Harry steps in, “And it wasn’t until the night that Adria was Sired by Isaac that the Balance found its way back on course somehow.”

“Yes,” Genna says, “it’s why Harry went missing the same night that Adria did. When Adria was Sired, Harry’s destiny of Becoming finally took place.”

“So you’re telling us that there’s a Dark Praverian running around Hallowell?” Nathan says.

“I’m telling you,” Genna says with a calm sort of intensity in her voice, “that someone you know, someone close to you isn’t who they appear to be….”

The air is fraught with mindful silence.

Someone in our midst is a traitor….

Nathan, Daisy and I all share The Look because if anything in any werewolf pack is unforgivable, it is disloyalty.

“You can’t do anything yet,” Genna warns, realizing what vengeful emotions are passing between my brother and sister and I. “We have to play this off quietly, Isaac. If the traitor finds out that we’re onto him or her, and you have no plan in place to trap it, it will kill every last one of you. When we go Dark, our powers are unrestrained and limitless. We abuse them in every sense of the meaning.”

I turn my back to them all and walk a few paces down the tracks, stopping about ten feet away and looking up at the sky.

This isn’t happening! I thought that Adria being bonded by my blood and losing her mind too early was unforgivable. I thought that giving in to her and infecting her was unbearable. I thought that Adria not living through the transformation would be the ultimate nail in my coffin…but this? Adria, the only girl I’ve ever truly f**king loved is a Charge? Her life has been predetermined for her? She was meant to fulfill some asinine destiny, which we all learned almost always ends in some premature death. I want to ask how it can get any worse, but I’m afraid it will.

I march back over.

“Harry,” I say, stepping closer to him as my claws and teeth sink back into my skin and the black of my eyes fades, “where is Adria now? You have to know something, anything—Harry, it’s killing me….”

Harry looks away from me and out at the falling night. Another fifteen minutes or so and it will be completely dark, the moon will come to life somewhere behind those thick clouds and all of us will become something different. He lowers his eyes and seems to be looking down at his hands.

“Please, man…anything at all….”

I hear his breath catch and his head raises so that we can see his face again, but his crimson eyes are closed. He appears to be concentrating and I don’t dare break his attempts. Hard lines start to form at the corners of his eyes as if he’s trying to force a vision that refuses to give in to him. Then his eyes lock open and the crimson churns brighter, more furiously. He looks at no one; it’s like he can’t even see us anymore.

Daisy steps away from him.

And then finally, Harry’s concentration snaps, forcing him to slump over, bracing his hands on his thighs. “All I see is a field,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “Just a field…I’m sorry.”

My heart feels like it’s going to explode.

I know where she is…

I don’t say another word. I take off running toward Vaughan Woods as fast as my inhuman speed will take me, leaving everyone else behind.

28

I FEEL THE SWAY of the moon in my muscles, like its reaching down through the darkening clouds and wrenching them to their core, nearly folding my body into an unmoving mass. My sight is becoming sharper, giving me full view into the darkness as it gradually consumes me. My ribs…always excruciating is the pain that inundates me when they start to break one by one in fast succession. But I’m holding the Change back, forcing the last part of my humanity to the surface, spreading it thin like dying soldiers on a battlefield. I don’t stop running no matter how hard it is to run and force back the beast at the same time.

I have to get to her.

At a speed no human can match, I sprint through small pockets of night traffic and neighborhoods and old buildings, always dodging objects with ease that might otherwise crush me. I graze a tall wooden fence and leap onto the roof of a two-story house as if my body is air and I cannot be touched.

I weave my way in and out, street after street, the buildings and churches blurring into one another until I can’t make anything out at all.

Vaughan Woods comes into view and I feel like I can’t get there fast enough, no matter how hard my heart pumps this hot blood through my veins. I panic inside, feeling that every second that goes by is a second too long and it might be too late. I push myself harder, letting my mind filter its focus to the power of my legs, which only unleashes more of the beast.

I crash to my knees as two more ribs break and my hands come up, gripping my head as I arch my back, raising my burning chest to the sky. Pain rips through my spine and into the top of my head. I scream out in agony, my wails traveling through the night air as distinctly as thunder ripping through the atmosphere. I lunge forward, slamming my arms on the ground and fight the beast further, letting my need force it down for just a little longer. My heart beats in my fingers swift and abrasively; every ounce of breath forced from my lungs puts more pressure on my insides.

I can taste the blood in my mouth, seeping in-between my teeth and moving down into the back of my throat. I swallow it down, push myself to my feet and keep running over the wooden bridge and through the water, down the embankment and toward the field.

I can smell her…I can sense her so close.

A hundred branches whip my face as I move at lightning speed past them, weaving through the black forest that only makes the night seem darker.

I can hear her heart beating…so unexpectedly…calm.

A terrifying thought hammers at my mind: Is she dying? Is that why her heartbeat is so unnaturally still? Tears are burning my eyes and my chest; searing tears that I don’t have the power to hold back.

I crash through the trees and stumble out onto the edge of the field.

I can barely walk. I hardly have the strength anymore to drag myself across the hot grass and I fall again, having less control over the power of my transformation. I scream out, raising my hands to the sky, letting the pain torture me from the inside as I fall against my chest on the ground. My breath comes out in rapid pants. I roll my body over and lay on my back against the grass and I gaze up at the stars peeking through pockets in the clouds as the pain filters through my body like hot wax, hardening in my veins.

But as I stare upward, fixating my daze-like gaze on one star in particular, I suddenly feel calmer. The weight of the pain recedes just enough to allow me to see again, to realize where I’m at and to understand what I came here for. That I need to get up from this ground and push myself forward if it’s the last thing I do.

My head falls to one side; brittle grass prickles the side of my face. The landscape is visible at an angle, causing the night sky to lay awkwardly on the horizon.

I see a small shadow sitting in the center of the field, unmoving. I strain and my eyes begin to focus, the shadow becoming a figure.

I compel my body to move.

I raise myself from my back and push to my knees first, and each movement I make releases the pain that much more.

I stagger to my feet, gripping my torso with my arms, which is more painful, but a necessary gesture that my mind falsely believes might hold my ribs in place somehow.

But when I see Adria, the second I realize that the shadowy figure kneeling in the center of the field is my girl, it’s as if I’m the one in control again. A weight lifts from my mind and I pick up my steps and run toward her, every second or so the pain from my broken ribs threatening to send me to my knees. But I don’t stop. Not until I get closer. Within twenty feet of her, my run slows to a crawl.

I don’t want to scare her.

“Adria?” I say, reaching out to her with one hand and still holding my ribs with the other.

She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t move.

Adria sits hunched over with her knees bent underneath, her hands splayed in front holding the weight of her body up. Blood has hardened in her hair. I see her breathing, her back rising and falling in a slow, calm motion.

I step closer, thinking about the last time she and I were here, in this very spot. I remember looking down over my beastly form at her small body reaching out for mine. The way her eyes held little fear, but only surrendering emotion.

I want to see her face now, to see the same Adria that let me have her in the most intimate ways just two weeks ago. I need to feel her lips against mine and her heart against mine. My soul is breaking into pieces as I stand here, waiting for her to look up at me.

But it doesn’t feel right yet. I can’t force myself on her. She left that night for a reason and I want her to let me back in.

It needs to be her.

I kneel beside her, keeping a five-foot distance. It takes everything in me not to grab her and crush her against my body.

Slowly, Adria moves, turning her head to the side as if to see me, but I still can’t see her eyes and her face is obscured by shadow.

I move a little closer and reach out my hand, but I stop inches from her hair, feeling the incredible heat rising from her battered body. I see now that she has been fighting it, too. She has been using all of her strength to tame her beast, because if she had already Turned, I would have my connection to her. I would be able to hear her thoughts sitting this close and both of our emotions at their most turbulent.

Adria’s been fighting it, holding it back…but for what?

And how?

“I’m here, love…I’m here and I’m not leaving your side…,” I just want her to say something, anything that will indicate that she can hear me.

This time I do touch her hair. I can’t resist.

Adria lifts her eyes to me and I struggle not to break down seeing her face. Still so beautiful and soft and kind, but covered in streaks of blood as if the tears she had recently cried were made of it.

She raises her hand weakly and I gather it into mine, kissing her fingers.

“Isaac…,”

And then I feel the moon at my back and my body locks up.

Now her heart is beating faster, too fast for me to count the consistency.

“AHHH!” her cries are deafening, sending me scrambling to hold her.

“…Adria, you can do this,” I say pleadingly with tears in my voice. “I’m here with you and I won’t let you go!” My words come out fast and hard and I finally do crush her body against mine, but Adria’s back arches in a torturous display and she screams out again, filling my ears with so much pain and heartbreak. I want to close my eyes, but I can’t. I’m with her in this, no matter how much it hurts me to have to see her go through it.

Writhing in my grasp, her mouth locks open and her human hands, quickly showing evidence of change, grip my arms. Her eyes have already gone black.

I hear her bones breaking…

Trembling and still trying to hold my own beast back so that I can be with her in this moment, I look up to the sky as if searching for some kind of reprieve for her, as though those stars that Adria loves so much might help her. But instead, I find myself holding her tighter as her body thrashes violently. The human cry in her voice turns demonic; deep guttural growls resonate throughout her chest inexorably.