CHAPTER 52: FRACTURES

For a moment, the words hung there like smoke in the air, curling around them, choking and incomprehensible.

Raquel blinked rapidly, her mind trying to snatch onto what she said, ’when someone wants to break a wolf, they go after the pack...’

A wolf.

She swallowed hard, her voice trembling. "What... did you just say?"

Mira’s face hardened instantly. "Nothing. Don’t twist my words."

But Liam had caught it too. His brows furrowed, anger flashing hotter than confusion. "A wolf? Really? Now you’re spouting riddles about animals? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Mira?"

Mira’s lips pressed into a flat line. "Forget it."

"No," Liam snapped, stepping closer. "You don’t just throw that out there and expect us to ignore it. First it’s fake names, fake lives, paranoia about being followed, and now this crap about wolves and packs? Do you even hear yourself?"

Raquel shook her head, "A pack..." She repeated, hugging her arms to her chest. "We’re not wolves, Mira. We’re just people. Normal people. Or at least, we were. Before you pulled us out of our lives."

Mira’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Finally, Liam barked out a bitter laugher, "God, listen to us. We sound insane. You sound insane, Mira. You know what I think? You’ve dragged us into some mess you don’t even understand, and now you’re feeding us half-truths and cryptic bullshit because you don’t have the guts to admit what’s really going on."

Mira’s eyes snapped up, furious. "Don’t talk to me like that. I’ve been fighting this long enough."

"Fighting what?" Liam roared. "You keep saying ’they,’ ’danger,’ ’wolves,’ ’fighting,’ like we’re supposed to just understand. If you want us to trust you, give us something real. Because right now, all I see is someone who’s lost her mind and taken us with her. Against our wish!"

Mira stood slowly, scraping her chair back. Her gaze locked onto his with such intensity that even Liam faltered for half a second.

"You still don’t get it," she said quietly. "I didn’t take your lives. I saved them."

"Saved them from what?" Liam demanded. "Who trailed us in New York, who knows our names, who knows our faces, who will dig us out, who will use us as pawns against you, what collateral damage?!"

Her lips parted, the words almost spilling out. For one second, it looked as though she might finally confess the truth. That the danger wasn’t just strange cars trailing them but something worse. That the word ’wolf’ hadn’t been an accident.

But then her mask snapped back into place. She shook her head once, sharply. "You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."

Raquel’s breath hitched. "Try us."

"You’ll understand when the time comes," she said at last.

Liam slammed his fist against the wall, the sound cracking through the apartment. "Damn it, Mira!" His voice was raw, breaking now. "You don’t get to keep stringing us along like this. We deserve to know the truth. If you want us to keep following you, then give us something—anything."

Mira met his gaze, unflinching. "What I give you is survival."

Raquel asked, "And what if we don’t want survival on your terms?"

Mira’s eyes softened, just for a moment. "You really have no choice, you’re in already."

The three of them stared at one another across the cramped room, while their little world threatened to split apart.

And though Liam and Raquel didn’t yet realize it, Mira’s slip of the tongue had already revealed more than she ever intended.

-

Mira walked inside her room and shut the door with a violent crack that made the walls tremble. She locked it, turned the key twice, and stood still, listening. Beyond the door, Liam and Raquel’s muffled voices rose and fell in angry bursts, but here in her space? Everything was calm.

She inhaled deeply, let her lungs fill, and then let out a guttural scream, a sound not meant for human ears. Loud enough to shatter glass.

But outside this room, there was nothing. The sound vanished, absorbed by the heavy wards she had placed around her sanctuary.

Her hands trembled, "Finally," she whispered hoarsely. "Finally, I can breathe."

She moved to her bed and pulled out the wooden box from beneath. Lifting the lid, the stale air of ancient things seeped out, thick with the scent of rusting iron and earth.

Inside lay her inheritance, blackened bowls wrapped with dry leaves. Inside the bowls were different shades of black powders, dried roots bound with red thread and small vials of liquid that glowed faintly.

Mira set the iron bowl on the floor. She poured from the first vial, the liquid was thick and black as tar. From another, she poured a powder so fine it seemed to float midair. As they touched, the mixture hissed, spitting sparks that leapt like fireflies all around the room.

She began to chant her incantations, a language too old for the human world. The words rolled off her tongue like knives and with each phrase, the room shuddered.

Her voice rose, breaking into another scream, this one almost so loud, it could have split the walls. And yet, beyond the door, Liam and Raquel heard nothing. No sound could pierce the cocoon she had wrapped around this room.

Her body arched back as the bowl glowed red. Sweat rolled down her temples, dripping into her collar, but her lips never stopped moving.

She bent over the glowing bowl, her hair falling wild around her face as the liquid shimmered. Her lips twisted into an evil smile.

"They think this is about them," she said in English, stirring the mixture with steady, deliberate circles. "They think it’s about keeping them safe. Safe?" She laughed bitterly. "Safety is an illusion. What I’m giving them is so much greater.

They think me selfish. They think I dragged them into this for me. Fools! Blind, stumbling children. If only they knew. They would beg me, BEG ME! to change them."

Her eyes gleamed with a manic light as she stirred the mixture with the silver spoon. The liquid inside the bowl now shimmered with different colours. Crimson, then violet, then silver.

"I won’t let them waste their lives as mortals. I won’t let them rot in mediocrity, bound to weak flesh and weaker dreams. No... I will carve them new. I will strip away the lies they call ’selves’ and build something stronger, sharper. My wolves. My pack. My children."

Her voice cracked, rising again into a scream that shook the walls. Still, beyond the room, no one heard nothing.

"And they will thank me. When their bones are stronger, when their hearts burn with fire, when they can tear down the world with their bare hands, they will kneel before me and thank me."

Her laughter followed, filling the room as the potion crackled, releasing a hiss of smoke that curled upward, taking on the faintest shape of a wolf’s jaw before dissolving into the air. Mira watched it with fever-bright eyes.

"No," she whispered. "This isn’t just about survival. It’s about war. It’s about finishing what should have ended long ago."

Her hand tightened around the spoon, her knuckles turning whiter. "She still walks that school, pretending she’s untouchable. But no one is untouchable, no one can hide from me. Not even her."

The room pulsed again as if it had heard her words. Shadows deepened, pressing close to her body, wrapping around her like armor. Mira closed her eyes and let them seep into her skin, trembling under the weight of the power she was summoning.

"They’ll call me ruthless. They’ll call me a monster. But when this is done, when my pack rises with me, no one will dare whisper her name again. She’ll be nothing more than a shadow burned from the earth. I must complete what Mama started."

Her voice rose with her heartbeat, raw and jagged. "And I’ll be the one to end her."

The potion flared red, brighter than before, filling Mira’s face with light. She leaned over it, lips parted in reverence for power.

"Yes," she breathed, almost to herself. "This isn’t for them. It’s for me. For all of us. And when the hunt begins again, they will be my teeth, my claws, my wolves. Together, we’ll tear her world apart."

The mixture gave one final violent hiss, spitting sparks that clung to Mira’s skin before fading. She didn’t flinch. She only smiled, whispering to the shadows:

"Whitethorn won’t protect you forever."

-

This was the beginning.

Weeks would pass before the potion reached completion, before the last ingredient was ground into its depths. But Mira could already taste the end. She could already see Liam and Raquel’s faces—changed, unrecognizable, stripped of every trace of their past lives.

New names. New blood. New destinies.

And all of it hers to shape.

The mixture gave one final violent pulse, a light that washed over Mira’s face like a second dawn. She leaned closer, whispering to the bowl as though it could hear:

"This time, I will not fail."