Chapter 5 The Hunger

Ava couldn't eat.

The eggs on her plate congealed into a lukewarm puddle while she stared past them into nothing. The morning light through Lex's kitchen blinds should have felt comforting, domestic, something she could pretend meant normalcy. But it didn't. Not after waking up in the woods again.

Lex poured coffee. Her hand trembled slightly, but she said nothing. Just slid the mug in front of Ava and sat across from her, folding her arms. "You didn't hear me yelling for you this morning."

"I was too far," Ava said softly.

"How far?"

Ava sipped the coffee. Black. Scalding. She let it burn. "I don't know. But I walked back before sunrise."

Lex looked out the window. "That makes twice now. Ava?"

"Three times," Ava corrected. "There was a night last week. I woke up at the back of the junkyard. I thought I had just blacked out."

Lex swore under her breath.

Ava reached into her pocket and slid the river charm onto the table. It was cracked down the middle.

Lex touched it, hesitated. "So this is happening. For real."

Ava looked at her. "It's not a curse. Not a bite. It's something bigger. A pulling. Like gravity."

Lex reached into her drawer, pulled out a folded town map. She flattened it between their plates. Circles marked where bodies had been found in the last two years. Animal attacks, they said. Ava knew better now.

"You think it's building a territory?" Ava asked.

"Or testing boundaries," Lex said. "See this?" She pointed to a mark close to the trailer. "Last week. The Jenkins' dog was ripped in half. No drag marks. No tracks."

"Except mine," Ava muttered.

Lex nodded slowly. "We need to go back to Elijah."

They found his cabin burned.

Not completely, the walls still stood, but the roof had collapsed inward and smoke still curled up from blackened beams. Crows circled overhead.

Ava ran forward, shouting his name. Lex pulled a flashlight from the truck.

The door was open.

Inside, ash choked the air. Most of Elijah's collection was ruined, bones blackened, books turned to pulp, his maps gone. But the fireplace wall had survived, at least partly.

Ava crossed to it.

The sketch of the Alpha was scorched but still visible. And beside it fresh lines carved into the wood.

The words were"DON'T FORGET WHO YOU WERE."

Lex stared at it. "He knew. He knew it was coming."

Ava nodded. Her hand brushed over the carved letters. They felt warm.

She turned. "We have to finish what he started."

Lex frowned. "Which is?"

"Learning how to survive it. Or stop it."

Outside, the crows screamed. A sound not of nature, but warning.

Ava looked at the trees.

"Or maybe," she said, "we finish it by letting it happen."

That night, Ava returned to the woods alone.

She didn't tell Lex. She left after midnight, on foot. The forest opened for her like it had been waiting.

There was no fear this time. Only anticipation. Hunger.

She moved through the underbrush without sound. Her breath didn't steam. The air no longer bit her skin. She was warm. Alert.

Alive.

She reached the clearing. The same one from the night it smiled at her.

It was there.

Standing. Waiting.

Not a beast. Not a man. Both. Its eyes burned gold in the dark.

She stepped forward.

It didn't move.

She reached for her pocket, but there was no charm. No symbol. No protection.

Only instinct.

She bared her teeth.

The Alpha tilted its head.

You remember, it said.

Not aloud. Not in sound. But inside her head. Like a whisper spoken into her bones.

You remember what you are.

Ava didn't respond. She didn't have to.

She lunged.

And the forest closed in.

The world tilted. She felt the air crack around her skin. Her bones didn't shift, they unlocked. Her muscles twisted, coiled, exploded outward. Every joint howled.

She didn't scream.

She howled.

The Alpha caught her mid-leap. Clawed arms wrapped around her in a violent embrace. Their bodies tumbled together through the ferns. Ava's mind blurred. She didn't know what was happening-only that it felt right.

The Alpha pinned her. Not to dominate. To teach.

And in that moment, she saw everything.

Visions not of death, but birth. A lineage. Wolves with eyes like hers. Blood rituals in pine hollows. Bone circles older than maps. Her father, kneeling in the dark, whispering to something that should not have answered.

She saw the beginning.

And she saw the end.

Then nothing.

Dark.

Ava awoke in the moss, her body trembling. Dawn was cracking the sky.

The Alpha was gone.

But her hands were bloody.

And in her chest a second heartbeat.

Lex found her sitting on the trailer steps.

"You've been gone all night."

Ava didn't answer.

"You look different."

Ava smiled. "I am."

Lex hesitated. "Are you still... you?"

Ava didn't know.

But the hunger hadn't gone away.

It had only grown.