Chapter 7: The Gate

On Sunday afternoon, my sister was standing outside the Northmere front gate in the clothes she had worn to bed.

She had driven eleven hours by herself.

Cora had never driven farther than the next town.

The guard called me down, and I came as fast as the crutch allowed.

She did not have her phone out, and she did not have her ring light.

Her hair was in a knot, and her eyes were swollen.

"Please don't be mad," she said.

I was not mad.

I was something else, and I did not have a word for it yet.

We walked down to the lake behind the dorms and sat on a bench with a gap between us.

For a long minute neither of us spoke.

"I watched it back," Cora said. "Last night. Alone."

"I watched it live."

"Of course you did."

She picked at a thread on her cuff.

"It's never done that before. I take the tonic and I shift. That's how it's always been."

"What tonic?"

"The one Mom gives me every morning." She looked at me sideways. "You really don't know?"

"I know you take something," I said. "I never saw what."

"I've taken it since the buckle." Her voice dropped. "She told me my wolf was hurt that day and the tonic keeps it strong."

She tugged up her pant leg, and I saw the pale scar around her right ankle.

"There's no label," she said. "I asked once, and Mom said don't worry about it, drink your cup."

"Cora."

"I'm not allowed in the lab. I'm not allowed to even touch the bottles."

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