Morgan’s POV
The sound of tires crunching gravel tears me from a sleep I don’t remember choosing.
My body jolts upright in the chair where I’ve been curled, muscles screaming protest, neck aching from the angle I’ve held for however many hours passed while unconsciousness claimed me against my will.
The room is dark now, the afternoon light replaced by the blue-gray shadows of early evening, and for a disorienting moment I cannot remember where I am or why my heart is pounding against my ribs like a caged animal.
‘The car,’ Nireya says, and her presence sharpens with immediate alertness. ‘Someone is here.’
The fog of sleep burns away as I stumble toward the window, my legs clumsy beneath me, my brain still processing the foolishness of falling asleep when Sarah could have returned at any moment.
The locks held, clearly, but the vulnerability of unconsciousness makes my skin crawl with retrospective terror.
Headlights sweep across the front drive, painting the garden in harsh white before cutting to darkness.
I press my face against the cold glass, breath fogging the surface, and watch as an SUV rolls to a stop near the main entrance.
The driver’s door opens first, Paul emerging with urgency. Then the rear door opens, and Zane helps a figure climb out with careful hands.
Ricky.
The sound that tears from my throat isn’t quite a scream and isn’t quite a sob—something primal and wordless that propels me away from the window before my mind can catch up with my body.
I don’t remember unlocking the door. I don’t remember descending the stairs. I don’t remember bursting through the front entrance into December air that bites at my bare arms and steals the warmth from my lungs.
I only know that one moment I’m inside and the next I’m crashing into Ricky, my arms wrapping around her with desperate force, my face buried in her hair that smells like rust and salt and the industrial grime of wherever Sarah kept her.
“I’m sorry.” The words pour out of me like blood from a wound, hot and relentless and impossible to stop. “Ricky, I’m so sorry, this is my fault, all of it is my fault, I should have told you everything from the beginning, I should have—”
“Morgan.” Her voice comes out rough, scraped raw in ways I don’t want to imagine. “Morgan, I need you to stop apologizing and start explaining why you apparently turn into a giant dog when you’re stressed.”
The laugh that escapes me sounds slightly unhinged even to my own ears. “Wolf. Giant wolf.”
“Oh good, a semantic correction.” Ricky pulls back just enough to look at my face, and despite the bruises and the exhaustion and the trauma carved into every line of her features, her eyes hold the same sharp humor I’ve relied on for years. “That clears everything up. I feel completely informed now.”
Her body trembles against mine—violent shudders that have nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with temperature. The blanket Zane wrapped around her is damp, inadequate against the December night that presses against us from all sides.
“You’re freezing.” I pull her closer, trying to share what warmth my body can offer. “We need to get you inside, get you warm, get you—”
Ricky goes rigid in my arms.
The sudden tension radiates through her muscles, transforming her posture from exhausted relief to something sharp and wary. Her eyes fix on a point over my shoulder, widening with an expression I cannot immediately read.
“Morgan.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Why is she here?”
I turn.
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