Page 7

7

KENDALL

I wake up with blood on my hands.

Not metaphorical. Not poetic.

Real. Sticky. Crusted.

I jolt upright, heart slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. My sheets are twisted, damp with sweat. The sun slices through the blinds, bright and unbothered, like the world didn’t turn inside out sometime in the last twelve hours.

I touch my neck and flinch.

There’s a bite there—deep and raw, like teeth tore through me. My fingers come away red.

Suddenly it’s all rushing back, too fast and too broken to make sense.

My dad.

His eyes.

The voice in my head .

The pain.

The shift .

I breathe like I’m drowning. Inhale too sharp. My senses spike, and everything in the room screams at me—the sour-sweet smell of old coffee in my trash can, the dust layering my bookshelf, even the faint chemical tang of my shampoo from across the room. It’s too much. Way too much.

What the actual hell.

I stumble to the bathroom, lock the door, and brace myself against the sink.

My reflection stares back at me, but it’s... off. My eyes look brighter, my skin flushed like I’ve been running. My lips are cracked, cheeks streaked with dried tears and god knows what else.

I wash my hands. Scrub until they’re raw. The blood swirls down the drain, but it doesn’t feel gone.

It’s in me now.

My mind flashes with everything I know since the veil thinned. Shifters, fae, vamps, all of it. But this, this isn’t anything like what I’ve been told. Shifters know they are shifters, right? And can control it. I had no control… and it all started after Dad fucking bit me. What is this?

“What did you do to me?” I whisper, voice shaking.

I lean my head against the mirror, breathing through the rising panic.

No sign of Mom. Her car’s gone. No note, no text. Great. Maybe she had errands. Maybe she had a breakdown . Maybe she is seeing Adora. Maybe she… then it hits me. Somthing PEACE said when they came to our school for an assembly senior year.

They warned us of things to report if we saw it take place, now that we were about to be in thereal world. Full moons caused triggers that can’t be helped. But a bite… it was… it was illegal. They said it was against the person’s choice awakening a sleeping bloodline that maybe the person didn’t want woken. And only a werewolf could do it.

Holy fuck.

I start laughing in shock now thinking that maybe Mom is actually in a secret bunker somewhere trying to come to terms with the fact her husband is a werewolf and her daughters are science projects gone sideways.

I throw on jeans and a hoodie and tie my hair up, but the bite shows, so I let my hair silver hair fall loose and pull the lips of my hood higher around my neck to hold my hair in place.

The urge to see Adora gnaws at me. If what happened to me is what happened to her, then she has to know. She has to remember. She’s just being quiet because she knows how bad it gets and doesn’t want Dad in trouble. Maybe she can tell me how to stop it.

How to fix it.

How to undo it.

I grab my keys. I’m halfway to the front door when a knock stops me dead.

Shit.

I already know who it is.

I hesitate, breathe out slowly, and yank the door open.

Stefan’s standing there, brows furrowed, phone in hand.

“Jesus, Kenny,” he says, eyes scanning me like he’s counting the cracks. “I’ve been texting you since yesterday. Are you okay?”

I force a smile. “Yeah. Sorry. Shit’s been... a lot.”

“You look like hell.”

“Thanks.”

He steps in without asking. Smells like cedarwood cologne and the overpriced shampoo he swears he buys for “scalp health.” Though he’s familiar and comforting, I don’t think that I can be around him right now. Or trust myself to.

I try not to recoil when he hugs me.

My skin’s too sensitive. Everything feels like sandpaper and ice and static.

I pull back fast. “Sorry. Sore shoulder.”

He narrows his eyes. “What happened?”

I shrug, backing into the kitchen. “Nothing serious. Just... tripped in the alley like an idiot. Hit the wall hard.”

“You’re not clumsy,” he says flatly.

“Everyone’s clumsy sometimes.”

I head to the kitchen forcing myself to play it cool for now. THankfully, there is still coffee left. I pour it with trembling hands and pray he doesn’t notice.

“So,” he says slowly, leaning against the counter. “You disappeared after I offered to come to the hospital. Then I don’t hear from you all night. And now you’re acting weird.”

“I’m tired , Stefan.”

“You look like you’ve been in a bar fight.”

I flinch.

Wrong phrase. Too close.

“Adora’s still in the hospital,” I say instead, steering the conversation like my life depends on it. “I’m gonna go see her. Maybe she’s up to talking now.”

Stefan nods, watching me. Too quiet and calculating.

“What?” I snap.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thinking thing. Where you act like you’re not thinking anything, but I can see it all over your face.”

He sighs, steps closer. “I’m just worried, alright? You’re not acting like you.”

I grit my teeth.

That’s because I’m not .

I want to scream it, throw it at him like a grenade and watch him scramble to understand. But I don’t. I can’t.

He wouldn’t get it. No one would.

So I lie.

“I’m fine,” I say, and smile again, wide and practiced.

He doesn’t buy it, not fully. But he lets it go.

For now.

“I can drive you to the hospital,” he offers.

“No. I need the walk. The air helps.”

That’s mostly true.

I need space more than anything. Space to think, to breathe, to figure out how to keep whatever the hell is inside me from tearing me apart—or worse, getting out.

Stefan pulls me in for another hug before he leaves.

This time I let him.

I fake the warmth. I fake the normal. I fake the human.

“Keep me posted, okay? I love you.” Thankfully he leaves before waiting for my reply that gets caught in my throat. And the second the door shuts behind him, I sink to the floor, pressing my hands over my face and breathing through the scream lodged in my throat.

My hands tremble in my lap. The bite on my shoulder throbs like it’s remembering before I do.

Stefan can’t know what’s happening to me.

He can’t .

He’d try. He’d listen. He’d nod with that patient look he always wears when he’s trying to pretend he’s not freaking out inside. But he wouldn’t be able to un-know it. Not after what those things did to his parents. Not after the blood and fear and the headlines he never talks about, but I know he still dreams about.

He’d see me differently.

He’d hate me. I can’t lose him.

I need him. I need normal . Something to hold onto while the rest of my life spins off its goddamn axis.

Right now, Stefan’s the only thing I’ve got left that still feels like the world I used to live in.

The world I’m already slipping away from.