That afternoon, when I pulled into the driveway, I found Jack already waiting for me on the porch. His posture reminded me of a guard dog that had learned patience by force. He had his hands wrapped around the porch railing, shoulders hunched in his old flannel.
Elise stood a few steps farther out on the lawn, arms folded, her gaze sliding from me to the barn.
I parked the car and stepped outside, beneath the washed-out winter gray sky.
"You sure about this?" I asked, my breath coming out in misty clouds. My voice sounded weaker than I meant it to. Ever since Jack had told me earlier that morning that Dad was calm enough for us to try my plan after school, I had been excited and dreading this moment.
Jack didn't answer right away. His eyes tracked from me to the barn and back, weighing risks.
"No," he said finally. "But we're out of sure options." His eyes met mine and held firm. "Besides, it was your idea, wasn't it?"
My breath hitched. He had me there. I answered with a nod.
Elise looked over her shoulder. "We'll stay back," she said. "We won't crowd him, won't let him fixate on us. For this, it has to be you he holds on to. We'll only be here to supervise."
I swallowed.
"So." I cleared my throat. "No pressure."
Jack's mouth twitched, like he almost smiled and then caught himself.
"If he grows agitated, if anything goes wrong," he said, his voice dropping into that careful tone of a teacher, "you step away. Slowly. Do not run. Do not raise your voice. You step away and let us handle it. Understood?"
A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Understood." I breathed out, and both of their shoulders lowered in unison.
The barn loomed a little farther away, dark wood gone almost black with age and moisture. The big doors were still chained shut. From here, it could have been any farm outbuilding in any sleepy town. Except the air around it felt wrong. Or maybe it had only ever felt that way to me.
"Okay," I said. "Let's do it before I change my mind."
And so we walked.
Jack and Elise peeled off before we reached the doors, angling wide to either side, like two jets splitting from formation.
"Here," Jack said, stopping near the old oak. Close enough to move fast if he had to. Far enough that Dad wouldn't sense him first.
Elise mirrored him on the other side, eyes flicking toward the kitchen window where Hailey sat drawing. Anything to keep her occupied long enough for us to do this.
I walked the last few yards alone.
Up close, I was met with the familiar smell of sawdust and old metal. And underneath, fur and that awful rotten-iron undertone of dried blood.
The last time I had come here, I'd done it alone in the middle of the night, heart pounding, stupidity leading. This time I had an escort, a plan, and a head full of warnings.
Funny how I felt more exposed now.
I put my palm on the rough plank of the door. The wood was cold and rough enough to sting.
On the other side, something moved. Weight shifted. A massive body turned toward the sound.
"Hi, Dad," I said softly.
I was met with nothing. Nothing except breathing, low and heavy, like a draft through the boards.
"I, um…" My brain, which had spent days composing speeches, suddenly emptied. "Elise and Jack said I could come talk. Supervised. You can probably sense them. They're here to make it safe for both of us. So you don't need to worry."
Nothing.
I let my forehead rest against the wood for a second, eyes closing.
"Oh, God. Okay," I muttered. "Okay."
I took another slow breath.
"Hailey's okay," I said first. "She asked about you yesterday. She wanted to go in the barn. I told her to be patient just a little while. That you're still sick. She… understands on some level, I think. But she misses you." I paused. "And I do, too."
A long, rough exhale answered me, followed by a gentle click and scrape of claws on the other side.
My mouth tasted like sandpaper.
"Do you remember," I began, "our old kitchen, back in the city?"
A huff answered me from the other side.
"You used to make waffles on Saturdays, remember? That cheap mix from the box. You always burned the first one, like every single time."
The boards pressed against my temple. My heartbeat thudded in my ears.
"Hailey always ate it even if it was charred on one side," I said. "You let her. You said it was ‘chef's privilege.' Mom called it a health hazard."
My lips twitched toward a smile that couldn't quite form. It felt wrong to smile at a wall.
"You let me cut your hair when I was little," I said. "Remember that? I was eight, I think. I came to you with paper scissors and a comb and said I wanted to play hairdresser, and you let me. You ended up with that weird, almost bald patch behind your ear because I hiccupped."
Inside, the breathing hitched. Once. Twice. A drag in, a slower exhale out.
"You walked around with that patch for weeks," I said. "Mom rolled her eyes and said no more haircut sessions ever again."
My throat burned.
"Remember when you took us camping?" I asked quietly. "And we all hated it because of the mosquitoes and bugs. So the next time you brought several cans of repellent, even though it made you sneeze all day."
I almost choked a laugh at the memory. "I still hated it, though."
I pressed my lips tight. I would have given anything, anything, for us to have another chance. All of us. Mom, Dad, Hailey, and me.
Something shifted inside. A long, deliberate breath.
Pulling my shoulders back, I forced myself to continue.
"And when I grew up and started dating Mark, you hated him right off the bat." A shaky laugh escaped me. "You said I was too young, that I could do better, that he'd only hurt me." The laugh broke into a sob. "You were right." My shoulders sagged. "You were always right about those things."
Silence again, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
I wanted to talk about Mom more, but didn't. Jack and Elise warned me it was the rawest wound.
"Dad." I whispered into the wood. "Please, say something."
At first, nothing. Then a sound. Low, muffled. More vibration than voice.
"I know you're in there," I said. "I know you remember. The city. Our family."
My fingers dug into the plank.
"They keep telling me what you are," I went on. "Lupine. Instinct. All their words. I get it. I do. I understand you're not human." I swallowed. "Except that you were… once. In the way that mattered. The way that made you our dad."
Pain unfurled deep in my chest.
"And you're still our dad, somewhere underneath all that fur and teeth and whatever." My voice trembled. "You're still the guy who patched my scraped knees. Who burned waffles. Who held us together while everything else was falling apart. Including you."
Silence beat down like rain.
"You should've told me what was happening. You shouldn't have borne it alone. Nobody should."
I wiped my face on my sleeve.
"I'm still going to school," I said, forcing steadiness in. "Because if I stay in this house all day, I'll go insane. I'm choosing weird stares and sniffing instead. Going fabulous so far."
A sad breath-laugh escaped me.
"Beats me if I know what I'm doing," I admitted. "With you. With them. With any of this. I'm just picking the least bad option every day and hoping we don't all fall off a cliff."
Inside, he shifted again. A faint scrape, something big trying to move carefully.
"But I'm not leaving," I whispered. "Okay? Even when I'm so mad at you for dragging Hailey and me to this hell town, for not telling me things, then running into the woods. Even when I'm scared to death of what's left of you. I'm still here."
My voice thinned. I leaned closer until I felt splinters against my lips.
"But I want you to listen carefully." I swallowed. "I need you to come back. You don't have to be perfect. I don't expect you to be like before. I just…" My chest hurt. "Right now I'd settle for anything."
Silence.
My fingers were numb. My throat raw. My hope frayed.
I let my hand fall.
"Okay," I murmured. "That's enough talking to planks for one day."
I turned and nodded to Jack and Elise. I'm done.
"I'll come back tomorrow," I said. "Or the day after. Whenever they let me. We can talk about stupid things from before. Or I can tell you again you were right about Mark. You'll never get tired of hearing that."
I barely finished speaking when something broke behind the wall.
A soft, strangled sound, wrongly small for something that big. Then a snarl twisted out of it, low and raw, dragging pain with it.
Wood thudded. Chains strained.
A crack, bone doing something it shouldn't. Then more snaps, too fast, too many.
I froze.
"Kelsey!" Jack barked, far away.
My heart tried to claw out of my chest.
"Pup."
The word crawled through the wall. Not human. Not fully. Too deep. Too rough. But familiar.
My lungs forgot how to work.
"Kel…sey."
The second attempt broke in the middle, like that night before.
Claws touched the inside of the door, as if he were holding himself upright against it.
I didn't move closer. I just stood, hands shaking, the broken sound of my name echoing through me.
I looked at Elise and Jack. Jack gave a small, careful nod, and I eased back toward the barn.
I heard breathing. Faster. Labored.
And coming from a greater height.
I realized he was rising, taller than a human. The vibrations now came from above my head. It sounded… pained. He was hurting himself just trying to reach me.
"Dad?" I whispered.
"Pup."
More him now. Still rough, still raw. Two heaving breaths. "I'm… so… sorry."
Emotion hit so hard my knees nearly gave out. I caught myself on the wall, vision swimming. Jack and Elise stood rigid, barely containing themselves.
"It's okay," I said. "Just… stay with me. Okay?"
A groan tore out of him, turning into a hiss, then a frustrated growl. Claws scraped deeper.
"Try… Pup… try."
And then his body failed him.
The snaps, horrible and wrong, ripped through the barn again. I backed up one step at a time.
At ten feet, something massive slammed into the wall. The whole structure shuddered.
A hand landed on my shoulder, Elise pulling me back. Jack was already moving toward the door.
And all I could think was:
I pushed him too far. I might've destroyed him.
The barn went quiet.
***
Jack came to the house fifteen minutes later, sleeve torn, a bleeding slash from shoulder to elbow. Elise ushered Hailey away without a word and returned with the medical kit.
Jack wasn't upset. Just exhausted.
"He didn't attack me," he said immediately, looking at me as Elise cleaned the wound.
"What happened, then?" My voice barely worked.
"Instinct," Jack said. "You needed to see it. What happens when all his fragments want the same thing, but the wrong one acts first."
He sighed. "The sane part of Gabriel wanted to comfort you. But the strain from the change snapped him back into instinct, which translated your tears and his need to console you into a protect signal so strong he was willing to tear down walls to get to you. And if he did…" He nodded at his shoulder. "This is from holding him down. His mind took the back seat. ‘Protect' can become ‘crush' when there's that much force behind it."
My knees buckled. I sat hard.
"I almost had him," I whispered. "He spoke to me. He said he was trying, only to—"
"Regress," Elise said gently. "We expected it. Damage this deep doesn't heal in days. Each strain forward snaps him a little back. But snapping back doesn't erase the progress."
"And what if he never gets back?" I whispered. "What if he's never Dad again?"
Jack's jaw tightened. Elise swallowed but didn't look away.
"You're focusing on the wrong part," Jack said. "You're thinking about the snap, not the fact that he made progress today."
I stared at the floor.
"But what does it matter if he's that feral thing again?"
"He isn't," Jack said. "He was for a couple of minutes. Then he settled. He knows who he is again." He exhaled. "If he were lost, he wouldn't have said your name."
I didn't trust my voice. Didn't trust anything in me not to crack.
Outside, the barn stood silent, holding whatever pieces of him remained.
But he said my name.
And tomorrow, or the day after, I would go back.
Because if he was still fighting in there, then so was I.