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“I’m saying we expand the patrols,” she shoots back. “Someone screwed up. Samuel’s killers got past our line. We can’t risk open war without proof. These aren’t rogues. They’re shifters. Your kin.”

Raul sighs, voice low with guilt. “I already added four patrols. They haven’t found anything.”

“People…” Erica’s voice slices through the tension. As one we turn towards her. She slowly rises, dabbing at her cheeks. Her hands tremble, but her gaze is steel—raw and sharp. “I know you’ve got your hands full, but I have something to say.”

“Erica, please,” Monica pleads. “Think this through.”

“I have,” she says, her voice breaking and rebuilding itself in a single breath. “For days, I’ve done nothingbutthink. And I don’t see another way. I’m leaving. I’m going back to New York.”

The words hit like a slap.

“Don’t you want us to find Sam’s killer?” I ask, not understanding.

“Will that bring him back?” she snaps—and the words hit harder than any blow.

No. It won’t. Nothing will bring him back.

Silence settles over us like a weighted blanket, thick and suffocating. Her footsteps echo too loud in the hush.

“That’s what I thought,” she mutters, her voice hollow as she disappears through the door.

Helena doesn’t stop her. Doesn’t flinch. But her jaw tightens, and her eyes flick to the floor for half a second—just long enough to show the crack beneath the calm.

“I’m going to Mercer,” she says, voice clipped. “Someone has to find out what the hell’s really going on.”

Then—just like that—she’s gone. A burst of red and black smoke swallows her, leaving only scorched air behind.

Raul slams his fist into the fridge. It groans, tips sideways, the cord snapping free—then crashes to the floor with a sickening crunch.

He’s panting like he ran ten miles, but he hasn’t taken a step. His eyes are empty—just like mine were earlier. That’s my cue to go. I slip out, leaving behind a room haunted by what we’ve lost—and what we’re becoming.

Sammy’s gone. But he’s not the only one broken. We’re splintering, all of us—Raul, Erica, even Helena, who’s usuallycarved from stone. She’s lashing out. Running without a plan. That’s not like her. None of this is.

And me?

I don’t know who I am anymore. The wolf? The man? The brother drowning in grief?

Maybe I’m all of them. Maybe I’m nothing at all. But this? This isn’t the end. It’s the ignition point.

22

STACY

Cheer? Laughter? Fun?

Those things don’t exist here anymore. Not in the Crawford territory.

They’re ghosts—faint echoes of a life that ended the day Sam died. A week has passed, but time is frozen, the air thick with loss. The house itself seems to mourn, its walls tense and brittle. Every floorboard creaks beneath the weight of grief.

The Crawfords are a family built on strength, but strength has a breaking point. And grief—grief is a relentless, invisible monster. You can’t punch it. You can’t chase it away. You just drown in it.

I hear Raul before I see him. His voice is a storm, ripping through the silence of the woods. The cabin I share with Ray sits maybe twenty yards from the boys’ workshop, but it might as well be next door with how often Raul’s shouting pierces the air. There’s no pattern to it—sometimes it’s because of something Ray did. Sometimes it’s Nora’s cooking. Sometimes it’s just because the world keeps spinning, even though Sam is gone.

He’s furious. Broken. And every ounce of pain inside him has to go somewhere.

Nora matches him, scream for scream. It’s like watching two wild animals fight to drown each other out. Glass shatters. A vase once filled with daisies lies in pieces on the porch. Yesterday, it was the ashtray. The day before, some old exhaust pipe. Destruction has become their language. It’s all they seem to have left.

But Ray…Ray’s different.