Nell waited in the middle of the yard, still as a statue. The breeze toyed with the loose strands of her hair, but she seemed unbothered by it. She stood with her back straight, shoulders tense, fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, revealing anxiety she tried to hide.

  I stepped off the porch and met her halfway. The cold, wet grass brushed against my bare ankles. For a second, we just looked at each other, like two people on opposite sides of a fence.

  The words clawed up my throat before I could stop them.

  "I know," I blurted. "I know everything."

  I shivered. Saying it out loud made everything more real.

  Something in her face shifted. A tiny exhale, like someone had loosened a strap across her chest. Her shoulders lowered a bit, the sharpness of her posture easing by a shade.

  "You know," she repeated softly. "What exactly?"

  "Everything," I said. "I know my family aren't human. That you," I tipped my chin at her, "and your brother are not just popular kids with too much attitude and a weird savior complex." I took a breath. "I know about lupines. And I know what bloodkin is. I know I'm…" I searched for the word. A facsimile, Jack's voice echoed, sour and wrong.

  "Someone who isn't supposed to exist," I said quietly.

  Nell blinked. Her jaw twitched almost imperceptibly, her shoulders loosened a fraction.

  "Okay," she said, voice flattening. "Okay. You know. That's good. That makes things easier."

  "Easier for whom?" I gaped at her. "Because it sure as hell hasn't been easier for me."

  "I know. I mean, I don't." She paused, struggling to regain her slipping composure. She took a breath, straightened again. Her eyes bore into mine as she angled slightly toward me. "If you know about bloodkin, about what you are, then you must know what your scent does to males. To Ethan."

  My throat went dry so fast it actually hurt. Ethan on the boundary flashed into my mind, the way his eyes had gone dark when he saw me, the way Jack had planted himself between us like a wall. The air between them had felt like it might catch fire.

  "Ethan is affected, too." The words escaped my lips.

  She scoffed. "Too? He's the alpha-in-waiting. He's affected most of all."

  "It's not my fault," I snapped, faster than I meant to. The words came out high and harsh. "I didn't ask for any of this."

  Nell didn't flinch. She just watched me with that steady, eerie lupine stillness.

  "No one said it was your fault," she replied. "We don't throw blame around like humans do. It's not useful. It just is." She paused. "But."

  The word hung there, heavier than any accusation.

  "But what?" I asked.

  A small crack opened in her expression, just enough for me to see something underneath the steel.

  "Nell," I said slowly. "What is wrong?"

  For the first time since I had met her, she dropped her gaze.

  When she spoke, her voice was quieter, raw around the edges in a way that made the little hairs at the base of my neck stand up.

  "Ethan isn't okay, Kelsey," she said. "And I don't mean just that he's nervous and restless. He really isn't well." Her jaw clenched. "I came to ask you for a favor."

  That did it. My muscles locked. Nell Greystone, who marched through hallways like they were hers by birthright, who rearranged student paths with a whistle, was standing in my yard asking me for a favor.

  "What kind of favor?" I asked carefully.

  She lifted her eyes. For a heartbeat, I saw not the lupine who was my assigned handler, just a girl with no good options left.

  "First, you need to understand what exactly is happening," she said. She seemed to steady herself. "Your scent affects our males on a very deep level."

  "You don't say," I snorted. I couldn't help it.

  She continued as if she hadn't heard me. Her mouth twisted. "Ethan fought it for as long as he could. He tried to stay away. It didn't work. And that day in the corridor, when things with other males escalated and you bled, it flipped the switch inside him."

  "A switch." I tried to follow and failed. I remembered his pupils swallowing the color of his eyes in the dead-end hallway and shivered.

  "We call it inversion," Nell said, like that explained everything. "It's when a stimulus becomes so strong that it turns the instinct inside out. Then the thing that triggers you also becomes the thing that calms you."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning his brain adapted to the stimulus and now actively craves it," Nell said. "When you're in range, his head is less bad. His self-control is better. The further and longer away you are, the worse and more messed up he gets. His rational mind steps back and instinct takes over the wheel." She let out a breath in a foggy cloud. "You saw him the other day at the boundary, pacing. You tell me."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I swallowed. The image of him pacing the property line reignited before my eyes. The way he'd looked at me like I was both a lifeline and a cliff.

  "School is holding," Nell went on. "For now. He and I have put everyone in order." Her nostrils flared in irritation. "But that was before you stayed home for days. Now his composure is cracking. It's only a matter of time before others start noticing." A shadow passed over her face. "He nearly lost it in the hunt the other day," she whispered. "Snarled at Lara in front of her parents. My father is not stupid. Mom isn't blind. They sense something is off. We spun it, blamed the whiff of the bloodkin. It worked. For now. But if my father realizes what's really happening, he'll act. And the Winterses will jump right in."

  "The Winterses," I said. "You mean Lara's family. The blonde girl."

  Nell gave a grim nod. "They've wanted leverage on us for years. An heir who isn't stable is leverage and excuse in one. And on the other side, there are the Blackwells. Your grandfather is not a man who lets things slide when his blood is involved."

  The voice of my other grandfather, Grandpa Gerard, suddenly echoed in my ear. Civilized world, real schools, normal people. I saw a quick, sharp image of him walking into Cold Creek with lawyers and court orders, tearing my life away from the roots.

  It should have felt like hope. It didn't.

  My gaze slid, uninvited, to the tree line.

  Out there, under that too-still canopy, my father was losing himself to the shadows.

  I couldn't leave. Not while he was out there in God knows what condition. Without knowing if he'd ever come back.

  The very thought made me sick and cold.

  "So what exactly are you asking of me?" I said. "Spell it out."

  Nell inhaled slowly, like she was bracing for impact.

  "I'm asking you to come back to school," she said. "Properly. Every day. Not just show up and hide, not just sit in the back and pretend you aren't there. I'm asking you to let Ethan be near enough that his head stays above water."

  I stared at her. "Let him be near," I repeated flatly.

  "Within reason," she said quickly. "You wouldn't be alone with him. I'll be there. He won't hurt you, Kelsey. But distance is killing him faster than proximity."

  A humorless laugh scraped my throat. "So the plan is what? I become his human crutch?"

  Nell's lips pressed together. "The plan is to keep him from snapping in the middle of a hallway full of subordinates and potential challengers," she said. "Because if that happens, his life is over. And probably yours. And probably a lot of other people's too."

  I wrapped my arms around myself, fingers digging into my sleeves.

  "What if being near me makes it worse?" I said. "What if this thing escalates further? What if he stops stabilizing and just… loses it altogether?"

  Nell waved a hand.

  "We're already past that. We need to contain the fire before it blows like a volcano."

  "This is insane," I whispered. "I'm not part of your pack. I'm just a girl who wanted to go to a normal school and have some resemblance of a normal life. I didn't sign up to be the weird scent-bomb thing that drives supernatural creatures crazy."

  "And I didn't sign up for my brother to go unhinged, to jeopardize his sanity, his life, his position, our family, the entire pack!" Her voice rose for the first time, cracking.

  Nell was falling apart before my eyes, and it was terrifying. It was like watching a monument crumble.

  "Okay, let's say I say yes," I asked. "Hypothetically. Then what?"

  Nell exhaled. It made a small white cloud in the cold air. She steadied herself, shoulders straightening.

  "Then we buy time," she said. "We keep him steady long enough to figure out how this thing behaves between lupine and bloodkin. Long enough for us to build covers and routines, to decide what to tell our parents, if anything. Long enough for you to decide what you want without a threat of being mauled in the corridor breathing down your neck."

  The world felt too full. Too loud.

  "I'm not responsible for what's happening with your brother," I said. "I know that. In my head, at least."

  "I know," Nell said.

  "But if he falls apart because I stay away," I went on, my voice fraying, "if people get hurt because I refuse to help, I'm not sure I will ever be able to live with that either."

  We stood there in the yard, two girls who should have been fighting about boys and homework and grades, and instead we were negotiating the terms of a ceasefire between instincts and survival.

  "Do you trust him not to hurt me?" I asked. "Honestly?"

  Nell's jaw worked. "Kelsey. He's in such a state that he would put himself between you and anything with teeth without thinking," she said. "Even his own people."

  "That is not the full answer," I said quietly.

  Her eyes flickered. "It's the best one I can give."

  Cold slid along my spine.

  "So," Nell broke the silence. "Will you help me keep Ethan from going berserk in the middle of math class?"

  "This is so messed up," I huffed. "On so many levels."

  "Agreed," Nell said.

  "All right," I heard myself say. The word felt like stepping off something high. "I'll come back to school. Properly. I'll be where I'm supposed to be. I won't ignore your texts anymore. I won't pretend none of this is happening."

  Nell's shoulders dropped another fraction. Some of the tension bled out of her stance, leaving behind a tiredness that made her look older.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "Don't," I replied, sharper than I meant. "Don't say it like I'm doing some noble thing. You're asking me to be near a guy whose body thinks I'm both a meal and a drug. I'm only doing this so my family doesn't get caught in the crossfire." I bit the edge of my tongue as the lie spilled too clean. Because it was easier not to delve into the mess of whatever it was that existed between Ethan and me. It was easier to pretend that it wasn't there.

  Her mouth pulled to the side. "Motives aren't important," she said. "Results are."

  "Spoken like a truly terrifying lupine girl," I muttered.

  Something almost like a smile ghosted across her face. It vanished a moment later.

  She went still. Her entire body, breath, even her eyes, quieted in one smooth drop. Her head turned sharply toward the trees.

  A split second later, the screen door banged open behind me.

  "What is it?" I asked, even though my body was already tensing in answer to something my human ears had not caught.

  Elise didn't answer immediately. She strode out onto the porch, braid contrasting against her pale blouse, her gaze locked on the same patch of forest as Nell's. The dish towel from earlier still hung from her hand, forgotten.

  "Hailey, stay inside," she called over her shoulder, her voice calm and firm at once.

  Tiny feet pattered somewhere behind the door. I heard the faint echo of a cartoon jingle.

  Nell's nostrils flared. Her hand curled at her side, fingers flexing like she wanted claws and did not have them at the moment.

  "What is happening?" I asked again, louder.

  Elise stepped off the porch. She moved with the same unsettling, absolute certainty as always, only faster, muscles coiled tight under her skin.

  "They are here," she said, her voice low.

  For one wild second I thought she meant the pack, the Winterses, something out of the nightmare category. Then her eyes flicked to me, and whatever lay there made my skin crawl.

  "Who is here?" I whispered.

  Elise's jaw tightened.

  "It's Jack," she said, the look on her face not joy but caution, sending chills down my spine. "He's found your father."