Mira's POV
Mira knew they were coming.
She'd read the note. She'd held the dead bird in her hand and understood exactly what it meant. And when night fell and the basement went dark and quiet, she knew: tonight was the night they'd make good on it.
She went to the bathroom anyway.
Not because she was brave. Not because she had a plan. Because the note said leave or we'll make you, and Mira Ashford did not leave.
Not anymore.
The bathroom was empty when she walked in.
Or it looked empty. Stone walls. Cold air. The faint drip of water somewhere she couldn't see. She moved to the sink, turned on the tap, and splashed water on her face. Normal. Calm. The kind of calm that comes from already expecting the worst.
The door behind her clicked.
Not slammed. Not thrown open. Just — clicked. A small, deliberate sound. The kind of sound a lock makes when someone on the other side turns it.
Mira lifted her head. Looked in the mirror.
Three girls stood behind her.
They'd come out of the bathroom stalls. All three of them. Quiet as ghosts, stepping into the open space like they'd been waiting there for a long time.
The one in the middle was the tallest. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. A jaw set hard with something that wasn't just anger — it was frustration. The kind that builds over years.
"You're making us look bad, human." Her voice was flat. Not cruel. Almost tired. "Do you have any idea what you're doing here?"
Mira turned around. Slowly. Facing them.
"Enlighten me," she said.
The girl's lip curled. "Alphas don't notice Omegas. That's how it works. That's how it's ALWAYS worked. We are invisible. We survive because no one looks at us." She stepped closer. "Then YOU show up. A human. With no wolf. No scent. No nothing. And suddenly three Alphas are watching you like you're the only person in the room."
She shook her head. Something almost like hurt crossed her face before the anger covered it back up.
"You're breaking everything. And we're the ones who'll pay for it."
The other two girls shifted.
Not all the way. Not into full wolves. But enough — enough that their bodies changed shape, their fingers curled into something sharper, their eyes catching the light in a way that wasn't human anymore. They moved to either side of Mira. Blocking the door. Blocking the sink. Blocking everything.
Mira's back hit the wall.
No powers. No weapon. No way out. The same position she'd been in on the cliff in the Trials — except this time, there was no branch to grab. No sharp edge. No lucky angle.
This time, she had nothing.
The leader shifted too. Slower. More deliberate. Her bones cracked and reformed, her face stretching, her body dropping lower, wider, more wolf than girl. She circled once. Twice. The sound of her claws on the stone floor was the only noise in the room.
Mira pressed her back harder against the wall. Her heart was slamming against her ribs. She could feel the note still in her pocket, folded tight, the ink pressed deep into the paper.
Leave. Or we'll make you.
The wolf lunged.
The world turned white.
Not bright — not the white of light. The white of something ELSE. Something that filled the room so fast and so completely that for one full second, Mira couldn't see anything at all. Then the sound hit — a crack so loud it rattled the stones, so deep it shook the floor beneath her feet, and the air itself seemed to SPLIT.
Lightning.
It exploded through the doorway like something alive — cracking across the ceiling, crawling down the walls, filling every corner of the room with silver-blue fire. The three wolves didn't just stop. They flinched — all of them, at the same time — like something had hit them hard.
And in the doorway, filling it completely, stood Kieran.
Electricity poured off him. Not from his hands. From everywhere — his arms, his shoulders, his chest, the space around his body like a second skin. It crackled and spat and writhed, wild and uncontrolled, and his eyes were glowing. Silver. Bright. Blazing with something that went beyond anger.
He wasn't calm. Not even close. The power around him was shaking.
"Touch her again," he said, "and I'll kill you myself."
His voice didn't rise. Didn't shake. It was quiet. Flat. The way a blade sounds when it slides out of its cover.
It was the most frightening thing Mira had ever heard.
The leader — still half-shifted, still crouched — looked at Kieran. Really looked. And something in her face went pale underneath the fur, underneath the wolf, underneath everything.
She didn't argue. Didn't growl. Didn't bare her teeth.
She turned and ran.
The other two followed. They didn't shift back. Didn't stop to explain or defend or pretend this hadn't happened. They just ran — scrambling past Kieran in the doorway, giving him a wide berth, disappearing into the dark hallway like they'd never been there at all.
The door swung shut behind them.
The lightning faded.
It didn't disappear all at once. It pulled back slowly, drawing inward, retreating into Kieran's body until the room was just a room again — cold stone, dripping water, the faint smell of ozone hanging in the air like a ghost.
Kieran stood in the doorway. His chest was rising and falling faster than it should have been. His hands were still half-curled, fingers twitching with the last sparks of electricity. His eyes dimmed from silver to something darker. Something tired.
He looked at Mira.
She looked back.
Neither of them moved for a long time.
Then he stepped inside. Slow. Careful. The way you move around something you're afraid of — or afraid for.
"Why did you come here?" His voice was different now. The flatness was gone. Underneath it was something raw. Something that sounded almost like pain. "You're going to get killed."
Mira straightened up off the wall. She was shaking — her hands, her legs, the place where adrenaline had flooded her body and was now draining out all at once. But her voice was steady when she spoke.
"I have my reasons."
Something moved behind his eyes. Recognition. Understanding. He knew she wasn't just talking about tonight.
He closed the distance between them in two steps. His hand closed around her wrist — firm, sudden, and warm in a way that surprised her. She could feel his pulse through his fingers. Fast. Almost frantic.
His jaw tightened. His mouth opened.
"You're my—"
He stopped.
The word hung in the air between them, unfinished, heavy as a stone. His eyes locked on hers — and for one second, the mask was completely gone. There was nothing left but the thing underneath: the fear, the pull, the desperate, furious need to say what he couldn't say.
Then he let go.
His hand dropped from her wrist like it burned him. He stepped back. One step. Two. His face shut down — the mask slamming back into place so fast it was almost audible. Cold. Closed. Completely in control.
"Stay away from me," he said.
His voice was flat again. Empty. The voice of someone who had just made a decision and hated it.
"I can't protect you."
He turned. Walked out. The door closed behind him without a sound.
Mira stood alone in the bathroom. The water was still running in the sink. The drip somewhere in the walls still dripped. The world kept going, the same as it had been five minutes ago, like nothing had changed.
But something had changed.
She looked down at her wrist.
Where Kieran had grabbed her — where his fingers had closed tight and his pulse had raced against her skin — there was a mark.
It hadn't been there before.
A crescent moon. Silver. Thin and precise, like it had been drawn with a blade. It sat on the inside of her wrist, right where the skin was thinnest, and it was burning — not with pain, exactly. With something else. Something warm and alive and impossible to ignore.
Mira stared at it.
The mark pulsed once. Softly. Like a heartbeat.
And somewhere in the back of her mind — in the place where her mother's voice sometimes spoke — she heard something that might have been a whisper.
Now they'll know.