The hospital was weird. Too quiet in places, too loud in others, as if the walls and the halls breathed. My heart kept slamming in my ears, drowning out the yells and the whispers of the pack shoving in around us.
"She brought it," a voice hissed.
"She's cursed," another hissed.
"Don't let her go!"
Their voices piled upon me like stones, adding more and more weight with every passing second. I couldn't breathe. My name kept blighting the glass at my back in fat red letters, as though the wolf had slashed my soul from my body into the window for all to see.
"Sera," I whispered, trying to find my voice.
Seraphina didn't hesitate. She grabbed my wrist so hard. Her grip was the only thing keeping me from collapsing beneath their accusations. Her voice cut sharp and fierce through the chaos.
"We're leaving," she ordered. "Now." "Where?" My voice cracked with panic.
"Anywhere. Just move."
And then Mia showed up. She stood between the pack and me. Her calm was terrifying. She didn't scream or scold. She simply spoke, and the chaos surrounding us fell still for an instant.
"If she stays, she's theirs. If she runs, she's still marked." Mia's gaze locked with mine, her tone measured, heavy. "But running can provide her time. And time… is everything."
The pack hesitated, torn between fury and fear, and left us with a slim opening. Seraphina didn't wait. She pulled me behind her, racing down the side corridor.
"Run!"
The white walls behind us blurred. The fluorescent lights strobed like dying fireflies as we lurched through empty hallways, through wrecked carts, through nurses too stunned to move out of the way. Our footsteps echoed off the tile, a pounding of urgency.
I couldn't shake. My blood was too thinned in my veins, flowing too fast, too hard. "Sis, if we go, how will Enzo …"
"Enzo lives because of machines," Seraphina spat. Her grip never slackened. "But you? You live because I won't let them tear you apart."
Mia stayed silent behind me, her robes swinging quietly. Occasionally, a gentle pulse pulsed in her fingers, ruffling the air, illuminating our path through shadows. She never stumbled. She never appeared frightened. Only focused.
That frightened me more than anything.
We stormed through the side doors. Freezing night air hit me like a whip so cold and moist. The black iron gates loomed in front of us and the woods behind them shuddering with the wind.
For one instant, I savored freedom.
"Go on," Seraphina urged, tugging me along.
My lungs burned. My legs screamed with pain. But we didn't slow down. We couldn't. In the distance behind us, the pack's yells echoed out again. "Monster. Witch. Cursed girl. Halt there."
The voices sliced the darkness like spears hurled at my spine.
"Sera," I gasped, stumbling. "I think they'll catch up."
"They'll try," she gritted.
We reached the entrance. Seraphina pushed them open with a strength I didn't know she had. I stumbled inside, my chest heaving, my heart not wanting to stop.
And then sirens inside the hospital went quiet. The wailing stopped. Even the wind died. The world stopped.
The silence was so profound, heavy and stifling, like the night had itself stopped to listen.
Then there was the voice.
It did not howl, neither did it roar. It spoke so deep, oozing from the ground, the trees, the heaven. Everywhere.
"She is running… Why is she running?"
I froze. The words crawled on my skin like chains, holding my bones.
Seraphina's breath was taken. "Hey." She pushed me behind her, attempting to shield me with her body as if that energy could be held within her.
Mia advanced instead, her face aglow, her hand raised. A glow burned gently in her hand and yet as sharp as a knife. I noticed her lips curve for the first time, a half-smile. Too brief, gone too fast. Had I imagined it?
And before I ever had the courage to question, the ground trembled beneath our feet. The trees beyond the gates danced wildly though no wind stirred them. Shadows oozed from their roots, thickening, creeping over the forest floor.
"Sera," I whispered, my voice shaking, "we shouldn't be here."
"Silence," she snarled, pulling me close against her.
The gates creaked open by themselves, metal keening like a wounded animal. The forest yawned out, black and endless.
And then the figure stepped out.
Not the wolf.
Not the monster.
A man.
He moved stealthily out of the darkness, shrouded in shadows so thick they seemed to draw the light out. His steps were deliberate and slow, as though he already knew none of us would get away.
The moment his face came into view, my stomach dropped to the floor. God! His eyes blazed with the same abnormal red as the wolf's. The same as the Alpha's when he woke up.
He was standing stiff by the gate regarding me. Me alone. In them, a spark of recognition flashed ruthlessly.
Then. he grinned.
A feral, knowing grin that made the wolf's claws on the glass seem almost benevolent by comparison.
My breath was caught. That grin hid one inescapable reality: he recognized me. He recognized what I had done. He recognized more.
"Oh Hera," he spoke, my name unwinding from his lips like a curse.
Seraphina dragged me back, fear blazing within her eyes. "Leave her alone!" she screamed.
But the man only tilted his head, that grin widening, hunger and triumph dancing within his eyes.
"Sera," I hissed, clutching her arm. My voice broke. "What is he?"
The man's reply was a low, soft and terrible laugh that thundered through the blackness.
"You'll see," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "But only just in time… Just in time."