Everly's POV
I threw the tranquilizer gun up and aimed it straight at the window.
The man outside didn't move. Didn't flinch. He just stood there in the snow with that slow, cold smile, his eyes locked on mine through the glass like he had all the time in the world and found this whole thing amusing.
My hands were shaking. I made them stop.
"Get away from my clinic," I said, loud enough for him to hear through the window.
He tilted his head. Then he held up one hand, not surrendering, more like a teacher asking for patience, and pointed at Silver.
Then he drew his finger slowly across his throat.
My stomach dropped.
Silver made that sound again. The deep, ancient warning that vibrated in my chest more than my ears. He was up on his front legs despite everything, despite the stitches and the blood loss and the fact that he'd nearly died twice tonight. His lips were pulled back. His eyes were locked on the man outside.
The man looked at Silver, and for just a second, the smile disappeared.
Then he stepped back into the dark and was gone.
I stood there with the tranquilizer gun raised at an empty window for probably thirty seconds before I remembered to breathe.
I checked every lock for the second time that night. I pushed the heavy supply cabinet in front of the back door. I tried the sheriff again, still voicemail, and then tried the non-emergency police line, which rang so long I gave up.
Christmas Eve in a small mountain town. Of course.
By the time I'd done everything I could think of to do, my legs were giving out under me. The adrenaline that had been holding me upright for the past several hours was gone, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that made even the short walk across the room feel difficult.
I pulled the chair close to Silver's cage close enough to hear him, close enough to react if anything changed, and sat down. Just for a few minutes. I told myself that very firmly. Just a few minutes, and then I'd stay awake and alert and keep watch like a responsible person.
I was asleep in under a minute.
The dream started quietly, which was how I knew something was wrong with it.
My dreams were never quiet. They were usually chaos, missed appointments, sick animals I couldn't save, that recurring nightmare about the night my family died that I'd had since I was nine years old. They were loud and fast and left me waking up exhausted.
This was still. A forest at night, snow on every branch, the air cold and clean. No wind. No sound except my own footsteps.
I didn't question why I was walking. I just walked.
The trees here were different from the ones outside town, older, bigger, the kind that made you feel small in a way that wasn't frightening, just honest. Like they'd been here long before you arrived and would be here long after, and they didn't hold that against you.
Then I heard it. A voice.
Everly.
Not loud. Not close. Somewhere ahead, moving through the trees like it was part of the forest itself. Low and steady, the kind of voice that makes you feel like everything is going to be okay even when nothing has been okay for a very long time.
I walked faster.
Everly. Don't be afraid.
"I'm not afraid," I said, and the strange thing was that I meant it. Standing alone in a dark forest in the middle of the night, I wasn't afraid. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this calm.
The trees thinned ahead. I stepped into a clearing.
A wolf stood in the center. Silver. But different, not injured, not lying on a clinic table with forty-six stitches holding him together. Standing tall, his fur catching the moonlight, those pale blue eyes watching me with an attention that made my chest ache.
And then he wasn't a wolf.
It happened between one blink and the next, the way things shift in dreams where you don't question the rules. He was a wolf, and then he was a man, tall, dark-haired, with those same impossible pale blue eyes looking at me across the snow.
I couldn't see his face clearly. The dream kept blurring the edges when I tried to focus.
But I heard him.
You saved my life. A pause. I won't forget that.
"Who are you?" I asked.
You'll know soon enough.
"That's not an answer."
Something that might have been a smile. No. It's a promise.
He took one step toward me, and the dream cracked, the way ice splits under weight, sudden and total, spreading in every direction at once
I woke up with a sharp breath, grabbing the armrests of the chair so hard my knuckles went white.
The clinic was quiet. Grey morning light was pressing through the window. The storm had stopped.
Christmas morning.
My neck ached from sleeping upright. My mouth was dry. For three full seconds, I sat completely still, letting the dream drain away and reality settle back in the clinic smell, the sound of the heat struggling through the old vents, the weight of the tranquilizer gun still in my lap.
Then I looked at the cage.
Silver was watching me.
Not the alert, tense watch of last night, ears pinned, every muscle ready. He was lying calmly, head resting on his front paws, eyes tracking my face with that steady, knowing attention that never quite felt like an animal's attention. It was peaceful in a way that made the tightness in my chest loosen without my permission.
"Morning," I said. My voice came out rough from sleep.
He blinked slowly.
I got up and checked his vitals before I did anything else. It was the first thing I always did, and right now it was the thing keeping me from thinking too hard about blue eyes in a dark forest and a voice that promised things.
His pulse was stronger than last night. Temperature almost normal. The wounds were closed clean, no new bleeding, no sign of the black lines I'd watched dissolve under my hand in the dark. I pressed gently along his side and he stayed completely still, watching my face, not flinching.
"You're healing faster than you should be," I told him. "You know that, right? By all logic, you should still be in crisis. Instead, you look like you slept fine."
He looked entirely unbothered by this information.
I almost laughed. Almost.
I was filling his water dish when I noticed the footprints.
Outside the window. In the fresh snow from last night's storm. Multiple sets, circling the building, coming close to every door and every window. They'd been here while I was asleep. While I was dreaming about blue eyes and a man who knew my name.
They'd been right outside, and I hadn't heard a thing.
My hands went still.
One set of prints was different from the others. Deeper. Larger. Coming right up to the back door and stopping. Like someone had stood there for a long time, deciding.
Then I looked at the back door.
The supply cabinet I'd pushed against it last night, the heavy one, metal and full, too heavy for me to move without straining, was sitting three feet from the door.
Pushed aside. From the inside.
The door's deadbolt was locked. The chain was on. No sign of forced entry.
But the cabinet had moved.
Silver made a soft sound behind me. I turned around slowly.
He was looking directly at me. And somehow, completely impossibly, it felt like an apology.