Chapter 3

The next morning, I went back to the pack school to collect my records.

I had just reached the stairs when someone laughed behind me.

"Look who it is. Top score in the whole pack."

"I heard she wanted to stay with Ronan. Then all four of them picked Greywater, and she got shipped off alone."

"Shipped? She threw herself at him and lost. Now she's running."

Three she-wolves blocked the stairs. The one in front was a girl Elodie had only met last month.

She looked me up and down. "You wouldn't even let Elodie borrow some old memories. Who do you think you are?"

"Move."

"Or what?" She raised her voice. "Elodie's right. You grew up with four boys around you, so you think you're a princess."

"Not anymore," someone said. "Now they all pick Elodie."

"She confessed and got dumped after one day. I'd die."

More students stopped to watch.

I looked down the hall.

Ronan and the others were standing at the far end. Knox held Elodie's file. Everett was checking her forms. Felix carried her coffee.

Ronan saw me too.

He only frowned. He didn't come over.

Two years ago, a boy said I only got into the advanced class because of the four of them. Ronan dragged him into the announcement room and made him apologize to the whole school.

Now three girls had me cornered on the stairs, and Ronan acted like he couldn't see.

Elodie hurried over and grabbed my arm. "Stop it, all of you. Wren's just upset."

The girl in front laughed. "You're too nice, Elodie. She's jealous, and you still defend her."

Elodie's eyes filled.

Ronan finally walked over. He pulled Elodie behind him.

"Wren. If you're angry, be angry at us. Don't take it out on her."

Before I could speak, the girl behind me kicked over a mop bucket.

Water splashed over my arms and neck.

It burned.

Someone had mixed wolfsbane into it. Red welts rose on my skin, and they didn't close.

"Oops," the girl said. "My foot slipped."

Everyone laughed.

Ronan could smell it. I saw it in his face.

"It's diluted," he said. "It'll heal by tonight. Go home and change. Don't make a scene here."

So they could burn me in front of everyone, and it was a slip.

If I pushed back, it was a scene.

I picked up my records and left.

Half an hour later, I had just changed when someone pounded on my door.

All four of them walked in with Elodie. They didn't knock. They never had.

"The pendant," Knox said. "Elodie had it this morning. Now it's gone."

I leaned against the wall. "And?"

"You were the only one who touched her at school," Felix said. "Who else would take it?"

He went straight into my bedroom and pulled open my drawers.

The others started on my closet and desk.

I used to think the way they walked through my room meant we were close.

Now I understood. They just believed everything of mine was theirs to handle.

Knox opened the closet. Only a few shirts hung inside.

"Why are you packing?"

My chest went tight for a second.

Everett glanced at the suitcase by the bed. "To scare us. Obviously."

Felix laughed. "You're eighteen, Wren. Running away from home now?"

None of them thought I was really leaving.

Ronan found my enrollment contract on the desk. He looked at the cover and nothing else. Then he folded it in half and shoved it under the short leg of my desk.

"Silverhaven doesn't start until fall. What, you'll vanish tomorrow?"

Then Elodie bent and pulled something from the gap behind the desk.

"Found it!"

It had slipped off her own neck.

She looked at me, pink-faced. "Sorry, Wren. I got it wrong."

Ronan ruffled her hair. "As long as you found it. Don't cry."

No one thought they owed me an apology.

Elodie's eyes moved to my laptop. The backups were open on the screen. Three years of camera footage. The lake trip. Every birthday since I turned fifteen.

"Oh," she said softly. "This is everything."

She looked up at me. "Could I use these for my film?"

"No."

I closed the laptop.

The light went out of her face.

Knox stepped in front of me. "You said you'd help her."

"I changed my mind."

Her tears fell at once. "You'll never let me be one of you, will you?"

Ronan's face went dark. He opened the laptop again.

"She wants the videos. You don't want to be in them. So take yourself out."

"Ronan. Don't."

He ignored me. He selected every file with my name on it.

I moved to stop him. Knox caught my arm.

On a normal day, I could have broken his grip. But the wolfsbane was still in my skin, and my arm shook.

"They're videos," Knox said. "Not your life."

Ronan pressed delete.

My first win at the pack trials. The night I first ran the whole border alone. And the lake, the summer I was sixteen, when Ronan grinned into the lens and said he was going to marry me one day.

All gone, by his hand.

"There." He let go of the mouse. "You won't be in any of our memories again."

He only meant to hurt me.

He didn't know how soon it would be true.

My phone buzzed.

[Transport arrives at dawn tomorrow.]