was she protecting me from?"
Lindsey tried to backtrack. "Chloe, I don't think—"
"My life is going to be in danger," I cut her off, my voice sharper than I intended. "And the only person who might know something useful is you."
Silence.
Then, quietly: "What do you know?"
"Enough." My chest felt tight. "Please, Aunt Lindsey. I need to understand."
She hesitated. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line.
Finally, she spoke.
"Everything that happened leading to you being conceived and born was... traumatic. Your mother never talked about it much, but when she did, she'd say how terrified she was that you'd end up on the wrong track. She was terrified of them."
I paused, my chest tightening. "Who's 'them'?"
"Do you already know about the shifters?" Lindsey asked carefully.
My stomach dropped. "Yes. I know about the werewolves. Lycans."
Lindsey didn't sound surprised. Like she'd known this conversation would happen eventually.
"Come by my place," she said. "I'll tell you everything. But not over the phone."
"Wait—"
She hung up.
I stared at my phone, more confused than before.
A text notification popped up on the screen.
Alistair: The car is downstairs.
I groaned and ran my hands through my damp hair.
How had my life scrambled into chaos overnight?
Nothing anyone said made sense. And even worse, I was starting to think my mother might have known a werewolf. Maybe even been involved with one.
So many secrets were overlapping, twisting around each other like vines, and I was somehow caught in the middle.
But if there was one thing I knew, it was this:
I was going to find out the truth.
Even if it destroyed me.