The Red Wolf

Fractured

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, the patterns in the plaster morphing into shapes that danced with my thoughts. The room was silent, save for the occasional creak of the old house settling. My mind, however, was anything but quiet.

The events of the day replayed in my head like a broken record. The transformation, the confrontation, the revelations—it was all too much. I felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, flailing in a world I no longer understood.

I tried to focus on my breathing, to ground myself, but the silence was oppressive. I needed answers. I needed to understand what was happening to me.

Voices drifted down the hallway, muffled but unmistakably familiar. Curiosity piqued, I slipped out of bed, careful not to make a sound. The floorboards groaned under my weight, but I moved with the stealth of someone who had spent years sneaking around.

As I approached the living room, the voices became clearer.

“She’s stronger than we anticipated,” Damien said. “The suppressant was supposed to keep her abilities dormant.”

Suppressant? My heart skipped a beat.

“It worked for years,” Grandma replied. “But she changed doctors. The new medication didn’t have the same effect.”

I pressed myself against the wall, my mind racing. They had been drugging me? To suppress what?

“She deserves to know the truth,” Ronan interjected. “Keeping her in the dark isn’t protecting her.”

“She’s not ready,” Grandma insisted. “If she finds out everything now, it could destroy her.”

“We can’t just dump it all on her,” Damien spoke. “Do you have any idea what someone would do to get their hands on a wolf with universal donor blood?”

There was a beat of silence before Bailey muttered, “She’s basically walking super blood.”

Time felt frozen for a moment. Blood? Universal donor? What the hell did that mean?

I couldn’t listen anymore. My legs moved before I could stop them, carrying me into the room.

“You’ve been drugging me?” I demanded, my voice trembling with a mix of anger and betrayal.

Five pairs of eyes turned toward me.

Ronan stood abruptly. Stella looked stricken. Grandma took a step forward, her mouth already open to explain—or lie.

“What did he mean?” I asked again, louder this time.

No one answered.

My heart was pounding in my chest. “Someone say it.”

“Maya…” Grandma’s voice cracked. “It was never meant to hurt you. I was only trying to—”

“What did you do to me?” My voice trembled, but I held her gaze.

She looked down.

“She was giving you suppressants,” Ronan said finally, voice low. “Mixed in with your anxiety medication. To keep the wolf part of you from surfacing.”

I stared at him, disbelief crashing into me all at once.

“That’s why things have been… happening,” I said slowly, the pieces clicking together. “Why I’ve been feeling like I’m coming apart. Because I stopped taking it.”

No one answered.

I felt sick. “You didn’t even tell me what I was,” I said, looking at my grandmother. “And then you drugged me to keep it that way.”

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“Sweetheart, I thought I was protecting you.”

“You were lying to me,” I said coldly. “You let me feel like I was crazy.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I turned on my heel and stalked back down the hall, every step fueled by the churning storm inside me. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to be away from them—away from all the voices and secrets and lies.

The moment my bedroom door clicked shut behind me, the weight of everything dropped on my chest again. I braced my hands on the dresser, knuckles white, breathing hard. My heart was pounding like a war drum, and I couldn’t tell if I was shaking from rage or devastation. Both, probably.

They drugged me.

My own grandmother.

That was the part I couldn’t wrap my head around. Not the wolves. Not the hidden truths or the supernatural politics I apparently had blood ties to.

But the betrayal.

She had watched me cry through panic attacks. She held me through breakdowns and told me we were doing everything we could to help my “anxiety.” And the whole time she was giving me something to suppress who I was.

And now, now it all made sense. The dreams. The weird strength. The way my heart sometimes felt like it was burning from the inside out. It wasn’t anxiety. It wasn’t in my head.

It was me. It had always been me.

I sank to the floor, pressing my forehead to my knees and trying to breathe. I wasn’t even sure how long I stayed like that—long enough that the sun had dipped lower, casting long shadows across the room.

Eventually, there was a soft knock at the door.

“Go away,” I rasped.

The door creaked open anyway, just a few inches. “It’s me,” Ronan said.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see the sympathy in his eyes or the guilt carved into his face. Because as much as I hated to admit it… he was the only one who had tried to argue for me. To be honest with me.

He waited. And after a beat, I heard the floor creak as he stepped in and eased the door shut behind him.

“I can leave,” he said quietly. “I just… wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I lifted my head slowly and looked up at him. “Do I look okay?”

“No,” he said, with brutal honesty. “You look like your entire world just got shattered.”

“Because it did.”

He didn’t disagree.

Ronan crouched down in front of me, far enough not to crowd but close enough that I could feel his presence. He didn’t reach for me. Didn’t try to touch. Just waited, letting the silence stretch.

“I feel stupid,” I admitted eventually, my voice rough. “Like everyone was in on this huge secret, and I was just the i***t living in a bubble.”

“You weren’t stupid. You were protected.”

“Is there a difference?”

His lips tightened, but he didn’t answer.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I whispered.

“You’re still you, Maya. The same person who fought to get through college. The same girl who used to run barefoot through the woods every summer and knew how to catch frogs with her hands. You’re still that person. Nothing about that has changed.”

I stared at him. “Then why do I feel like everything’s different?”

He looked away for a moment, like he didn’t know how to say it. “Because now you know what’s been hidden from you. That changes how you see everything. But it doesn’t make you less. It doesn’t make you broken.”

“I’m so angry,” I said, the words trembling out of me. “At her. At everyone. Even at you.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re allowed to be.”

I closed my eyes, letting the quiet wrap around us again. His presence was oddly calming, like a steady heartbeat in the chaos.

After a moment, I finally asked, “How long have you known?”

Ronan exhaled through his nose. “I didn’t know about the suppressants until today. Damien told me after… after we got you back here.”

“But you knew I wasn’t… normal?”

“I knew there was something different about you. Damien always kept an eye on you every summer, especially once you started getting older. When I came into the picture, he warned me to treat you with caution. Not because you were dangerous—but because you were important. Even if no one would tell me why.”

“And my blood?” I asked, the words tasting like rust. “Is that why I’m important?”

He hesitated. “It’s part of it. But that’s not what defines you.”

I laughed bitterly. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one being hunted for your blood like some kind of magical organ donor.”

Ronan didn’t flinch. “No. But I am someone who will fight to make sure no one ever touches you.”

My breath caught.

He meant it. I could see it in the way his jaw set, in the quiet intensity of his voice. And it terrified me—how much I wanted to believe him.

I rubbed my arms, suddenly cold. “So what now?”

“That’s up to you,” he said gently. “You can talk to your grandma. Or not. You can scream. You can leave. Whatever you need to do to feel like you’re in control again… we’ll support you.”

“We?”

“Me. Stella. Bailey, even if he’s kind of a d**k about it sometimes. Damien.”

I sighed, leaning my head back against the wall. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start with breathing,” he said. “Start with one step at a time.”

For a long while, we sat there in silence again. I didn’t ask him to leave. And he didn’t try to fill the space with words that wouldn’t fix anything.

Eventually, I stood. My legs were stiff, my body sore. But I felt… clearer. Still cracked, still raw—but not alone.

I looked at Ronan. “Let’s go.”

He blinked. “Go where?”

“To talk to my grandmother.”

He stood slowly. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I admitted. “But I’m done hiding in the dark.”

And with that, we stepped into the hallway together.