Chapter 1: The Shattering
The back of Paul’s neck still burned from last night’s argument, a low-grade fever of shame and fury. He shouldered his way through the crowded school hallway, the memory playing on a loop behind his eyes.
Sam’s kitchen, the yellow light buzzing, the air thick with disapproval. Paul had come in late, smelling of cheap perfume and cheaper beer. Sam was waiting, a silent mountain at the sink.
“You know she’s out there,” Sam had said, his voice quiet, which was always worse. “Somewhere. Our mate. And you’re out there… doing that.”
“Doing what? Living?” Paul had snapped, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “We don’t even know her. She’s a ghost. You want me to sit around and wait for a ghost?”
“I want you to have some respect. For her. For yourself.” Sam turned, his dark eyes heavy. “You can do whatever you want, Paul. But you don’t do it under our mate’s roof. This is her house, too.”
That had lit the fuse. “Her house?” Paul laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “We don’t even know who she is! For all we know, if she’s destined for two guys, she’s probably just some—”
He didn’t finish the word. Sam was across the linoleum in a blur of motion. A hand, hard as oak, slammed Paul against the wall by his throat, cutting off his air and his voice. The fridge rattled.
“You finish that sentence,” Sam growled, his face inches away, the wolf shimmering just beneath his skin, “and you find somewhere else to live. You hear me? No one respects you because you have no respect for yourself. Or anything sacred.”
Sam had released him, leaving him gasping against the cupboards. The silence afterward was louder than the fight.
Now, in the present, the hall stank of industrial cleaner and adolescent anxiety. Paul’s knuckles ached for a reason he couldn’t name.
A female screech cut through the noise. Tangie. Of course.
He spotted her, hands on her hips, a dark coffee stain blossoming like a disease across the front of her pink top. At her feet was a girl, a small heap of black fabric and platinum hair, scrambling back on her palms.
“You stupid, clumsy freak!” Tangie shrieked, and gave the girl a hard shove on the shoulder, sending her fully onto her ass.
Paul moved toward them, not out of concern, but because it was a disturbance, a spark in his dull, angry day. The girl on the floor didn’t look up. She wore a long-sleeved black top that clung to a frame so slight it looked breakable, dark jeans, scuffed black sneakers. Her hair was a sheet of pale gold, a color that screamed outsider here, just like the sliver of wrist he saw was painfully, porcelain white.
“Where were you last night?” Tangie demanded as he approached, her anger instantly redirecting. She tried to hook a finger in his belt loop.
“Sleeping,” he lied, brushing her hand away. He hated this, the possessive act. They weren’t dating. She was just convenient, and loud, and currently useful for focusing his rage somewhere else.
He turned his attention to the pale girl on the floor. “Watch where you’re going,” he said, his voice flat. “And get your head up. Stop looking at your feet like a dumbass.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. Just stayed there, curled in on herself. The complete lack of reaction, of defiance, of anything, pissed him off more. It was disrespectful. Sam’s words echoed: No one respects you.
A hot wire of anger snapped inside him. He leaned down, his hand tangling in that shocking blonde hair. It was soft, finer than he expected. He yanked her head back, harshly.
Her face tilted up to the fluorescent lights. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut.
He froze for a second, his breath catching in his throat.
She was… not pretty. Pretty was too small a word. It was like finding a carved angel in a gutter. Her features were absurdly perfect: trimmed brows, lashes like dark feathers against her cheeks, a flush of rose on clear skin, a nose that was just right, lips with a defined cupid’s bow. She was a doll. A broken one.
The shock melted, boiled back into anger because her eyes were still closed. She was denying him even that.
“Look at me,” he snarled, giving her head a shake through his grip on her hair.
She didn’t. A faint tremor went through her, but her lids remained sealed. Something about her refusal, the absolute vulnerability of her, defused his violence. He couldn’t hit this. He couldn’t even yell at it properly. It was like kicking a fawn.
Disgusted—at her, at himself, at the whole situation—he opened his hand. Her head dropped forward again, chin to chest, that curtain of hair falling back into place.
“Freak,” he muttered, the word tasting like ash.
He straightened up. A glob of saliva left his mouth before he even decided to spit. It landed on the shoulder of her black top, a wet, ugly mark. He turned, looping an arm around a smug-looking Tangie.
“C’mon. We’re gonna be late.”
He steered her down the hall, not looking back, trying to ignore the lingering sensation of that soft, cool hair against his calloused fingers.
He steered her down the hall, not looking back, trying to ignore the lingering sensation of that soft, cool hair against his calloused fingers.
When they got to class, Tangie went off with her girlfriends in the corner, dissecting the hallway incident with gleeful whispers. Paul slumped into a desk in the back, near the window. The buzz of the fluorescent lights matched the static in his head. He wasn’t really focusing on anything. The teacher’s voice was a distant drone. He heard Tangie’s annoying laugh, sharp and performative, every few minutes.
But then, after a while, he noticed it go extremely quiet.
He looked up. Tangie had stopped mid-giggle, her focus laser-locked on something coming in the classroom door. He followed her gaze.
It was Elena.
She was walking, a slow, careful shuffle, head down as always, her blonde hair a shield. She looked as if she just really did not want to be seen. The black fabric of her top where he’d spat was darker, damp. She took a desk a few rows in front of him, a little to the right. She seemed to fold into the seat, making herself impossibly small.
Tangie exchanged a look with her friends, a predator’s smile. She stood, all faux-concern, and sauntered over. She leaned down, her mouth close to Elena’s ear. To anyone else, it looked like a secret, maybe an apology.
Paul heard every word. His hearing caught the wet click of Tangie’s tongue against her teeth.
“You owe me money for that coffee,” Tangie whispered, her voice sweet as poison. “You owe me for that shirt. It was brand new. How are you gonna pay that up? Hmm? Everyone knows you’re broke. Everyone knows you can’t even afford to fix your house. It’s literally falling apart. Do you even have running water?”
Paul’s jaw tightened. He knew the house. Everyone did. A rundown, dingy place on the edge of the rez, paint peeling like a sunburn, the porch sagging. He’d heard the rumors, too. That her mother didn’t actually leave them. That her father murdered her and buried her out in the woods. Or that’s at least what Paul wanted to believe. Because his own mom left. The idea that Elena’s mom was forced away, was a victim, felt… cleaner. If he acknowledged her mom just bailed too, that they’d have something in common. He wanted nothing in common with this girl. Nothing.
Elena didn’t move. Didn’t nod. Just stared at the scratched surface of her desk.
Tangie, satisfied, patted her shoulder twice, hard, and went back to her friends, smirking.
Class went on. It was long. It was boring. It was whatever. Paul spent the hour tracing the line of Elena’s shoulder with his eyes, watching the absolute stillness of her. She didn’t take notes. She just sat, a statue of misery.
When the bell finally rang, a jarring electric buzz, the room erupted into motion. Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped. Paul shoved his stuff into his bag, his movements rough. He noticed, as he always vaguely did, that Elena was always the last one in the classroom, the last one to leave. She waited until the crowd thinned to a trickle, until she could move without brushing against anyone.
He walked past her desk, the aisle narrow. A hot, shameful impulse took hold. He couldn’t just let her silence win. He had to provoke a reaction, any reaction.
As he passed, he leaned down, his lips an inch from her ear. He could smell the faint, clean scent of her hair, and underneath it, the stale aroma of old fear.
His voice was a low, deliberate growl, meant only for her. “If you look at me, if you even breathe in my direction again, I’ll make what Tangie does look like a birthday party.”
He felt it before he smelled it. A violent flinch that shook her whole small frame, a gasp that was barely a sound. And then, a sharp, acrid odor cutting through the classroom smells of dust and teenage perfume.
Urine.
He straightened up, his own breath catching. He’d scared this girl so bad she’d peed herself. A hot wave of something sick rolled in his stomach. Part of him felt bad, a sharp, piercing shame. But the other part, the angry, familiar part, swelled with a dark pride. See? He could still do that. He still had that power.
Before he could lean too far into the part that felt bad, Tangie’s shriek of laughter cut through the room.
“Oh, my God!” she squealed, pointing a manicured finger. “Did she just…? She totally did! She pissed herself!”
A few stragglers turned. Snickers rippled, then exploded into full-blown, cruel laughter. It echoed off the linoleum and cinderblock walls. Someone said, “Damn, Winters, you in kindergarten?” Another voice, “That’s disgusting!”
Paul stood frozen, trapped between the laughter and the girl. He saw a single, perfect tear fall from her downcast face. It landed on the back of her hand, which was clenched white-knuckled on the desk. Then another. She was crying silently, her shoulders beginning to tremble.
And something about her, about the tears on her hand, about the way she was trying to melt into the floor, made him feel not right. It was a physical sensation, a tightening in his chest, a heat behind his eyes that had nothing to do with anger. He was feeling protective feelings for her. He was upset that she was being laughed at. He was gut-punched that he’d scared her. He was sickened that he’d just orchestrated her total humiliation.
And in the past, he’d never had a problem with it. He’d have laughed too.
The disconnect was terrifying.
Without saying another word, he turned and walked out. He shoved the classroom door open, the frame rattling.
Behind him, Tangie’s laughter cut off abruptly. She’d noticed his exit. “Paul? Hey, wait up!”
He didn’t slow down. He heard the quick click of her boots on the floor as she tried to catch up with him, leaving the laughter and the crying girl behind. She needed to be seen with him, he guessed. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. The only thing in his head was the image of those tears hitting skin, and the sour, shameful smell that hung in the air, clinging to him now, too.