HIS WHITE LUNA

I am in detention again. Not because I did anything. Because Harrison King exists, and I have a hero complex that will get me killed someday. "You think you're funny, Rayne?" Principal Valentina's voice could freeze hell. She wasn't looking at the three boys lined up against her wall. She was looking at me. Like I was the problem. I am Isla Rayne. 17. Senior. 5'3, brown hair I can never get to stay straight, freckles, and a permanent seat in detention because I help people when I should mind my business. Today I helped Ethan Hale. Harrison King, 18, billionaire heir, football captain, Alpha of Greenwood High — not officially, but every girl wants him and every boy wants to be him — had shoved Ethan into a locker. Again. For the third time this week. Ethan Hale is so quiet, so invisible, teachers literally forget his name during attendance. He just stands there and takes it. So I went and opened the locker. Harrison saw me. He didn't say anything. He just stared at me with those cold blue eyes that never see me until today. So now we are four in Principal Valentina's office. The worst possible combination. Harrison King with his perfect black hair, his varsity jacket that costs more than my parents' car, arms crossed, jaw clenched. Brayden Betleiter, 17, the 197 IQ freak who skipped two grades, glasses, always in a black shirt, who has told me since elementary school that my logic is flawed. And Ethan Hale, brown hair falling over his eyes, staring at his shoes, trying to disappear. "Four students. Same adoption day ten years ago. Same detention. Interesting coincidence, no?" Valentina smiled. She is 32, white hair down to her waist, silver eyes, beautiful in a way that hurts to look at. Every student is scared of her. Brayden pushed his glasses up. His hand was shaking. "Statistically improbable. Probability of four adoptees from same date, same school district, same detention is 0.0037%. If you factor in —" "Shut up, freak," Harrison growled. His voice was low. Dangerous. My chest did something weird. A thump. Not normal. I've had dreams for a month. Every single night. A man bleeding in the rain, putting four crying kids on a horse cart. An old cart with a white symbol on it. A wolf. He was crying. Whispering, "Live as humans. Forget me. Forgive me." Every time I wake up crying and I don't know why. My adoptive mom says I had a car accident at age 7 and lost my memories before that. But this feels different. This feels real. Valentina stood. She is tall. Too tall. "Follow me. If you want to live past eighteen." Harrison laughed, but it had no humor. "Lady, are you threatening us? My father owns this school." "No. I am trying to save you," she said softly. "You will die on your eighteenth birthdays without enlightenment. Your human bodies cannot hold what is waking up. All four of you. Ten years ago Arnold begged me to hide you. Now the hiding is killing you." The air went cold. Like the AC broke. I felt Ethan flinch next to me. Brayden's nose started bleeding — it always does on full moons. I noticed through the small office window, tonight is a full moon. Huge and white. She didn't wait for us to agree. She pressed a book on her shelf — a book with a wolf on it — and the entire back wall opened. A tunnel. Stone, old, not part of the school. Breathing cold air that smelled like wet earth and pine and wolves. Like a forest after rain. "Where does that go?" I whispered. My voice cracked. "To the truth. Come. Or stay here and die as humans who never knew why their hearts hurt." We shouldn't have followed. Any normal girl would run and call the police. But my legs moved on their own. Because in my dreams, that smell is home. I have been smelling it for weeks. Brayden went second, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve, muttering formulas. Ethan went third, silent as a shadow. Harrison grabbed my wrist as I passed him. "Rayne. Don't." His hand was burning hot. I looked up at him. For the first time, he was actually looking at me. Really looking. "I have to," I said. The tunnel was long. Our phone lights were useless — the darkness ate them. The deeper we went, the more I heard a humming. Not sound. Like a heartbeat. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Matching my own. Then the tunnel opened into a cave. Oh my god. It wasn't a cave. It was a temple. A cathedral made of bones. Thousands of wolf skulls stacked into arches, ribs making pillars that touched a ceiling we couldn't see. The floor was dust and bone. And in the center, on a stone altar, floating, spinning slowly, was something. A lantern. But not made of metal or glass. Made of moonlight itself, shaped like a crescent moon, swirling, whispering, dripping silver light like water. The Moon Lantern. The humming came from it. The Moon Lantern. I couldn't breathe. Tears came to my eyes for no reason. "What is that?" Ethan whispered, and for the first time that night I actually heard him clearly, like his invisibility was breaking. "The Beacon," Valentina said. Her voice echoed. "Arnold made it with his life to hide you. It hides you. Or it calls you home. Ten years, its power is fading. Tonight is the last full moon before your birthdays. Tonight it will choose if you live." Brayden grabbed his head with both hands. Blood dripped down his face faster now. "Frequencies. It's broadcasting on a frequency my brain can't process. Isla, your frequency —" Harrison stepped in front of me without thinking. His whole body tensed. Like an animal. "Rayne, stay back. I don't know what that thing is." I should have listened. I never listen. The lantern pulsed when I stepped closer. Brighter. Like it knew me. Like it had been waiting for me for ten years. My hazel eyes started to burn. White. I saw my reflection in the lantern's light — my brown hair lifting, my eyes glowing white like stars. "Isla, don't touch it!" Valentina screamed. Too late. I touched it. The world exploded. Not light. Memory. Rain. Blood everywhere. A man with golden eyes like Harrison's but older, beard, bleeding from his chest, holding me when I was 7. Little me crying. "Forgive me, my Luna. You must live as human. You must forget. Forget you are Luna." He puts me on a cart with three small boys crying. Harrison, small, fierce, holding my hand and saying "I won't leave you!" Brayden, glasses broken, holding a book, calculating how to survive. Ethan, invisible even then, holding my other hand. Then fire. A man with no wolf, empty eyes, beautiful and terrible, burning our pack. Our mothers screaming. "Where is the white pup? Give me her blood and I will be God. Give me the White Luna!" Sebastian. The name came to me like a knife. I screamed. The lantern screamed with me. White light shot out of me, out of my chest, out of my hands. Healing light, but it burned. It felt like my veins were moonlight. Brayden fell to his knees, holding his head, his grey eyes turning silver and swirling like galaxies. Ethan flickered, literally flickered like a ghost, like he was disappearing and reappearing. And Harrison — Harrison roared. Not human. Not a boy. A howl that shook the bone temple, that made the skulls rattle. His blue eyes turned molten gold, glowing. His body cracked, his bones snapping, growing. Black fur ripping through his letterman jacket. His hands became paws. A huge black wolf stood where Harrison King had been. Twice the size of a normal wolf, with scars on its muzzle. And it looked straight at me, teeth bared, breathing hard, and growled one word that wasn't in English but I understood in my soul, in my bones, in my blood. "MINE." My knees gave out. The white wolf inside me finally, after ten years of silence, answered.