The days rolled by with a strange sort of routine. At home, everything continued as usual. Elise kept up the domestic facade, scrubbing the house raw with disinfectant, although no matter what she did, that smell, that wet fur smell, was always somewhere underneath, hitting me every time I walked inside. Jack kept to himself, a quiet but immovable presence that was never overwhelming, yet somehow defined the space. I knew I had to talk to him, but couldn't bring myself to, so I kept postponing.

  Dad spent his days at the barn, now completely transformed into a workshop, and buried himself in work. Hailey, bless her, kept her childish ignorance. She enjoyed the pancakes, the swing, the cartoons. Sometimes, at night, the howls would wake her up, and, confused, she'd call for Mom. Sometimes she'd crawl into my bed, gripping her teddy, Mr. Winkle, like salvation.

  The strange gravitational pull that had plagued my first week of school had reversed itself into a deliberate avoidance. It still made me feel like a leper, but all things considered, it was an improvement. Even the air around me felt less charged, less wired with unspoken danger.

  Nell noticed the change in me before I did.

  "You're walking differently," she murmured one morning as we crossed the parking lot.

  "I'm walking normally," I said.

  Her glance flicked over me in that sharp, assessing way of hers. "Not quite," she replied. "You're loosening up." She didn't say whether it was a good thing or a bad one.

  At school, Ethan continued to avoid me. Not the tense, circling distance of before, but a deep, deliberate separation. After my idiotic stare down experiment, he retreated completely, even skipping math classes. When I asked Nell about it, she refused to elaborate beyond, "It's better that way."

  Still, occasionally I would see him at the edges of crowds, glimpse the familiar outline of his shoulders disappearing around corners, catch the faintest change in the air when he turned away the moment our paths might intersect. Somehow his absence was louder than his presence had ever been.

  I hated how much it affected me.

  Not because I missed him, but because the void he left behind felt charged, like static gathering before lightning. Something in the school kept rearranging itself around that absence. The perimeter students had kept from me, a wide and painfully obvious ring, slowly, so slowly began to shrink again. Gradually. In increments too small to notice unless you were watching as obsessively as I was.

  A boy would pass a little too close on Monday.

  Another would linger half a second longer near my locker on Tuesday.

  Someone else would tilt his head and sniff the air as he passed me by on Wednesday.

  None of it was blatantly obvious or overtly threatening. But the cracks were there, noticeable once I grew accustomed to the oddities in their behavior.

  Apart from that, nothing dramatic happened, and yet, as time passed, my skin began prickling in a way that made me feel like the air itself had begun to coil around me.

  And then came the day when everything snapped.

  We had just finished lunch, and Nell gestured for me to follow her toward the side passage near the old gym, a dim transitional corridor between two wings of the school. Students cut through it to avoid the crowded courtyard and the wider hallway. It was half inside, half outside, an in between place illuminated by fluorescent lights and a streak of sunlight from the high, narrow windows.

  We walked in silence, and for a brief moment I allowed myself to breathe normally. The corridor was nearly empty, save for a handful of students drifting lazily through, most of them absorbed in their conversations.

  Nell was scanning the space ahead of us, her posture already straightening. Two boys were arguing near the back doors, shoving each other just enough to draw attention.

  "Wait here," she said tersely, already moving toward them.

  I stood still, adjusting my backpack, calming myself with the thought that it would take her maybe twenty seconds. Thirty at most. I had survived far worse gaps in her protection. The gray light filtered through the high windows and cast white and dark stripes across the floor. I focused on the play of shadow and light to steady my thoughts.

  The air around me suddenly shifted.

  So subtle I nearly dismissed it, like a temperature drop or the quiet before a door closes. A faint ripple hummed through the corridor, as if someone had pulled on an invisible thread running down its length.

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  I lifted my head.

  One boy stood a little farther down, leaning against the lockers. I recognized him as Tess's boyfriend from the cafeteria. His eyes were half lidded in thought until they snapped fully open, nostrils flaring ever so slightly as if catching something unexpected. His gaze sharpened, focusing on me.

  Another boy, sitting on the windowsill, straightened in a slow, languid motion that reminded me of a lazy cat standing. He ran his fingers through his hair, almost absentmindedly, but his eyes never left me.

  A soft prickle crawled across the back of my neck.

  I shifted my weight, intending to rush over to Nell, but the corridor was already closing around me. A boy, the one who had told me I smelled like the city, rounded the corner behind me, stopping short as though startled by the sight of me. Except he wasn't startled. He stared. His pupils widened. His lips parted as he took a slow breath.

  I took one step backward.

  It was an instinctive move, small and barely noticeable, but in this place, in this moment, everyone noticed.

  The boy near the lockers lifted his chin. The one on the windowsill pushed himself to his feet.

  Their movements synced in a way that made my skin prickle. They began moving toward me with that same unnatural precision I had witnessed the first week.

  I swallowed hard.

  "Guys," I said, my voice thin. "Can you not…?"

  But my words didn't land. Or they did, but not the way I hoped.

  One boy drifted closer, his eyes dragging across my face, my throat, my hair. His pupils were wrong, dark and swollen. His breath deepened, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that reminded me of something feral. He didn't touch me, not exactly, but he leaned close enough that I felt the faint warmth of him against my cheek.

  My heart jumped painfully. "Stop," I whispered.

  Another boy stepped behind me. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that the heat of him crawled along my skin. His breath grazed the back of my neck, too near.

  The first boy inhaled again, sharper this time, like scenting the air. His eyes dipped to my shoulder, then to my hair. A hand lifted, hesitating inches from me, hovering.

  My mouth went dry.

  "Back off," I said, louder this time. "Seriously, leave me alo—"

  A feather light brush of fingers at the ends of my hair cut me off. He didn't grab it. He touched it like he wanted to see what it was made of. As though he were trying to figure out the texture of something he didn't understand but felt compelled to investigate.

  Everything in me recoiled and I jerked away.

  Somebody shoved against me, knocking me off balance. I staggered back, my shoulders hitting the lockers with a quiet thud.

  A low, nearly inaudible rumble passed through one boy's chest. Another stepped sharply forward, cutting off the path on my left. A third blocked the right, baring his teeth not in a smile, but in something raw and uncomfortable.

  Panic clawed up my throat.

  Nell was still handling the argument. She hadn't looked back.

  Ethan was nowhere to be seen.

  No one else was close enough to step in.

  I tried to move sideways, but my foot slipped slightly on the smooth tile. As I caught myself, my palm scraped against the rough metal edge of a locker. A sting shot through my hand.

  And then the smallest drop of blood welled up at the heel of my palm.

  It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't even noticeable unless you were staring. But they reacted like I'd lit a match in a room full of kerosene.

  Every head snapped toward me in perfect, terrifying unison. Their pupils flared wider than seemed possible. Their nostrils expanded. Their breaths deepened into something that no longer resembled breathing, but something far more vicious.

  The boy closest to me took a half step forward, then turned toward the others with a low, vibrating growl in his chest.

  No one was looking at me anymore.

  Suddenly, they were focused on each other.

  The growl turned into a full throated snarl as two boys lunged at one another. Bodies collided with a dull, sickening force that cracked against the lockers.

  A realization flashed through my horrified mind.

  They weren't attacking me.

  They were fighting over me.

  My back pressed against the lockers as I tried to make myself smaller, the edges digging into my shoulder blades, my breath coming in shallow bursts. The noise around me blurred into chaos. Someone bumped into me while shoving past another, and I lost my footing entirely.

  I hit the floor, hands braced on the cold tile, pain flaring across my scraped palm. The sharp tang of blood filled my nose.

  And then everything ruptured.

  A shadow tore into the corridor. It was more than a person. It was a train arriving at full throttle.

  I barely had time to recognize him. Ethan.

  He didn't look at me, not once. He surged into the fray with a force that didn't belong to any boy our age. His hand clamped onto the back of one boy's jacket, hauling him off his feet and slamming him against the lockers. The sound vibrated through the entire hallway. Another boy lunged toward him and Ethan, in a motion so fast it escaped my eyes, snapped his arm out, knocking him aside with lethal precision.

  He didn't say a word. He didn't even look at them.

  But they stopped. Dead.

  All movement ceased instantly, even their breathing. As though something in his presence forced their bodies to obey in a way language never could.

  When his eyes cut toward me, they were fully black. His jaw flexed like it hurt to hold it still. A tremor ran down his forearm as he dropped the boy he'd been holding.

  Then he crossed the last few feet to me in two long, furious strides.

  "Get up," he said, his voice low and ragged, as if forced through clenched teeth.

  I tried, but my knee buckled again and he caught my arm, his grip iron tight but not painful. His hand slid under my elbow, lifting me with controlled strength. His gaze dropped to the blood on my palm.

  A ripple went through him.

  It wasn't anger. Not exactly. But it wasn't quite just concern either.

  It was something deeper. Older. More dangerous.

  He shut his eyes briefly, inhaled once, and when he opened them again the black was edged by the thinnest ring of amber.

  "Don't run," he said, barely audible. "Behind me. Now."

  I didn't argue.

  Ethan stepped forward, placing his body between me and the boys, and as he did, the entire corridor shifted. Every one of them lowered their gaze. Shoulders hunched. Backs curved subtly inward.

  Ethan's whole body was trembling, like he was holding himself together by threads.

  He turned his head slightly, without taking his eyes off the others. "We're leaving," he said, his voice scraped raw. "Follow me."

  He turned away without looking at me.

  I knew we weren't going to class, but away. Away from that frenzy, that near mayhem.

  It was obvious he wasn't himself. It was obvious he was affected just as much as they were, if not more.

  But right now, he was my only lifeline.

  So I followed.