Chapter 24 · Two Sisters Down

The escape key's digging into my palm and Leah's clawing at the passenger door.

"Let me out." Her voice is wrong. Flat. The silver's still in her eyes.

I floor it. Hunter lights are three blocks back, maybe four. Dennis said the Moonwell's under the old aquarium. Said Mom's been down there twenty years. Said if I'm going I got maybe an hour before Gray Protocol locks the whole waterfront.

Leah stops clawing. Turns her head slow like something's pulling strings.

"You can't save her," she says. "The echo needs two. It always needed two."

"Shut up."

"Dad knew. That's why he took her. One werewolf goes in, the Moonwell stays quiet. Two go in—"

I yank the wheel. We're off Aurora now, cutting through back streets. My phone's blowing up. Chat notifications. Subscriber alerts. I didn't end the stream. I didn't even close the laptop. It's still running on my desk, camera pointed at an empty chair, mic picking up nothing.

Except they're not seeing nothing. View count's spiking. Forty thousand. Sixty thousand.

Leah laughs. It's not her laugh.

"They can feel it," she says. "You're broadcasting. The Moonwell knows you're coming."

I should've muted.