Page 23

23

KENDALL

B eing back in the city feels like walking through someone else’s memories.

It’s all here—the cracked sidewalks, the smell of exhaust and street food, the blend of noise that used to feel like white noise and now feels too much all at once.

But I’m not the same girl who left it.

And I know it.

The pulse of the place hits me different now. My ears catch snippets of heartbeats under jackets. I can smell someone’s fear from twenty feet away. There’s magic in the air—old and quiet—and for the first time, I feel like I might be able to read it.

The second change didn’t just trigger the outside world, it activated even more keen senses inside me. Awareness. Instincts.

Dad said it was okay to come back though. Just for a while.

“They’re distracted,” he told me over a burner phone that smells like herbs and ash. “Typhon’s Brood has them stirred up. You’re safer in plain sight—for now.”

It’s funny how safety’s a fucking coin toss these days.

Still, I’m here. Back in the world I used to think was mine.

And I have two stops.

One I want to make.

And one I have to.

I pull my hoodie up, let my scent blend with the chaos, and head toward Stefan’s apartment.

He opens the door faster than I expect. Like he’s been waiting. He doesn’t say hi. Doesn’t ask where I’ve been. Just stares at me—hard.

His blue eyes—usually warm, are sharp now. Cold like glass in winter. Not blank, no. Worse. Tired. Haunted.

I swallow. “Can I come in?”

He doesn’t answer. Just steps aside.

The apartment smells the same. Clean. Lemon and cedar and the faintest trace of his cologne that always clung to my hoodie after sleepovers. Books still stacked on the coffee table. The plants he pretends not to care about still watered. And that ugly mustard-yellow throw pillow I always said clashed with the couch is still right there, perfectly fluffed.

But everything feels...off. Like I’m in a memory wearing someone else’s skin.

I don’t sit. I don’t want to get comfortable. This isn’t that kind of visit.

“I need to talk to you,” I say.

Stefan crosses his arms, the muscles in his forearms tightening under the sleeves of his Henley. It used to make me weak when he looked like this—lean and controlled, that effortless athleticism that came from hiking and lacrosse and chasing me around parking lots during rainstorms.

Now he just looks braced. Like I’m a storm rolling in.

“Figured,” he says, voice dry.

“I should’ve said it sooner. But I was scared. And confused. And everything was happening so fast?—”

“Kendall,” he snaps, cutting me off. “Just say it.”

I meet his eyes. Force my voice not to shake.

“I’m not human,” I say quietly. “Not anymore.”

His expression shifts—but not with surprise. Not exactly.

“I figured that much,” he says. His voice is lower now, like gravel under foot. “You changed into—” He cuts himself off. His shoulders tense as he turns away, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s trying to wake up from all of it.

I can smell it—his fear. The sweat, the cortisol spike, the bitter scent of heartbreak.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my tone dry. “That was a fun moment.”

He turns back, eyes flashing. “What are you?”

I hesitate. “Werewolf. Kind of.”

He flinches. Not dramatically—but enough. Like the word stung.

Stefan looks down at the floor, then back up at me—and I can see it all over him. The cracking. The splintering. The inner war between everything we were and everything I’ve become.

And for a second, I almost wish I hadn’t come.

“And when exactly were you gonna tell me?” he asks, voice too calm. “After you tore someone’s throat out in front of me?”

“That’s not fair.”

He spins back toward the window, then whirls around again. “Isn’t it?! You think I haven’t been watching the news? Seeing what your kind’s been doing? You lied to me, Kendall. After everything you knew about what happened to my parents—how I felt—you still kept it from me.”

“I didn’t know how to say it.”

“You say it!” he shouts. “You don’t let me fall in love with a goddamn monster! ”

My stomach twists—but not the way I thought it would.

I expected to crumble. To cry. To beg.

But all I feel is... tired. Hollow.

There’s a silence between us that feels like a canyon. The kind you don’t build bridges across.

I step back. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You sure as hell didn’t fight it.”

I blink at him, something icy crawling up my spine.

“You’re afraid of me,” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. And that’s the answer.

The set of his jaw. The tightening of his fists. The way his blue eyes shimmer with something that isn’t just pain—it’s disgust.

And somehow, I feel...relief.

Not devastation. Not heartbreak. Just this dull, steady weight sliding off my chest like a final decision has been made for me.

Because maybe this was already falling apart long before I shifted. Maybe the rot set in the moment I stopped letting him see the version of me that didn’t want to be seen. Even before I knew who that girl actually was.

Or maybe it’s because there’s someone else now.

Someone whose voice feels like gravity. Whose hands make the noise in my head go still. Someone who’s already seen me shift—and didn’t look away.

Stefan’s breathing hard now. His dark hair, usually neat and styled, hangs messily across his forehead, like he ran his fingers through it too many times trying to claw the truth out of his skull.

He used to look like home. Now he looks like a closed door I forgot how to knock on.

“Get out,” he says.

I nod.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He doesn’t say it back.

I step out into the hallway and let the door slam behind me.

And just like that, we’re done.

The walk’s quieter now. Not just the streets, but also me .

Something uncoils in my chest. I can’t tell if it’s grief or just the loss of another mask I was tired of wearing. I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll to Adora’s name.

Call.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

No answer.

I stare at the screen long after it goes black, thumb hovering.

“Come on,” I whisper. “Just pick up.”

But she doesn’t.

She’s out there , somewhere in this city, carrying half the truth and none of the tools to hold it.

I try again. The call rings. And rings. Then drops. No answer. No text. No ping-back. Just that hollow silence that comes when someone chooses not to pick up.

I stare at the screen until my arm aches from holding the phone too tight. Then I slide it back into my hoodie pocket and press the heel of my palm into my chest, like I can push down the rising panic that’s clawing its way up my ribs.

“She’s okay,” I whisper to myself. “She’s smart. Careful.”

But my gut twists.

Because I know Adora. I know that look she gets when something’s eating her alive and she doesn’t know where to put it. When she’s scared but too proud to say so.

I saw it last time. Right before she hung up. Right before she ran again.

What if she’s out there right now, doing something reckless? What if she’s not hiding? What if she’s looking for answers? For someone who can explain the shit I couldn’t, Dad can’t. Someone who might actually know what’s happening to her.

A breeze cuts through the alley as I walk, tugging at the edge of my jacket. I pause beneath a dim streetlight, staring out across the city skyline like the answers are hiding between the rooftops.

“I’ll find you, Adora,” I murmur. “No matter where you run.”

Because the world may be falling apart, but we’re still sisters. And I’m not letting this place take either of us.

I cover my scent the way Callum said and slink into the shadows. I need to find him. Maybe he’ll have answers, be able to find my sister and help her. Or maybe I just need an excuse to see him again. Either way, I hone in on my newly developed senses and follow the faint scent and pull that I hope leads me to him instead of my demise.