Chapter 2

The next morning Dad called an emergency council. The enforcers wanted a record of every wolf that had woken in the pack that month, and every stray that had gone missing. A stolen wolf could be passed off as a natural awakening, so they meant to check each one.

Dad went through them one by one. He'd spent his whole life hunting the wolf-trade. Even for a stranger, this was personal.

He got to Noelle's file and read it out. "Wolfless from birth. Her wolf woke at the full moon, after two years with Moonrise." Moonrise woke sleeping wolves in the wolfless. Dad had been its face for years. He'd stood at Noelle's ceremony himself. He signed off and moved on.

He spent all morning making sure nobody had been torn open for their wolf. He didn't know the wolf he'd just cleared had been ripped out of his own daughter while she was still breathing.

Mom went to check on Noelle after the council. She laid a hand on Noelle's chest and listened for the wolf.

Noelle smiled, weak and sweet. "Mom, she's so strong. I can feel her moving around in there."

Mom nodded. "She's settling in fast. Young, healthy wolf." She turned to the young healer beside her. "A wolf waking is the greatest gift this pack can be given. We never take it lightly."

A month after I came home, Noelle smashed Mom's favorite vase and swept the pieces into my room.

Dad slapped me across the face. "Don't lie. Noelle can barely stand—how would she break a vase?"

Noelle stood behind them, soft as anything. "Don't hit her… maybe it was an accident." Then she caught my eye and smiled.

Mom said a wolf waking was a gift. She was right—it is one. Only this one wasn't given. It was taken, out of me and into her.

That afternoon the enforcers sent for her again. They wanted the pack's best healer to look closer at the marks on the body. Mom went down to the morgue on her break. Just work.

She went over me a second time. This time she caught two things—the old scars all over my back, and the faded line on my left side where a kidney used to be.

She frowned. "This one was hurt for years. Beaten. And the kidney's long gone—taken when she was small. Black-market work." Her fingers moved over my back. "Poor thing. No telling what she'd been through." She leaned in and frowned again. "No pack scent on her at all. A stray."

The summer I came home, Mom passed my door and saw the scars on my back.

It wasn't pity on her face. It was disgust.

"Cover those up. Don't let Noelle see. You'll scare her."

Three years ago my scars made her flinch. On a stranger they made her go soft. A dead girl she'd never met got more from her than I ever did.

The tech cut in. "Luna, there was something in her stomach. A scrap of paper. Looks like it was forced down her throat."

Mom barely looked at it. Most of the ink was gone. "Send it to the lab. See if they can pull anything off it."

Her phone rang. Noelle.

Her whole voice changed—warm, soft, instant. "Baby. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just miss you. Are you busy?"

"Helping the enforcers with something. I'll be home soon."

A pause. Then, careful: "Mom… is Wren back yet?"

Mom sighed.

Noelle's voice started to shake. "When you asked her to give me a kidney… she said she only had one left. And then she just—ran off. It's my fault. I put her on the spot. She probably hates me. She always thinks I'm taking what's hers."

A little sob. "Mom, if she's staying away because of me, I wish I'd never gotten my wolf at all."

"Stop that. None of this is on you. Wren grew up out there—she's wild, she's ungrateful. You're the one I can count on."

Noelle sniffled. "There's something I never told you. I was scared to." A beat. "She said you only took me in to replace her. That now she's back, I should get lost."

I never said that. Not one word. But Noelle said I did, and that settled it. In that house her tears always beat my truth.

Then, small: "Mom… will you make that soup when you get home? The one you always make me?"

"Of course, sweetheart. I'm leaving now."

Mom hung up. She looked at the body one more time—the scars, the missing kidney, the stray with no pack scent and nobody coming to claim her. Then she pulled off her gloves.

The tech hesitated. "Luna… should we try your older daughter? Wren? It's been days with no word. What if something—"

Mom waved it off. "Don't bother. She's been nothing but trouble since the day we brought her back. We never should have."

She dropped the gloves in the bin. "As long as she doesn't drop dead in front of me, I don't care."

She walked out. The door swung shut behind her.

On the tray by the door, bagged for the lab, sat the scrap of paper they'd pulled from my stomach. The last thing I ever wrote.