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A sharp crack in the air cuts me off, yanking my attention to the yard. A streak of black and red mist slams into the ground then a gust of wind and dust sweeps across the porch. I stumble back a step, blinking and wiping at my eyes to try and see through the swirling debris.

When the smoke clears, four figures stand—two facing two. Three of them are strangers, one is Helena. Between the four of them, slumped, naked, and unmoving, is the one person I could never mistake.

Ray.

My breath catches like a fist to the throat. I can't move. Can't speak. He collapses to the ground and the sight of him—broken, vulnerable—rips a scream that comes straight from my heart.

“Oh my God.” My hands fly to my mouth as I run to him. “Ray… what did they do to you?”

His body is wrecked. Deep gashes are torn through both sides of his abdomen. Long, angry claw marks rake over his torso. His legs are caked in dirt, and his throat… oh god, his throat is marred with dark, angry bites. Blood weeps from the open wounds.

“Get him inside!” Monica’s voice is sharp and commanding. She sprints to the cabin and throws the door open.

“Where are the others?” Erica demands, running to Helena.

“Sam is fine,” the witch says, barely sparing her a glance. “He’s hurt, but he’ll live. So will Raul. Now move.”

“Wait—!” Erica yells.

But Helena doesn’t wait. She raises her staff, slams it to the ground—and vanishes in a swirl of mist before Erica can say another word.

I barely register her departure because I’m stumbling after the others into Ray’s cabin. It’s like wading through molasses—slow, surreal, and suffocating. Everything is surreal. I’m watching this nightmare play from outside my body.

They lower his broken body onto the couch. Monica tosses white sheets over the cushions, then guides them gently into place. They move with something akin to reverence. I don’t know the strangers who brought him, but I want to fall to my knees and thank them for their care.

“Details,” Monica says. Her voice is calm, clinical. Each word is clipped and precise. “How long since he was injured?”

“Thirty, maybe forty minutes,” one of the men answers. “He fought like hell.”

“Forty minutes…” Monica mutters, already rummaging through her kit. “Why wait so long to bring him here?”

“We were in the middle of it,” he says, his voice tight with frustration. “We couldn’t break free from the fight.”

Monica doesn’t respond. Her focus is locked on Ray. She waves them off without looking.

“Fine. Thank you. Now leave. That includes you too, Stacy. I’m sorry, but I need space.”

“How bad is it?” I ask, my voice cracking under the weight of the question. The words scrape past the tightness in my throat. My eyes sting, brimming with unshed tears.

Monica looks up—just for a second—and her mask falters. In that brief moment, I see everything. Panic. Desperation. Grief.

It steals the breath from my lungs.

“Stacy, please,” she says, barely holding it together. And in her eyes, I see something that destroys me—fear. Not just for Ray, but for me. She’s afraid of what this will do to me.

Something inside me breaks.

I turn and stumble outside. Every step feels like I’m dragging my body through quicksand. My lungs can’t seem to fill. My vision blurs. I sink down on the porch steps, my knees giving out beneath me.

The wind stirs, scattering dust across the yard. I brace my elbows on my knees, trembling hands clasped in my lap, and try to breathe. I still see Ray—bloodied and broken. I can still smell the metallic sting of his wounds. The silence presses in like a never-ending scream.

God. Please let him live.

A sound like thunder shatters the quiet. I bolt upright.

A stampede of wolves crashes through the trees, snarling and wild as they charge past the cabin. I don’t recognize most of them—not that it matters. None of them are him.

Ray promised me a bike ride. All the way to New York.