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The silver needle sat on the intake desk like a threat.
Ella stared at it. The clerk didn't look up. She'd been standing here for three minutes and the woman still hadn't acknowledged her, just kept typing into a terminal that looked older than Ella's mom. The waiting room smelled like antiseptic and old carpet. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A guy in the corner kept scratching at his wrist, right where the registry band would go.
She shouldn't be here.
Eighteen years old as of midnight, and this was her birthday present: a mandatory appointment at the Marked Registry Office, downtown branch, nine a.m. sharp. Miss it and they'd send enforcement to her door. Show up and they'd tag her like livestock.
"Gray, Ella."
The clerk finally looked up. Middle-aged, dead eyes, the kind of face that had processed a thousand files and stopped caring around file three hundred. She gestured to the chair across from her desk.
Ella sat.
"Right hand," the clerk said.
Ella put her hand on the desk. Palm up. The moon mark sat right in the center, a pale crescent she'd been born with. Most people thought it was a tattoo until they looked close. Then they saw the way it moved under the skin when the moon was full, like something alive.
The clerk pulled on latex gloves. Picked up the silver needle.
"This is gonna hurt," she said, not unkindly. Just stating a fact.
Ella wanted to pull her hand back. Run. She'd thought about it last night, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Just skip town. Head west where the registry laws were looser, where you could still disappear if you knew the right people. But her mom was here. Mia was here. And running meant admitting she was scared.
She wasn't scared.
She was pissed.
The needle touched her mark.
Pain shot up her arm like lightning. Not the sharp sting of a shot—this was deeper, hotter, like the silver was burrowing into bone. Her wolf surged up inside her chest, snarling, clawing for the surface. She bit down hard on her tongue. Tasted copper. The lights overhead flickered.
"Hold still," the clerk said.
Ella's nails dug into the edge of the desk. The wood creaked. She forced her breathing to slow, forced the wolf back down. In. Out. In. The pain peaked and then dulled to a throb.
The clerk pulled the needle away. A single drop of blood welled up in the center of Ella's mark, then sank back in. The crescent glowed faint silver for a second, then settled.
"You're in the system," the clerk said. She reached under the desk and pulled out a black wristband, the kind that looked like a fitness tracker but wasn't. "Wear this at all times. Removal triggers an automatic alert. Tampering triggers an automatic alert. Missing a check-in triggers an automatic alert. You get three strikes. Fourth one, enforcement picks you up."
Ella took the band. It was heavier than it looked. Cold. She snapped it around her left wrist. It contracted slightly, conforming to her skin. A tiny green light blinked on.
"Check-ins are monthly," the clerk continued, sliding a glossy pamphlet across the desk. The cover read: *Living Responsibly: A Guide for Marked Citizens.* "First one's in thirty days. Location services are active, so we'll know if you leave city limits without filing a travel waiver. Any questions?"
Ella had about a hundred questions. None of them were the kind this woman would answer.
"No," she said.
"Then you're dismissed. Next."
Ella stood. Her hand still throbbed. She shoved the pamphlet into her jacket pocket and walked out, past the guy still scratching his wrist, past the mom holding a kid who couldn't have been older than twelve, past the security guard by the door who watched her the whole way with a hand resting on his baton.
The moment she hit the street, she sucked in a breath. The air was cold, early spring cold, but it was clean. No antiseptic. No buzzing lights. She started walking.
Her phone buzzed.
Mia: how'd it go
Ella thumbed a reply: Still alive. Meet at Rowan's?
Mia: already there. got us a table in the back
Rowan's was three blocks south, a dive cafe that served burnt coffee and mediocre eggs but never asked questions. Ella and Mia had been coming here since sophomore year, back when skipping fourth period felt like rebellion. Now rebellion was wearing a government tracker and pretending it was fine.
Mia was in the back corner booth, exactly where she said she'd be. She looked up when Ella walked in, and her face did that thing it always did—brightened for half a second, then fell when she saw Ella's expression.
"That bad?"
Ella slid into the seat across from her and held up her wrist. The green light blinked steadily.
"Welcome to the club," Mia said quietly. She held up her own wrist. Same black band. Same green light. She'd turned eighteen two months ago. "It's not as bad as you think. You get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it."
"Yeah, well." Mia shrugged. She picked at the edge of her napkin. "Not a lot of choice."
Ella wanted to argue. Wanted to say there was always a choice. But Mia's mom worked for the city, and her dad was human, and she'd spent the last two months telling herself the registry was fine, just a safety measure, nothing to freak out about. Easier to believe that than to admit they were all on a leash now.
A waitress swung by, dropped off two mugs of coffee without asking. Ella wrapped her hands around hers. It was too hot to drink but the warmth felt good.
"So what now?" Mia asked.
"Now I go home. Pretend today didn't happen. Show up to class tomorrow and hope nobody asks to see my wrist."
"They will."
"I know."
Mia bit her lip. She did that when she was thinking, when she wanted to say something but wasn't sure she should. Finally she leaned in, voice dropping.
"Have you heard the stuff people are saying?"
Ella frowned. "What stuff?"
"About the registry. About people disappearing."
"Disappearing."
"Yeah." Mia glanced around, like someone might be listening. The cafe was half empty. Nobody was paying attention. "There's this girl, Becca Tran. She was registered last fall. I met her at a check-in. She was cool, you know? Funny. She had this joke about how the wristbands made us all look like we were training for a marathon we didn't sign up for." Mia's smile flickered and died. "Anyway. She missed her check-in last month. I saw it on the board when I went in. Her name was flagged red."
"So she skipped. People skip."
"That's what I thought. But then I saw her mom on the news. She filed a missing person report. Said Becca wouldn't just run. And she's not the only one. There's like six other names flagged red in the last three months. All of them young. All of them werewolves."
Ella's coffee had gone cold in her hands. She set it down.
"You think someone's targeting us."
"I don't know what I think," Mia said. "But it's weird, right? The registry's supposed to keep us safe. So why are people vanishing?"
Ella didn't have an answer for that.
Mia's phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at it, frowned, picked it up. Her frown deepened.
"What?" Ella asked.
Mia turned the phone around. It was a message, sender unknown. Just one line:
*Before the full moon, don't trust the list.*
Ella stared at the screen. The green light on Mia's wristband flickered once. Twice. Then it turned red.
Mia's breath caught. She grabbed her wrist, shaking it like that would fix it. The light stayed red.
"What the hell—"
"Take it off," Ella said.
"I can't. You heard them. Tampering triggers—"
"Mia."
Mia looked up. Her eyes were wide, scared. The red light pulsed, faster now, like a heartbeat.
And somewhere outside, a siren started to wail.