Chapter 27 Nova
Nova
The scream comes through the walls.
I’m out of bed before I’m awake. Beckett’s right behind me — I hear him grabbing pants, swearing, but I’m already at the stairs and I don’t wait. The guys at the dinner table are on their feet. Locke’s at the door first. Kyron’s right behind him. Vaelor, Rane — everyone moving at once.
We pour out into the street.
Trey is on his knees at the edge of the tree line. His back is arched and his hands are clawing at the ground and the sound coming out of him isn’t human. It’s deep and broken and wrong and I’m running toward him before anyone tells me not to.
“Trey!”
Then it happens.
His body changes. Not slowly. Not in pieces.
It’s violent and fast and I have to stop running because what I’m looking at doesn’t make sense.
His arms stretch. His legs — his legs split.
His torso rises and beneath it something else forms, something massive with hooves and muscle and a body that keeps going where a man’s should stop.
A centaur.
Trey is a centaur.
He stands — all of him, the human half rising above the animal half — and he’s enormous. Broader than Locke. Taller than anything in the Hollow. His eyes are wild and grey and terrified and I think he doesn’t know what just happened.
Behind me I hear people gasping. The town. They’re coming out of their houses, drawn by the screaming, and they’re seeing this.
But I’m not looking at them. I’m looking past Trey. Into the trees.
There’s a bear. More than one.
The undergrowth is moving. Heavy bodies pushing through. I can see shapes — dark, massive, multiple — spreading through the tree line like a wall forming.
“How many?” Locke says beside me.
I don’t know. I can’t see. It’s dark and the trees are thick and they’re moving and I need to—
I need to see.
The thought is so clear it doesn’t feel like a thought.
I need to be up there.
The heat starts in my chest. Not painful this time. Not the burning from the lake that tore me apart and put me back together. This is warm and building and mine. I can feel it spreading through my arms, down my spine, into my fingertips.
I’m aware of it. Every second. I feel my skin get hot. I feel the shift begin— not against my will, because I’m choosing it. Because my guys are down here and my town is behind me and I need to see what’s coming.
“Nova—” Someone’s voice. Rane maybe.
I let go.
The fire takes me and this time I go with it. My feet leave the ground. The heat wraps around me like wings — because they are wings, my wings, made of flame and light and something that feels like fury and love mixed together until you can’t tell them apart.
I hear the gasps. A child screaming. Someone saying “oh my god” in a voice that cracks.
Like Trey turning into a centaur wasn’t enough for one night.
I rise. The town drops away beneath me. The rooftops. The main street. The community hall. Our house with the blue door, tiny now. The people in the street, faces turned up, lit gold by what I am.
Then I see them.
The forest spreads out below me and I can see everything. Every tree. Every shadow. Every movement.
Fifteen bears. Maybe more. Moving through the forest in a loose formation, heading toward the Hollow from the north. Memory patrol. They’re organized. Methodical.
I bank left. The heat from my wings throws light across the canopy and I watch the bears react — heads lifting, formation stuttering. They weren’t expecting this.
Good.
“NORTH!” I don’t know if they can hear me. I don’t know if I’m even making human sounds. But I try. “FIFTEEN! NORTH THROUGH THE TREES!”
Below me, the Hollow moves. I can see it happening like watching a board game from above. The shifted animals from the forest — the ones that have been following me for weeks — surge toward the tree line. Marcus leading them. The dark wolf-thing. Foxes. Hawks taking to the air.
Locke shifts. I see it from above — the panther erupting from where the man was standing, fire cracking through dark fur. He tears into the forest.
Rane shifts. The white stag, glowing, antlers catching my firelight. He follows Locke.
Trey is already moving. The centaur covering ground in strides that eat the distance between the town and the tree line.
Brent is organizing people on the ground. Cal’s cluster is forming up. The mothers — Darcy, Mel, Sade — are herding kids inside.
I stay up. I stay burning. I track the bears through the forest and every time the formation shifts, every time a group breaks off, I bank toward them and the light from my wings shows everyone on the ground where to go.
I am the eyes.
The bears don’t make it to the Hollow.
They get close. Close enough that I can see the main street from where the first one stops.
Close enough that my chest tightens and my wings burn hotter.
But Locke’s panther hits the lead bear from the side and the formation breaks.
Trey cuts off a flanking group. The Hollow’s own shifters fill in the gaps.
It’s not a battle. It’s a defense. Coordinated. Fast. Over in minutes that feel like hours.
The bears retreat. Back into the forest. Back toward Memory territory. I watch them go from above, tracking until the last dark shape disappears into the trees.
I circle once more. The Hollow is lit up below me — every window, every porch light, every person standing in the street looking up at me.
I don’t want to go back down there. I want to stay up here, feel the wind on my face, fly above everything just for a little while.
But I can’t. I know I can’t.
The shift back is gentler than I expected. The fire dims. My wings fold. The ground rises to meet me and I land on my feet in the middle of the main street, still warm, still glowing faintly, still me.
Everyone is staring.
I look down at my hands. Human again. Shaking. The mark on my wrist is pulsing so bright it’s almost white.
I’m also naked.
Fantastic.
That registers about two seconds before Lena appears from nowhere and wraps a blanket around my shoulders without a word. Like she was ready for this. Like she’s been ready.
“Thanks,” I manage.
She squeezes my arm once and steps back.
Locke shifts back first. Also naked. Someone throws him pants. He doesn’t care. He walks straight to me and puts his hands on my face and looks at me like he’s checking that I’m real.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“You were on fire.”
“I know.”
“You were flying.”
“I know.”
“You were—” He stops. Swallows. “You were incredible.”
Trey is still in centaur form. He’s standing at the edge of the street and his human half is breathing hard and his horse half is stamping and he looks like he has no idea how to undo what just happened.
I walk over to him. Look up. Way up.
“Hey,” I say.
He looks down at me. Grey eyes wide. Chest heaving.
“You’re a centaur,” I say.
“Yeah,” he manages. His voice sounds different — deeper, resonant. “Apparently.”
“Cool.”
He stares at me. Then he laughs. It comes out strange from a body that’s half horse, shaky and raw, but it’s real.
The crow lands on my shoulder.
I don’t push it off this time.