The Wolves Don't Ask

Chapter 5

Mara woke to the smell first.

Copper-thick, sour at the back of her throat. Not the clean sting of her own blood, not the antiseptic burn she associated with hospitals. This was heavier. Old. It clung.

Her eyes snapped open.

She was on the floor of her apartment, cheek pressed against cold concrete. Morning light leaked through the blinds in thin, accusing stripes. Her muscles ached in the deep, bone-level way that told her everything she already feared.

Slowly, she sat up.

Her hands were red.

Not slick, drying. Darkening. Blood traced the creases of her palms, under her nails, up her wrists where she must have wiped them without thinking. Her clothes were stiff with it. The smell was everywhere.

“No,” she whispered.

Memory gave her nothing. Just a blank stretch of time where the night should have been. No pain. No images. No control.

Her breath came fast, shallow. She scanned the room, half-expecting to find a body, a shape she couldn’t undo. There was nothing. No broken furniture. No torn walls. Just silence and the distant sound of gulls outside.

Her phone buzzed.

She nearly dropped it.

Irina:

Where are you?

Mara stared at the screen, chest tight. She didn’t want Irina to see this. Didn’t want those calm, measuring eyes on what she’d become when she wasn’t there to stop it.

Another message appeared.

Irina:

Please answer.

Mara closed her eyes.

When the knock came ten minutes later, it was soft. Careful. Like Irina already knew what she’d find.

Mara didn’t open the door right away. She scrubbed her hands raw at the sink, changed clothes, shoved the ruined ones into a trash bag she tied too tightly. None of it helped. The smell lingered in her head.

She finally unlocked the door.

Irina stood there, hair pulled back, coat half-buttoned like she’d left in a hurry. Her gaze dropped immediately to Mara’s hands, her posture, the tightness around her eyes.

“You lost time,” Irina said.

Mara stepped aside. “I think I killed someone.”

Irina didn’t flinch.

She walked in, closed the door behind her, and stood very still, as if grounding herself. “Tell me everything you remember.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Mara’s voice cracked. “That’s the problem.”

Irina nodded once, then began moving through the apartment, not searching, exactly, but assessing. Windows. Floors. Surfaces. She moved with quiet purpose, the way she did in trauma rooms, and it sent a sharp, unwanted wave of relief through Mara.

“There’s no body here,” Irina said finally. “No obvious signs of a struggle.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“I know.” Irina met her eyes. “But it means we don’t panic yet.”

Mara laughed bitterly. “You’re already planning.”

“Yes.”

The word landed between them, heavy.

Irina pulled out her phone. “There was another body found near the docks this morning. Early. Similar injuries.”

Mara’s stomach dropped. “Then it was me.”

“Not necessarily.”

Mara stared at her. “You said similar.”

“I said similar, not identical.” Irina hesitated. “And the time window overlaps, but it’s not exact.”

“You’re lying.”

Irina didn’t deny it. “I changed some things.”

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.

“You what?” Mara said.

“I altered the intake notes. The wound classification.” Irina’s voice was steady, but her hands weren’t. “I delayed the forensic referral.”

Mara took a step back. “You destroyed evidence.”

“I protected you.”

“No.” Mara’s eyes burned. “You protected what you want from me.”

The words hit harder than either of them expected.

Irina went very still. “You think this is curiosity.”

“I think you crossed a line,” Mara said. “And now you’re pretending it was inevitable.”

Irina swallowed. “It was a choice.”

“Exactly.”

The balance between them shifted then, subtly, but completely. Mara saw it in Irina’s face: the weight of what she’d done settling in, the quiet horror braided with something else. Resolve. Ownership.

“You don’t get to save me,” Mara said softly. “Not like that.”

Irina’s eyes flicked to Mara’s hands again, still faintly stained despite the scrubbing. Her voice dropped. “Then tell me what you need.”

Mara hesitated.

She was shaking now, adrenaline burning out, leaving exhaustion and fear in its wake. She hadn’t realized how close she was to unraveling until Irina was standing there, solid and real.

“I need you to stop looking at me like a case,” Mara said. “And start seeing the damage.”

Irina stepped closer, not touching. Not yet. “I do.”

Mara searched her face, looking for the lie. She didn’t find one. What she found was worse.

Want.

Not simple desire. Something heavier. Complicit.

“Don’t,” Mara said, even as she closed the distance between them.

Irina didn’t move. She waited.

Mara reached out first.

Her fingers brushed Irina’s wrist, brief, tentative, like testing a live wire. The contact sent a shock through both of them. Irina sucked in a breath, but she didn’t pull away.

Neither did Mara.

The moment stretched, thick with everything they weren’t saying. Guilt pressed in from all sides. So did need. Not romance. Not comfort. Something darker and more urgent: the need to be seen and not abandoned in the aftermath.

Irina lifted her other hand slowly, giving Mara time to stop her.

Mara didn’t.

When Irina touched her, it was careful. Grounding. A hand at her back, steady and warm. Mara leaned into it before she could think better of it, forehead dropping to Irina’s shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long time.

What happened after was quiet. Messy. Necessary. They didn’t pretend it was clean or right. When it ended, they didn’t talk about it at all.

Later, when they sat apart again, the space between them felt altered, charged, fragile.

“This changes things,” Mara said finally.

“Yes,” Irina agreed.

“You’re in this now.”

Irina met her gaze. “I know.”

Outside, sirens wailed in the distance, rising and falling like a warning neither of them could afford to ignore.

Whatever lines had existed before were gone.

And the moon, indifferent as ever, was already on its way back.