Mina's POV
I didn't sleep that night.
I lay on my bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling, counting them the way I counted my steps when I walked home.
One.
Two.
Three.
Anything to keep my mind from circling back to the same thought.
Tomorrow.
The Awakening Ceremony. The blood moon. The hall, full of pack members watching every eighteen-year-old shift for the first time, recording it, judging it, deciding right there in front of everyone whether you were strong or weak or worth anything at all.
I had submitted the registration slip myself. My own hand had pushed it through the office door slot. I still didn't fully understand why.
Maybe because Jace told me not to go.
Or maybe because some, stubborn part of me, that had survived ten years of silence, of being being broken. Wanted to stand in that hall and prove I existed.
Even if what came out of me was nothing. Even if I shifted into the smallest, weakest wolf anyone had ever seen.
At least it would be mine.
I finally got up around five in the morning, made tea I couldn't really afford, and sat at my desk with my hands wrapped around the warm cup.
The mirror was right there. I made myself look at it.
My eyes were brown again. Completely normal. No silver thread at the edges, no strange light. For a moment I almost felt relieved.
Then the vibration came back, low, steady, deep in my chest and I knew the calm was only because whatever was inside me had stopped testing the walls and started waiting instead.
School felt different that day. Heavier. Like everyone was holding their breath without realizing it.
I went through my classes the same as always, silent, invisible, careful. But twice during the day I caught people staring at me a beat too long.
Once in the hallway. Once in the cafeteria line, where I never normally bought food because I couldn't afford it, but today my stomach had twisted into knots tight enough that I needed something, anything, even just bread.
"You're really going tonight?"
I turned. A girl named Priya stood behind me in line, one of the few people who had never laughed when others did.
She wasn't a friend exactly. We had never spoken, obviously. But she always softened a little around me, like she felt sorry without knowing why.
I nodded once.
"My brother shifted last year." She lowered her voice. "He said it's the worst thing he had ever experienced.
Everyone watching.
The Elders writing things down on clipboards like you're livestock."
She made a face. "I'm sorry you have to do it in front of Jace and his friends."
I didn't react to the name, but something in my chest pulled tight anyway.
Priya hesitated, then added quietly, "Whatever happens tonight, it doesn't decide who you are, Mina."
I looked at her for a long moment. Then I did something I almost never did.
I smiled. Small. Just at the corner of my mouth.
But real.
She smiled back, surprised, like she hadn't expected an answer of any kind and got one anyway.
Last period was free study. I used it to finish a small revision on Damian's essay, a few sentences that needed smoothing and I was nearly done when a shadow fell across my desk.
I looked up.
Asher.
I almost never thought of him by his full name. Just Asher. Heir to Ashford Global, the kind of wealth that didn't need to announce itself because everyone already knew.
He didn't bully me the way Ryder did, loud and physical. His cruelty was quieter. Smarter.
He sat down across from me without asking, folding his hands on the desk like we were equals having a meeting.
"Heard you registered," he said.
I didn't respond.
"Brave."
He tilted his head, studying me like he was deciding what use I might be to him. "Or stupid.
Hard to tell with you."
I went back to my essay.
"You know what happens if you shift into nothing." His voice stayed low, almost amused.
"They will record it on permanent record. Omega with no wolf form at all. You'd never be allowed to leave the pack grounds again. Did you know that, and you will become a slave?"
My pen slowed.
"I'm not trying to scare you." He smiled, "Just being honest. Someone should be, with you."
He stood, smoothed his jacket, and looked down at me one last time.
"See you tonight, Mute."
He walked away like he hadn't said anything cruel at all.
I sat there with my pen still against the paper, the ink slowly bleeding into a small dark dot.
Three of them now had spoken to me today. Jace's warning.
Damian's coin and his question about the Hartley study.
Asher's quiet threat disguised as concern.
None of them knew.
None of them had any idea what was sitting coiled beneath my ribs, growing heavier and warmer with every hour that passed, counting down toward the same moment I was.
I closed my notebook, packed my bag, and walked out of the classroom.
Tonight, the hall would be full.
Tonight, every eye in the Silver Moon Pack would be on me.
