Chapter 16
Nova
Brent fucking lied.
We’ve been walking for hours. His definition of close is not the same as mine. Hopefully I wasn’t wrong for trusting him.
He doesn’t talk much, which I appreciate.
He moves fast and quiet and keeps checking behind us like he’s counting down to something.
He’s a little odd, but we all are. The guys stay tight around me.
Locke between me and Brent, just like he promised.
Kyron at the back, watching everything. Vaelor hasn’t said a word since he found out about his grandmother.
The forest is different here. I don’t know how to explain it — the trees aren’t thinner or thicker, the light isn’t different. But something has changed. Like we crossed a line nobody marked.
“How much further?” Rane asks.
“A while,” Brent says.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
Rane looks at me. I shrug. Brent’s not my problem right now. Staying upright is my problem. My feet are destroyed and I haven’t eaten since Ameena’s and the spite I was running on is turning into something closer to delusion.
Because I swear we’re being watched, but it’s probably just exhaustion. Or pain. Or… something.
“You’re seriously whining Rane?” Kyron says, and I already know he’s up to something. “Nova hasn’t complained once and her feet are bleeding.”
Rane’s eyes go wide and he looks down at my feet.
“I’m fine,” I say, cutting him off because I don’t need pity right now. I need us to get to wherever we’re going.
Beckett falls into step beside me. He doesn’t say anything. Just walks close enough that our arms almost brush. I don’t know if he noticed I was fading or if he just wanted to be near me. Either way, it helps. Definitely helps more than Rane’s pity.
“So,” Vaelor says eventually. His voice is controlled. Too controlled. “You know my grandmother.”
Brent glances back. “I do.”
“And you work with her.”
“I wouldn’t say work with. More like…” He thinks about it. “She has opinions. Very specific opinions. About everything. And she’s usually right, which makes it worse.” He sighs. “But we wouldn’t be here without her. None of this would exist without her.”
“That definitely sounds like the woman I grew up with,” Vaelor says quietly.
The look on his face makes me want to hug him. Because I know how it is, to try and come to terms with how things are versus how they were. How everything he grew up knowing is gone. Seized. And she’s somewhere else entirely and he had no idea.
Brent doesn’t elaborate. He just keeps walking.
The forest gets quieter.
It’s not empty though. It’s the exact opposite because I can still feel things watching us.
I’m not paranoid. Probably.
My skin prickles and I look around but there’s nothing — just trees and undergrowth and the soft sounds of eight people trying to move through the woods without falling over.
Then I see the squirrel.
It’s sitting on a low branch about ten feet away. Completely still. Watching us pass with an attention that squirrels don’t have. Its eyes track me specifically and I feel the hair on my arms rise.
“Brent,” I say.
“I see them,” he says. Calm. Why the hell is he so calm? “They see you too.”
A fox is standing beside a fallen log. Just standing there, head tilted, watching us like we’re the most interesting thing that’s happened in a while.
Something moves in the canopy. My head snaps up. There’s a hawk, circling low enough that I can see its markings. It follows us for a full minute before banking away.
“Are those—”
“Shifters,” Brent says. “All of them.”
I stop walking. Locke almost runs into me.
“They live like this?”
“Some of them. Some shift and stay shifted for days. Some go back and forth. There are no rules about it here.” He looks at me over his shoulder. “That’s kind of the point.”
Locke nudges me as the group moves forward.
I reluctantly move too, although my feet aren’t happy about it.
There are more of them now. A pair of mink watching from behind a boulder.
Something large and dark in the underbrush that I can’t identify — but it looks a bit like a wolf.
A bird with feathers that shimmer between colors like they can’t decide what they are.
These aren’t all House shifters. These are the things the system said didn’t exist anymore.
A massive stag steps onto the path ahead of us.
“Holy…“ I say as I force myself to stop.
Locke stops just in time to avoid running into me. I can’t hold back the smile when he swears under his breath.
It’s enormous. Taller than Vaelor. Antlers that spread wide enough to block the path, branching into points that catch the light filtering through the canopy. Its eyes are gold and ancient and completely aware.
Brent nods at it. Casual. Like greeting a neighbor.
The stag holds for a moment. Those gold eyes move across the group — landing on each of us, one by one. When they reach me, it pauses.
Awkward.
Then it steps off the path. The forest swallows it without a sound.
“Friend of yours?” Rane says.
“That’s Marcus. He’s been here longer than I have.”
Rane blinks. “The giant stag has a name.”
“The giant stag has opinions about noise levels in the forest. Keep moving.”
We walk and I pretend not to notice the growing group of shifters following us. All around us, in the trees, in the ground, in the air. This forest is alive in a way I’ve never felt before.
Nobody is hiding.
That’s what hits me. Not the strange forms. Not the impossible sizes. Not the hawk or the fox or the stag with gold eyes.
Nobody here is hiding what they are.
My entire life I’ve never even seen a shifter. Didn’t know they existed. I focused on making myself invisible. Trying to take up as little space as possible so nobody would notice I existed. And these people — these shifters — they’re just here. In the open. Being exactly what they are.
My eyes burn. I don’t know why.
Stupid.
I blink it away before anyone sees.
Then the trees open up.
It’s not what I expected.
It’s a town.
Just a small town in the middle of… wherever this is.
A gravel road lined with small shops and houses with actual porches.
Some look solid and well-kept — painted shutters, flower boxes, smoke curling from chimneys.
Others need work — a sagging roof here, a boarded window there, someone on a ladder hammering at something that doesn’t want to stay put.
There’s a communal building at the center with wide doors propped open and the smell of food drifting out.
It looks like something from another time. Like a small town that was forgotten by the rest of the world and just kept going without it.
But the thing that surprises me the most?
There’s people everywhere. A woman hanging laundry waves at Brent.
Two men are unloading a cart outside one of the shops.
Kids running down the main road, weaving between a dog and what I’m pretty sure is a fox that just watches them as they pass.
A man sitting on a porch whittling something, a large cat curled at his feet that is definitely not a house cat.
It looks nothing like the territories. Nothing like the Academy.
Nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before.
There’s no uniformity. No sorting. No angles designed to keep people in their lanes.
It’s just — people. Living next to each other.
Helping each other. Being whatever they are without anyone telling them what that’s allowed to look like.
It’s more real than anything I’ve ever seen.
“Welcome to the Hollow,” Brent says.
I look back at the guys and they’re all grinning. Even Locke.
I can’t help it, because now I’m grinning too.
Even though inside it hurts. Because all those years, every night alone…
I could have had this too.