And I see my voice reach him, see him hear me even through the chaos, see him try to do the thing I'm asking, try to stop suppressing and let the wolf rise. But it's too slow, it's too buried, it's weeks of smothering against a half-second of need, and the wolf claws up partway and stalls, and in that stalled moment one of Cass's wolves hits him hard, and Evan goes down.
He goes down.
And the three wolves turn, and they look at me, and I understand that Evan was never the only target.
I run.
I don't decide to. My body decides for me, the survivor's instinct that's carried me through every dark moment of my life, and I run, down through the scrub toward the harbor, toward people, toward light, because a wolf might hesitate to be seen in the open by humans, and it's the only card I have.
