The first thing I did when the grey morning light touched my eyelids and called me awake was reach for my phone.
Eyes still closed in the after-sleep haze, my hand slid across the nightstand on muscle memory and closed around cold glass.
My brain was still somewhere between oblivion and waking, but my thumb already knew where to tap. I rubbed my eyes with my other hand until my vision cleared.
There were no new messages on the screen, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I tapped the box with Ethan's name on it.
Hope you're okay. If you need anything, just call.
He had sent it last night, out of the blue. I had stared at it for too long then, trying to decide if and how to answer a sentence that felt at once too ordinary and too important.
I'd written back just before I fell asleep.
I will. Thanks, Ethan. I'll see you tomorrow.
On the screen it looked like nothing. Plain and boring.
It should not have meant much.
Yet lying there, hair still a tangled nest from sleep, the room washed out in the grey color of dawn, I felt my mouth pull into a smile on its own.
Somehow, those plain text bubbles had become… something.
I stared at the message one more second, then locked the screen before my imagination went places it shouldn't.
"Absolutely not," I told my own brain under my breath. "For Christ's sake, Kelsey, stop doing this to yourself. Don't be an idiot."
The ceiling didn't argue.
I dragged myself out of bed, went through the motions of my morning routine. By the time I came downstairs, the smell of coffee and something warm had already soaked into the air.
The moment I stepped off the last stair, I knew something was different.
The house felt… lighter.
Jack stood in the kitchen in the same old flannel and worn jeans, steaming mug in hand, shoulders a bit more relaxed than they had been the previous days, and Elise moved at the counter in a smoother, gentler way, so different from the brittle, rehearsed thing I had gotten used to. There was an undercurrent there, almost like the air just before summer rain.
"Morning," I said cautiously.
Jack turned. Elise looked up from the stove. They both watched me a second too long, as if weighing how to say what they needed to say.
Then Jack's mouth moved.
"Your father shifted," he said.
For a second the words hovered in the space between us, then crashed through whatever fog my brain had been hiding in.
"He what?" My voice cracked.
"Shifted," Elise repeated, softer. There was a brightness in her eyes I had not seen in days. "Fully. Into his human form."
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it almost hurt.
"When?" I asked, my eyes already drifting toward the barn. "Is he, does he…"
"He is awake," Elise said. "Exhausted. But he managed to speak a few sentences. He recognized us. Asked about you and Hailey."
My knees almost gave. I grabbed the back of a chair to keep from folding.
"So he's… himself?" I whispered. It felt dangerous even to ask. Because he wasn't in the house, and it lined my hope with cold dread.
Jack's eyes cooled a degree.
"Not completely," he said. "Not yet. Think of it like… pieces that have finally pulled mostly into place. They line up, but they haven't set. Right now his mind is as fragile as wet plaster. Any sudden strain, any spike of instinct, could break it up again."
"But he is better?" I asked carefully. "Just still… not safe?"
Elise turned off the stove. The pan hissed once as the burner cooled.
"He is better than we thought he would get this soon," she said, wiping her palms on her apron. "That is not nothing. But recovery takes time. And patience."
I swallowed. "I want to see him," I said. The words were out before I could overthink them. "Please."
Jack's gaze flicked briefly toward Elise. Some silent conversation passed between them. When he looked back, his eyes were steady.
"Alright," he said, focused and firm. "I will allow it. Under conditions."
"Hailey can't go," Elise added at once, dreadfully calm. "She's too young. She doesn't understand. She'd run to him and…" She looked away. "We can't risk that. This needs to be controlled."
A flicker of pain went through me. Hailey had missed him so much, and denying her this felt like a physical punch. I understood Elise's reasoning, it made perfect sense. That didn't make it hurt any less.
"What are the conditions?" I asked.
Jack set his mug down.
"One, you won't go alone," he said. "We'll walk you there and stay outside. Two, you will go in very, very slowly. You will let him smell you before he hears you, and hear you before he sees you. You won't make any sudden movement. And, most importantly, you will not close the distance unless he explicitly allows it. And last, you are in and out in under three minutes. Think of it as a check-in, not a visit."
"And if…" I swallowed. "If something goes wrong?"
"Then you step back slowly," Elise said. "Don't turn your back on him and don't run." She sighed. "He'd never intentionally hurt you, even at his worst, but it's important to avoid any trigger that could override his rational mind. So if anything happens… just slowly walk back toward the exit. We'll handle it."
There was no bravado in her voice. No empty promises. Just the blunt truth. Everything in me compressed into a ball.
"Okay," I said anyway. "When?"
Jack glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Now's the best time," he said. "He's still tired from shifting after so long, so he'll be calmer. Slower."
A hysterical laugh wanted to work its way up my throat. They wanted to do this now. Like this was some minor errand before school.
I pressed my tongue against the back of my teeth until the impulse faded.
"Okay," I said again. "Let's go before I talk myself out of it."
We didn't linger.
Hailey was on the living room couch, cross-legged, absorbed in a cartoon, crayons and paper scattered on the coffee table. Elise paused only long enough to push a stray lock of hair behind her ear and kiss the top of her head.
"We have to go outside for a while, sweetheart," she told her. "Stay in the house until we get back."
"Okay," Hailey said absently, her eyes still on the screen.
The three of us stepped out into the cold.
The sky was a flat slab of white, the kind that promised snow. Frost still clung stubbornly to the edges of the grass in the shadow of the barn and trees. The air was crisp against my warm cheeks.
The barn loomed in the grey light.
The closer we came, the more my nerves lit and my pulse quickened. My hands trembled and I shoved them in my pockets.
Jack and Elise peeled off before we reached the doors, each taking up a position on either side of the barn door.
"Remember," Jack said quietly. "Slow. No sudden movements. At the first sign that he's losing his grip, you walk out. Slowly. You understand?"
I managed a weak nod.
"We'll be right here," Elise added, eyes locked on mine. "Breathe in deeply. Calm down. We don't want him to smell your fear."
I nodded and obeyed, pulling in air through my nose and exhaling it through my mouth until I felt my heartbeat slow down.
My breath left my mouth in ghostlike clouds.
The chains groaned when I touched them. Jack had loosened them just enough earlier to create a gap a human could slip through, but not a lupine in wolf form. At least, that's what he'd told me.
I unhooked the padlock with numb fingers and eased the doors open just wide enough to slide inside.
Dim light seeped in through the cracks in the walls and the small, grime-clouded window high up on the back wall. Dust floated in the air in lazy swirls. The air inside was thick and suffocating with the smell of iron, rot, and fur mixed with sawdust. The same smell I'd felt through the cracks between the planks was so much worse now, making my stomach churn.
And then I saw him, sitting in the far corner.
For a sliver of a second my brain refused to connect the image with the man I knew. Because this man was a nightmare version of a man who once burned waffles. The bones were the same. Everything else was different and wrong.
He sat with his back against the wall, knees bent, bare feet flat on the floorboards. They had given him an old T-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, the fabric hanging off him in ways that made it clear he had lost weight. His hair, once neat and always trimmed, hung in clumped, greasy strands around his face. Short beard shadowed his jaw.
His whole body looked too tense for the posture. Coiled, like a snake before a strike. His fingers were splayed against the ground, tips dug into the dirt as if bracing. His eyes, the same shade of brown I saw every morning in the bathroom mirror, were locked on me.
He didn't blink. He just… stared, eyes fixed with laser precision, expression unreadable.
"Hi," I croaked, without meaning to. The word sounded pathetic in the hollow space.
He didn't answer. But he cocked his head and his breathing changed. It became slower. Deeper.
Slow, Kelsey. I heard Jack's voice in my memory as clearly as if he stood behind me. No sudden moves.
Okay , I told myself. I can do this.
I took one step forward.
Dad's pupils jumped, swallowing more of the iris. His fingers dug in deeper. My teeth pressed together, fists clenching at my sides.
Another step.
"Kelsey," he said suddenly. I stopped dead in my tracks.
His voice was rough, like he had a cold, but the consonants were clear. It wasn't the mangled sound from before. Funny, it sounded closer to the way he used to say it when I stayed out too late.
Emotion hit like a slap. I shoved it down.
"Hi, Dad," I said. The title came out on the same breath as the name. It felt right. "They said I could come by. For a bit."
His eyes opened wider and a corner of his mouth curved upward, a fractured attempt at a smile. "Pup," he said in that rough voice and blinked, a painfully human gesture. There was so much gratefulness, love, and regret in that one word, it made my chest ache.
I took another slow step, then another.
When there were only a dozen feet left, he moved.
His hand shot up, palm out. The motion was so inhumanly fast it made my heart skip a beat. His gaze snapped away, as if he couldn't bear to look at me.
"Stop." The word had the old authority in it, the voice that used to freeze me on the stairs when I was eight and had tried to sneak cookies before dinner.
I froze.
For a moment the façade held. His spine straightened. Arm locked.
Then his shoulders flinched and his face faltered.
"Stop," he repeated, almost panicked, the word tearing in the middle. "Pup… Please. Not closer. Not… not yet."
His hand stayed where it was, his shaking palm between us like some makeshift shield, a barrier not against me, but for me.
I must have made a sound, some involuntary exhale, because he looked back at me, eyes sharp.
"Kelsey," he said, his voice trying to regain footing. "There is… a gap," he said, struggling as if each word hurt him. "Between… what I want… and what the instinct does. And right now… it's faster than me, Pup. Won't risk it. Can't. Not… you. Never… you."
It's faster than me.
My breath stopped as my mind snapped back to our apartment ten years earlier.
Suitcase open on the bed. Clothes thrown in in bundles. My mother's hands shaking as she folded a sweater, wiping tears from her face.
Dad standing in the doorway, with a dark red smudge at the collar of his T-shirt, a devastated look on his face.
"You knew who I was when you married me, Diane." His voice was quiet, too quiet.
Mom wiped away a tear, sniffed. "I knew… I knew…" She shook her head. "I thought I knew. I thought…"
Silence, then his voice, lower, hoarser.
"That bastard pulled a gun on you." He paused, then quieter, "It was faster than me."
Mom laughed, almost hysterically. "Faster than you?"
"Yes," he had said, his voice cold as ice. "When your life or hers is on the line, then yes, it's faster than me. To protect what is most dear to me, it will always be faster."
It . Not I. As if something lived in his skin that was separate and quicker, something he could wrestle, but not always pin.
I remembered Mom hiccuping, and the rest had faded.
It was their biggest fight. The only real fight that I remembered. Only now did I understand what it had meant, even if I didn't know the full story behind it. I didn't know who the guy with the gun was or why I didn't remember it until now. All I knew was that that suitcase was never packed, and whatever rift between them had opened that night had sealed itself shut again.
But I suddenly understood the same truth Mom had realized back then.
This… thing, this dangerous thing had always lived inside his skin, held on a tighter leash, merged with him instead of separate, and even then there were times when it had acted on its own. Without sense, without measure. When we were in danger.
But now, when the bond broke, the leash had broken too.
My chest squeezed. I couldn't breathe.
I looked at his hand, still held up like he was expecting me, maybe even wanting me to rush to him, yet needing to stop me more than anything he had ever needed in his life.
The urge to cross that last stretch and wrap my arms around him was so strong I could almost feel the phantom warmth of it. But it was a human need that had no place here.
From under it emerged the memory of Jack's words, and the image of his torn sleeve, and the crack of something massive slamming against wood.
I was not stupid.
"Okay," I said. My voice steadied on the second syllable. "Okay, Dad. I hear you. I won't come any closer."
His body relaxed a bit, uncoiling. His hand fell. When he looked back at me, his jaw trembled, just a little.
"Good. That's good." He nodded, more to himself than to me. His lips pressed together as his shoulders slouched.
We stayed like that for several moments. Him in the corner, shaking slightly, holding himself back by sheer will. Me at the arbitrary line between safe and maybe not.
Somewhere behind me, outside, a lonely bird chirped. The world kept moving.
"I have to go to school," I said eventually. It felt absurd to say it in here, like telling someone at a funeral that you needed to pick up dry cleaning.
One corner of his mouth twitched again.
"School," he repeated. "Right. Yes. That is good. Normal is… good."
"Yes, well," I said. "We are several light years past normal, but trying counts."
I took one slow step backward, then another. He tracked the movement with his eyes, his hand slowly lowering with each passing step.
"I'll come back later," I said. "If Jack and Elise say it is okay. We can talk more about waffles and terrible haircut choices. Or something else if you want. And when you're better we can discuss why you didn't tell me any of this before everything exploded. That will be a fun topic."
His throat worked.
"Kelsey," he said.
I stopped in the doorway.
"Yeah?"
He blinked as he said it, shoulders slouching. "I'm… so sorry."
Something in my chest cracked clean down the middle.
"I know," I said. "Just… try to get better, okay?"
I didn't wait for his answer because anything more would have broken me open.
I slipped out into the cold. The air outside felt too sharp after the barn's heavy stillness.
Jack's eyes went straight to my face, searching. Elise's hands, which had been clenched at her sides, relaxed a fraction when she saw I was in one piece.
"Well?" Jack asked.
"He talked," I said. "He remembered. He… stopped me from coming too close. That has to count for something, right?"
"Of course it counts," Elise said firmly, the frown on her forehead relaxing.
Jack nodded once.
"It means he's on the right track," he said. "Let's just hope he stays that way."
I looked back at the barn, at the dark crack between the doors where I had just stood.
"Okay," I said, more to myself than to them. "I'm going to school now."
Jack huffed out something that might have been a laugh in another life.
I turned, wiped at my face with the heel of my hand, and walked toward the car.
As I opened the door, I glanced back one more time.
The barn remained silent and still. But somehow today it seemed less dark, less pressing.
I got in, started the engine, and pulled out of the driveway toward a school full of werewolves and one boy whose message still glowed in the back of my mind like a small, defiant light.
Hope you're okay. If you need anything, just call.
For the first time in a long time, the storm inside me did not feel entirely empty.
Somewhere between the barn and the parking lot, between my father's raised hand and Ethan's stupidly ordinary texts, a thought settled in.
Maybe I wasn't in the blizzard alone after all.