(ty for reading, you are so very appreciated :D the little star is happy to see your face)

(EDITED) (Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be in line with the new edits.)

There's a recurring dream Elias and I both had when we were young, and was likely the only thing we had and have in common with each other. How befitting of our dynamic: to keep everything good for ourselves and share the worst with each other.

I'm sitting down. I'm counting something in my hand. Sometimes they're coins. Sometimes they're eyes. Sometimes they're Eliases. Sometimes they're wolves.

The room is dark, the kind of dark it gets when there's a distant light on elsewhere that you can't reach, when the glow of someone else's lamp gives you scraps and crumbs to see from. Sometimes I see Elias in it. Other times it's only stray dogs.

"Aren't you scared?" someone asks, but not to me.

Elias says, "Of the echo? Why would I be? It's only an echo."

I drop what I'm counting and they crash. With an echo.

"Aren't you scared?" I ask him.

"Of the echo? Why would I be? It's—"

"Of what caused the echo."

No one cares for the shadows. They only care for what made them.

Elias and I are wolves and running. Sometimes it's on a beach. Other times it's in my father's house. Most times it's on a race track. There's so many numbers on every corner. On the screen. On the walls. Under our feet. In his purple eyes. In my yellow ones. They go up. They go down. No one knows why.

My mother is the only one in the stands, screaming something unintelligible. Elias says, "Umma is calling. We have to go."

"No," I say. "Not yet."

"We have to go. We have to go now." He swipes a clean cut across my vision. Things go golden, go red, back and forth, a royal massacre. "You fucking dog. You listen to no one. It's why you're losing. Aren't you sick of losing?"

"Not yet," I pant. "Not yet."

It's never not dark.

The buzzer rings somewhere in the distance, but I can't see, not through the blood. Hands bring my face up, and my mother says, "We can't stay. We're not allowed."

I lose my temper at that, and slash her to pieces.

Elias and I are back to back in the center of the unlit track, our hands out as we go on counting. We say the numbers out loud. It's gone from one two three all the way to one thousand and four one thousand and five one thousand and six. I've counted in French. I've counted in English. I've counted without speaking.

The world begins to crumble in fragments, pieces of it falling off into a deeper black like it's withering away with the seconds. My father bends down, his face years younger; he looks like my brother. He holds out his hands to us.

We hand him what we counted. I am always one short.

My father says, "We should try again next time."

Elias says, "We should."

He takes my father's hand. They turn their backs and walk away. The world continues to break, sectioning off in poor cuts and jagged slices. I scramble to my feet, holding my ripped-up face, holding out my empty hands.

"Wait," I say. "Please, just wait."

"There's an echo in here," Elias says. "It's too loud. Someone come get their dog." He throws his head back with a laugh. "A wolf without a tail. What's there to chase?"

"Please," I scream. "Just please wait!"

My father looks down. He frowns at my brother. "I can't stand that screeching," he says. "It reminds me of your mother."

Debris comes down on me, crushing my bones to dust. In the last second before it happens, I watch Elias grin back at me, with a smile just like my mine.

When I told Elias what happened in my dream, he told me everything was the same, only him in my place, and our mother holding my hand as we left him in the blackness.

It might've been the only time I knew I'd had something Elias didn't.

_________________

None of us had talked about Wednesday, explicitly. That being said, it still found its way into our interactions, whether Corvus thought they were being subtle or not. The cologne Kane had bought had remained untouched in the center of the counter, its mint-frosted glass a haunting ghoul between the two of us.

"Are those sneakers?" Rosalie said, yanking off her helmet. She wiped a stripe of red from her temple. "Or a child's craft project?"

I glanced down at my beaten and bruised tennis shoes. "I think that's insulting children," I murmured.

"I specifically remember someone buying you a brand new pair, the kind that doesn't have holes burning through the soles," she said, and shot a look towards Kane, who was busy berating Diego for stealing his glove.

I turned around to head for the lockers. "Never seen them."

Among:

"What is that?" Wynter said, grimacing at my shirt, where Kuromi was waving hello at the breast pocket.

"A shirt," I drawled, dragging my feet towards the kitchen. "Who made the decision for practice to be at six AM, again? Just to add a name to my shit list."

"I'm pretty sure they're already at the top," Diego snickered, jutting his chin towards where Kane was, his mug of black coffee already halfway drained.

Kane raised a brow at my shirt. "Is that a cat?"

"She's a rabbit, thank you."

"You have a lot of other shirts," Meredith said.

I grabbed a granola bar from the lowest cabinet. "No," I said. "Not really."

Among:

Corvus had gathered for dinner in the guys' unit that Wednesday, Diego serving a basket of apples alongside some sort of pasta dish hailing from northern Italy. With it came a bombshell of the bitter, Corvus-esque kind.

"It's Ramos's birthday tomorrow," Kane said.

A noodle fell from my fork. "Oh," was all I said.

"An angel ages tomorrow," Diego agreed. "I think I'll be sweeping the table with my gift once more."

"You got her a vacuum."

"And she still uses it every week!"

"We're going out tomorrow at six, for dinner," Meredith said. "We go to the same restaurant every year."

"All of us?" I said.

Kane grabbed the finished plates from the table and headed for the sink. "Find your own ride there, don't be late, they only hold the res for ten minutes if the whole party isn't there. You." Kane gestured at me. "I gotta run some errands tomorrow."

"How's that my problem?" I said.

"You don't have anything on your schedule and I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight, alasseo? Alasseo."

"We're still not gonna talk about the fact that you knew Korean and didn't say anything?" Diego said.

"Never came up," I said.

"What else do you speak, then?"

"Whatever I need to." I trailed after Kane, leaving Corvus sputtering for answers behind me. "I'll see you at six tomorrow."

I grabbed my own plate after I'd cleared the pasta and dropped into the soapy abyss, where Kane was busying himself with dishes under the bright light of the sink. I said, "Where are we going?"

Kane raised a brow. "Now you're just tagging along to avoid them," he said.

"As long as I'm tagging along," I argued.

He shrugged. "Sleep well," he said. "It's gonna be a long day."

I sighed. "With you," I muttered, "is it ever short?"

8:56 AM - Your Favorite Z

It's Zoe but you already knew that :) text me every day or i'll set it up for you. i can do that yk.

9:01 AM - Wynter is Coming

u know z has her auto caps on
that's nasty
text her that it's nasty

9:09 AM - Zahir G

So I missed the memo on cool contact names it seems. That's Diego's fault
Make me "Your Favorite Z"
Don't tell Zoe

9:12 AM - Sexiest Port Tail of the West Coast <3 <3 <3

don't change the contact
i'll know

9:19 AM - Kenzo

text. don't call.
check the gc.

9:21 AM - MEREDITH !! <3 <3 :D XD

Welcome to ur new phone yayyy
Box came with a charger too! If you need earpods, Zahir has a spare pair
Text us if you need anything :))))

9:22 AM - Coach Edwards

Thank your team for me for finally getting you a phone.
You don't have to use it but at least note any announcements in the group chat. Ok?
Did King tell you about Ramos's dinner tonight?
Corvidae is closed for cleaning for the next two nights by the way. Might wanna refrain from your midnight practices til Mon.

9:24 AM - Rosalie Corvus

i hear you shut off this phone in any way and i'll knock ur skull in on both ends
hi by the way

9:29 AM - Nurse Ramos

Hi Echo! It's Ramos. I don't know if anyone told you but there's a dinner tonight that your coach is throwing for my birthday. I'd love to have you there! It's all right if you're unable, let me know :)
I was also hoping you could come into my office anytime on Tuesday?

9:31 AM - kane

you're just checking your messages now?

I looked up from the screen to sent a significant look at Kane across from me. "You take this tracking thing to new heights," I said.

Kane shrugged. "What'd they say?" He gestured at the phone.

The only thing that had mattered was Ramos's message, which was a terrible reminder of the incident from last week. I stuffed the phone into my pocket and shook my head. "Nothing important," I said. "So, what errands is a rich college athlete in need of doing anyway?"

Kane leaned against the empty train seat beside him, the half-open window pushing cool breezes into his black hair. It was the second day of April, an unforgiving humidity attached to the skin of the air like a calescent parasite. Rain was a constant threat and an occasional visitor, leaving the campus as well as the rest of the county in a perpetual state of mild dampness that promised to last until May alleviated it with the sun's anticipated homecoming.

The morning was soft on my skin, tickling the back of my neck, filling the train with the faint, familiar musk it retained through rain or shine. Kane was a stark figure of dark lines against its pale complexion, and when he smoke, his voice fell into the rattle of the wheels underneath.

"Rosalie asked me to pick up a blazer she ordered, and I have to get new frames for my glasses. They're on the same street so while I'm there, I have to get Ramos a present and grab a few things the guys asked for," he said. "You should get her something while you're there, too."

"Why?" I said.

"She's gonna be your nurse for another four years," Kane said, as if it was obvious. "Doesn't have to be big or anything. You could give her a pen and she'd be happy."

"Can't you just buy the gift and I'll go in on it?"

Kane frowned, eyeing me carefully. "What do you have against Ramos?"

I stiffened. I rolled down in my seat. "Nothing. She's all right, I guess."

"Sure," he said. "What happened?"

"Nothing important," I said. "Which ones are those?"

"You've got a bad habit of changing subjects," Kane muttered, but kicked up his boots anyway, which looked more like combat Uggs if anything. "Timberlands. You avoidRamos."

"Bad habit of not taking the hint to change subjects," I muttered. "I'm don't avoid her, I just don't like being alone with her."

"What'd she do?"

Became a liability, is what. "She's just not my speed," I said.

"It's Ramos," he said, almost amused. "What's your speed?"

"I respect her as a nurse," I placated.

"Did something happen?"

"No. What would've happened?"

Kane raised a brow, the mole below it going with it. He opened his mouth, but the train's announcer beat him to it.

"Corner of Colorado Blvd and Raymond Ave. Stopping now."

The train squealed to a lurching stop with a wheeze. I swung myself up by a pole and headed out the double doors.

Old Town Pasadena was a bustling, boastful region that could supply you with anything from fresh bread in a Cheesecake Factory to triple digit receipts in a Zara, and every fathomable name or number in between. It was a land frolicked in by green smoothie advocates, Hollywood micro-influencers, sweet-tongued millennials, underfed ABGs, thrifty capitalists, book-clubbing mothers, and pink-faced juveniles discovering the wonders of their parents' credit cards for the first time away from their hilltop homes. Brides and quince princesses hustled through the town to reach City Hall Pasadena, resurrected in the frame of Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial. Brunch bunches grouped up outside of vegan-friendly restaurants or overpriced cafes. The buildings were brick, the streets concrete, the stores chromatic, and the people glass-eyed: a zeitgeist of the youth under the guise of a small town.

I'd never been though, for obvious reasons.

I glanced at Kane. "This'll be fast, right?" I asked.

Kane stared, likely deciding between continuing our conversation from the train or taking the invitation to change the topic. He went with the latter. He turned onto Colorado. "No promises. Come on."

I followed him through the avenue.

"You ever been to Old Town?" he asked me.

"I've passed through," I admitted. "I haven't been to a lot of places."

Kane frowned. "DTLA?"

"At night."

"J-Town?"

"Never."

"Burbank."

"Passed through."

"K-Town."

"Once."

Kane shook his head. "Once in K-Town," he repeated. "That's the crime."

"What's so great about K-Town?"

Kane looked me up and down. "Mworago?" he said. "You're kidding. You're crazy."

"What's in K-Town?" I asked.

Kane pursed his lips. "You should see it."

We got Zahir a pair of their new boots before then sliding over for some padded jacket that Kenzo had bugged Kane about months ago. Between it, we'd ventured into a chocolate store to buy a box for Ramos, where the sweets were as over-decorated as their gilded storefront.

"Humans like their shiny things," I muttered.

"This is lycan-owned."

"Well, tell the lycans not everything has to be gold-flaked and ribboned," I said, gesturing at the display case of truffles.

Kane laughed, the sound short and bright. "So angry," he muttered. "Hwanan hoobae."

"Oh, so we both have nickname. Geulaesseo, hwanan sunbae."

Kane shook his head. "I haven't heard sunbae since high school," he muttered.

And so on.

I held up a pair of boots that had more platform than the fucking Staples Center stage. "Who the hell is someone trying to kill with these?"

"You should get those," Kane said. "They'd make you almost average height."

I glared. "I know who I'm trying them on for."

"Hey."

"'Hey' is for horses." I set them back. I gestured at a pair of white boots. "Those are nice."

Kane said, "Do you want them?"

"You gotta stop that."

He frowned. "Stop what?"

I said, "I think I'm too old to be in here."

"You're nineteen," Kane said. "This is supposed to be where you shop."

"You've never been to Target, have you?" I said.

We filed through the rows. Kane said in Korean, "If you want anything."

"Don't even," I murmured, then hesitated. "Wait. Anything?"

Kane shrugged. "Sure," he said. "Why?"

We were in the corner of a candy shop three minutes later. Kane shook his head from his place leaning on the wall.

"No," he said. "Anything but this."

"They've got a five-pound bag of gummy bears in there. I saw it on a sign," I said, rubbing my hands together. "Come on."

Kane snagged me by the back of my jacket. "Come on," he said, "let's eat some real food."

"You can't make me," I said, heading back for the gummy bears.

"Trackee," he argued, and pushed me the other way.

We ended up at a Vietnamese stop for rice bowls and spring rolls. I said, "Are you gonna try and get a salad again? You've got a stricter diet than most cheerleaders. A few eggrolls wouldn't kill you."

"A few greens wouldn't kill you either."

"I'm allergic to vegetables."

He shook his head. "Get what you want. I'm not that hungry."

We ate quickly enough and talked between bites before we were off to walk about the rest of Old Town to pass the day. Kane had bought a few more things for the team, even if not requested, saying something or other about wanting to shut them up about certain topics to justify the purchases. I wondered if that was something he always thought about being Corvus's captain.

By the time we were heading back to the final stops of Kane's eyeglass frames and Ramos's gifts, the hour was closing in on five o'clock. I could feel the day in my muscles and bones. April seeped into my back, a sliver of sun breaking through the clouds to strike me like a dagger. I wondered if practice or shopping had taken the bigger toll on my body.

Kane rounded a corner where an eyeglass shop stood at the end. "How is it?" he asked me.

I frowned. "How's what?"

He shrugged. "Hanging out."

Hanging out, I thought. It hadn't even occurred to me until then. Hanging out, with something of a proper meal, doing something as frivolous as shopping, even if not for myself. Months had changed more than five years ever did.

A part of me was as warm as it was pained. "Not bad," I confessed.

We went inside.

I'd spent the day attempting to come up with a decent gift that would keep Corvus off my back but would somehow remain in my short budget. I didn't know what Ramos liked since I'd spent so much time trying to avoid her. The most personal details I could conjure up was her collection of Dr. Scholl's and her occasional HELLO KITTY Band-Aids. Other than that, she was a blank slate that also happened to possess some of my most compromised secrets.

"Gift shopping is harder than people make it ought to be," I said, coming up behind Kane.

"You say it like you've never done it before," he scoffed. I went quiet. He frowned when I didn't laugh. "Haven't you?"

I shrugged. "I usually just got Nia a sandwich."

Kane turned to the first shelf and scanned the array of wire frames and plastic tortoiseshell. He paused in front of a dark blue pair. He said, "Have you ever had friends?"

The question was so blunt it bordered on being downright rude. I looked up, but Kane's face wasn't mocking, a calm expression replaced over his features. Some part of me wished he'd meant it to be rude. It would've made it easier to lie.

"Not close ones," I replied.

Nia and the witches were probably the closest thing I'd ever get, but circumstances kept them from ever crossing the line. As it should, really, because "real friend" entailed things I'd never be able to give. My life had always been puppetted by someone else's hands.

I bit my tongue and switched topics. "The whole partially blind thing," I said. "Can you ever fix it?"

Kane took a pair of thick black frames from the middle row. He held them aloft, but his eyes were distant. "Right for the throat," he murmured.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He put them back. "I don't really know," he admitted, slipping into Korean. "It's just become something to live with."

"Are you gonna keep racing?" I asked.

"Racing is my life," he replied, like that was all the explanation needed. He tried gold rims. I plucked a pair of gray hexagonal frames from a shelf and tapped them on his shoulder. Kane plucked them from my fingers.

"How did Coach take your vision?" I asked.

"I think she tries to get me to race less every season." He slid the frames onto his nose. "She doesn't think it's safe for me to be out there with everyone else." He faced the mirror, then me. It took me a beat to realize he wanted my input.

I said, "You look your age."

He squinted, then put them back. "I don't know if that's a good thing," he murmured.

"She lets you start anyway?"

"She said as long as I can prove I'm still able to hold my ground on the track, she won't make any changes to the lineup," he said. I gestured at a pair of cat-eye frames, and he gave me an evanescent smile. "Suits you."

"I'll pass on the secretary look." I scratched the back of my neck. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Yes, you should change your hair color," he said. He took a pair of round frames to place on his nose.

"Noted," I muttered. "How did Baluyot know where to strike you?"

That made him pause. He said cautiously, "Baluyot?"

"In the first match," I said. "That move wouldn't work on most racers, but he tried it anyway. Why?"

Kane put the glasses back. "Baluyot knows about my eyes," he said.

"How? He's not Corvus."

"We used to be friends. We knew each other in high school."

I knew for a fact Kane had never been on another team other than Corvus, had only attended Greylaw Academy for high school, and a no-name middle school prior to. "You and Baluyot, friends," I murmured. "Doesn't ring a pleasant image."

"We shared the same friend group at the time," he explained. "He used to go to UCLA but he was moved because of misconduct."

"You don't seem much of friends now."

Kane grimaced. "We're not," he said. "There was a falling out in the group."

"Do any of your other friends from high school know then?"

"Only him," Kane admitted. "He found out on accident. I don't keep in touch with many people from high school, so I don't know if he's told anyone else."

"Do you keep in touch with anyone?"

"One," he said. "Do you keep in touch with anyone from high school?"

I shook my head. "Never knew anyone well enough."

"Don't you wish you did?"

I shrugged. "Never knew anyone worth keeping in touch with."

Kane blinked. He didn't reply. I reached out to grab a pair of dark, hexagonal frames, and handed them to him. He held them to the light, examined it with his fingertips, and pushed them onto his nose. He looked younger, his face gentle under the wide frames.

"Do you?" I returned. I took the frames from his face, rubbing my thumb over them.

"Do I what?"

"Wish you kept in touch with them."

Kane stared at the glasses in my hands. He was unreadable all over again, dark and blank and very far. He took the frames from me and turned towards the counter.

"No," he said.

The cashier rung him up and handed him his receipt along with a velvet case with the frames tucked safely inside. We walked back out into the nascent bustle of the city, the sidewalks slowly crowding with patrons, chatter from brunches swelling in the air. My sleeve brushed against Kane's, clean cotton and soap in my nose.

Maybe that's why Elias was where he was instead of me: He knew when to keep a secret, and when to keep a friend.

We rounded another corner in silence until we reached a tall variety store, a little red sign reading MINISO on the awning. Kane stopped at the corner. I cleared my throat and said, "What's this for?"

Kane was quiet for a moment, then said, "Ramos likes HELLO KITTY. They have a lot of it in here."

That was a debilitating thing to know we had in common.

It was much like my hair inside, the walls stacked with shelving that was stacked with cotton plushies and candy-colored trinkets. Kane headed towards the back of the store where the HELLO KITTY things were stocked. He stopped in front of a shelf full of stationary, white cats dancing on pens or pads of paper. It was a damn paradise of HELLO KITTY, from her pink bow to her blue overalls. I couldn't tell if I was hallucinating or dreaming. I picked up a blue pen and said, "What do you think?"

Kane eyed me. "All the money you get from the matches, you never spend it," he said. "Did you really just put it in your savings?"

I pursed my lips. "Something like that," I said. "But not for me."

"For who?"

"Leaving my family comes with a high price," I said, the truth stinging the inside of my mouth like saltwater in fresh cuts. "Someone's gotta pay it." I took three blue pens and a sheet of Kuromi stickers. "Think she'll be fine with these?"

Kane didn't speak to that, so I turned around and went for the counter myself. After fishing out the crumpled dollars in my pocket, I waited outside on the streets' corner until he re-emerged. When he did, he walked out with two bags, and handed one to me.

I took it and said, "This for Ramos?"

Kane's gaze was boron and carbon, shadows snaking around in the irises like the threads on his neck. I looked inside to see a white sweater, Kitty White stitched into the center with a tiny crown on her head. I frowned.

"I thought you liked HELLO KITTY," he said.

I blinked. I glanced up at him. "You bought me a HELLO KITTY sweater?"

"You didn't wear the blue one."

"What?" My neck was hot, flush with the sun beating down on it. "What?" I said. "That's yours."

He frowned. "It's yours," he corrected.

"Why?" I said. The words were lodged in my throat, oblong and awkward. The balcony, the mall, the phone, it was like acid in my stomach. "Why are you doing this?"

Kane stared at me, eyes wide in shock. He opened his mouth, closed it. He peered at me the way you would a specimen on an examination table.

"I had the feeling you wouldn't spend your victory money," he said.

"Why is that bad?"

"It's not," he said, frowning. "But you shouldn't be afraid of it."

"What?" My heart thudded against my chest; every word from Kane was a layer of my skin peeled back.

Kane glanced from me to the sweater and back. He considered me, squinting his black eyes. He pushed the bag towards me.

"Take it. Call it a gift," he said finally. "You don't owe me anything, Echo."

He said it like he didn't mean the sweater.

I stared down at the white wool. I pursed my lips so tight, my teeth threatened to pierce through the flesh. I scoffed, but it was strained, half-hearted.

"If I didn't know better," I muttered in soft Korean under my breath, "I'd think you saw me as a friend."

Kane tilted his head at me. He left his hand on the bag, near my chest, for a moment more. He said, "There's no issue with that."

He headed down the sidewalk, the sun breaching the air with pinpricks of daisy yellow light. It struck me in the gut. Something squirmed and budded in my ribcage, right up against my intervertebral discs, right beneath the notch of my lungs.

I followed him into the April dew.

______________________

There was something unaccounted for at the dinner.

The Little Crow was a DTLA nightmare and one of the hottest restaurants its glittering streets had the capability to possess, the low lights and glass walls trapping scents of musky perfume, smoked vegetables, cool champagne, and fresh herbs, to permeate the air and soak through the leather seats. The issue didn't lie in the stuffy black blazer that Wynter had stuffed me into, nor the glinting high-ball glasses, or the infestation of gumiho staff, or even the fresh leather shoes wrapping around my feet.

There was an unceasing, unmistakable scent of meat.

"What is this place, again?" I'd asked Rosalie as they headed for the steps leading up to the entryway.

"The Little Crow, haven't you heard of it?" she called, flicking her blonde curls over her shoulder with flippant dismissal. "It's infamous."

"What is it?" I pressed harder.

Corvus paused. Diego sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. "Ah, shit," he murmured. "We forgot about that part."

Zoe's face had shifted at that. "It's a steakhouse," she realized.

Kenzo raised a brow. He tossed the keys to the valet. "So?" He brushed past me. "Don't have to eat."

"They've got other entrees," Zahir assured. "Damn. We forgot to tell Ramos, huh?"

A steakhouse.

I should have known from the moment I smelled it. It had grown stronger as we'd approached, Kenzo's car doing nothing to mask the smell, not even the layers upon layers of bergamot cologne or overdressed spice cabinets or olive oils likely residing in the back kitchen doing anything to hide it. It was pungent, unyielding, a clogging thing that dived into my throat.

"A steakhouse?" I breathed. I should have known. I shouldn't have come.

"You'll be fine," Kane assured as he led the group ahead. "They're not gonna make you eat meat, they've got other options. Calm down. Hurry up."

The nausea hit me like a freight train. A steakhouse, of all fucking places. It was comical. It was cruel.

We went inside, and headed for our table.

"Echo," Ramos said, smiling over at me from across the table as we sat. "I'm so glad you could make it."

I clenched my fists in my lap to keep them from trembling. "Sure," I said, though it hadn't been my choice.

Ramos grinned, oblivious. "You all look very handsome. And beautiful," she added.

"Hey, for you, Ramos, we'd dress up to go to Taco Bell," Diego said.

"God, I'd kill for Taco Bell," Wynter murmured, tugging at the collar of her button down. "So, what's good here? I've only ever heard of this place. Like an Atlantis."

"The wine," Zahir said just as soon as Rosalie said, "The meat."

My stomach twisted. I closed my eyes.

A gumiho passed by, her tray full of plates. A whiff of the steak struck me like a bullet. I downed my water. It might take wine just to get me through the meal. Panic pulled at every corner of my brain as I tried to plan a way out.

Our waiter approached us with a fang-toothed grin as white as her eyes, her long blue hair flaring about her face in nine tails. "Welcome to The Little Crow, I'll be your server, Minhee. Would you like to hear our specials for the night?"

She read them out per Coach's request, but I was already tuning it out in favor of surveying the menu for anything that wasn't meat, but even their appetizers involved some form of fish or chicken. I clutched at the edges of the menu and willed my gaze to steady.

Minhee came around, scribbling down our orders from rib eye to filet mignon to lobster before landing on me. I scrambled, but the words were blurring together and I could feel the eyes on me like sunspots.

"Do you have a veggie burger?" I finally tried.

Minhee frowned, but shrugged. "One veggie burger," she recited.

When she left, Ramos gave me a concerned look. "Echo, I didn't know you were vegetarian."

"A vegetarian lycan," Diego said with a shake of his head. "You're one of a kind, kid." Meredith sent him a look.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I shouldn't have assumed. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

Desperately. But it would be particularly terrible of me to make us all move when it was Ramos's birthday, and I wasn't in the best of positions to go making such demands. So I tightened my jaw and pushed a smile onto my lips with all my effort. "It's all good, it's your birthday. Besides, this place is fancy enough I'm pretty sure their croutons are gourmet. It's not like I'm settling for a veggie burger."

"Are you sure?"

I swallowed hard. "I'm sure."

Diego waved the conversation away. "All right, all right, Yun is saving the animals, we got it. Ramos, open our presents, make everyone here jealous."

"Best to do it before the food comes," Meredith added.

Ramos hesitated. Coach shrugged. "Your birthday."

Ramos grinned and clasped her hand together. "Then, sure. You didn't have to get—"

"No, no, no," they chorused, and withdrew their presents.

Thankfully, the time was eaten up with Ramos's gifting session and everyone's long-winded explanation of said gifts. I spent most of the time trying to focus on gulping down my water and filling my stomach with the complementary bread. My fingers shook with the effort to tear off the crust. The scent of beef was a repetitive sucker punch in my chest.

"Oh, Echo, how cute!" My head snapped up. Ramos had gotten to my gift, and was holding up the pens with a Technicolor grin. "I was just meaning to buy some new ones, you've saved me a trip." She placed them gingerly back into their bag. "Thank you, Echo. You're very thoughtful. I've never gotten HELLO KITTY before."

I didn't have the heart to say the idea wasn't mine. Kane nudged me with an approving nod. I didn't have the heart to reply to either of them.

I plucked the bread to pieces.

Minhee arrived with our plates readily enough, and the smell of steaks had me holding my temples with an iron grip. Steam wafted from the food, curling through the air with breathy claws and teeth. Minhee set them down one by one before us, each dish glistening with oil and still popping with heat. Blood pooled around Meredith's filet mignon, and my entire vision dipped into a red-riddled black.

Minhee set the burger down before me, but my appetite rejected it with a violent wave of vertigo. She either didn't notice or didn't care. "Let me know if you all need anything else, and please enjoy!" she said, and flittered away.

The meal began in full swing, alcohol accelerated the conversations to send them flying across the table at lightning speed, topics playing tennis between school and personal life. Racing was most prevalent, obviously, and everything from D3 stats to the Olympics were debated between the racers. Between them, schoolwide gossip was explained, midterms were lamented, and local news was hashed out. I was content to listen.

The dreaded point arrived where there were no fries or bread or garden salad left for me to pick at, and I was left to face the veggie burger. I knew I couldn't leave it untouched, not with what it costed and not with all of Corvus there to witness. So I picked it up with shaking hands. It certainly smelled akin to meat, and it might've looked like it if they hadn't melted the cheese so well.

I willed my appetite to settle, and took a bite.

Now, I've had a lot of veggie burgers in my life. Tofu. Lentils. Legumes. Mushrooms. Zucchini. What have you. I've had falafels, veggie dogs, vegan bacon, the works. I knew what it was to taste like. I knew how it had to taste like.

What I bit into was not that.

I chewed it carefully, reluctantly. There was too much salt, the flavor too pungent, the texture full of warm granules and squishing juices. The taste was concentrated, a thick savor that coated the inside of my mouth, stung my tongue, and refused to leave even after I'd swallowed it all down. I looked down at the burger.

It dripped a burning, bloody red.

My entire body went ice cold. I dropped the burger as if it had burned me. It felt like it had. Flames raced from the bottom of my feet to the tips of my fingers, full of bite and blue fire. I turned around to flag the waitress with a trembling hand.

Minhee rushed towards me and said, "Yes, sir?"

"Is this a veggie burger?" I pointed at my dish. My limbs were going numb.

Minhee peered at my burger. Her smile dropped. "Oh. Oh, my, I'm so sorry." Panic knit her brows. "The chef must not have seen that. I'll get you a new one right away."

"No, I just—"

She was rushing off before I could finish. I wrapped my hand around my throat. But the only thing I could smell was blood and flesh and skin. A rotting corpse. My mother's blue face, her rotted innards. My bones were liquidized and sloshed me left and right in my chair. The meatball sub, the marinara that wasn't marinara, the beef meatballs that weren't beef.

I put my hand over my mouth, but the scent of the meat lingered and only served to make my head spin faster. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe.

"Echo?" Meredith said. "Are you okay?"

Her voice muffled, spaced between the sounds of a knife splitting flesh. I tasted blood vessels. Piles of pink organs, discarded flesh, scraped bones. I feared taking my hands from my face would mean seeing red on my palms. All those bodies. All those bodies.

I slammed my hand the back of my chair. "Fine," I gasped.

She reached for me. "You look sick—"

"No," was all I could rasp. "I...have to go."

"Echo?" Ramos called, but I was already shoving my body past waiters and patrons, dashing for the first bathroom I saw.

Everything crackled. Static infested every sense, clogged my pores, blocked my arteries. I strangled my throat in some effort to keep the bile growing in it down, but every step made it worse.

I hope you're willing—

I stumbled through the door of the bathroom. There were heartbeats in my temples where it burned to ashes. Corpses on corpses on corpses.

—to pay her price.

I clutched at my chest and neck, clawed at my skin, my vision too blurry with tears to see anything for what it was. Salt. Char. Iron. Earth. Tendons. Ligaments. Muscle. Tissue.

"Echo?"

My breath spasmed against my ribs. I gasped, I writhed; a body under light, a knife above its head. A pig to the slaughter.

A paper towel was pressed onto my face, the scent of cotton infiltrating my nose. I groaned, shook my head. My nails raked down my jaw and my throat to get the taste out, just get the taste out of my mouth, get it out, get it out, get it out.

"Echo." Kane's face came into focus. He grabbed my hands and yanked them from my face to hold them steady.

I choked on any words I tried to say. My resulting cough was fitful, and did nothing to ease the burn in my bones. A hydrogen bomb never ceased exploding in my skeleton.

Kane grabbed the back of my neck and turned my head, just as I vomited into the toilet.

The action tore my mouth and throat open with acid. I gagged, coughed. My head felt lighter than air.

Something damp pressed against my mouth. Hands pushed me into the solid wall of the stall. I tried to shove them away, to scrape my nails into my mouth, but they wouldn't listen. I groaned.

"Echo," Kane said again. "Stop. Just look at me." Hands grasped my face. Cool metal stung my skin. I opened my eyes to find Kane's eyes darting all around me before he clutched my face tighter. "Nae mal deuleo," he tried, softer. Listen to me.

I stuttered through it. The stomach acid had dried up my throat though, and I only managed a wheeze.

"Don't scratch your eyes out," he muttered, getting to his feet. He went elsewhere. I couldn't tell you where. My head was filled with symbols and drums, heartbeats and flatlines. When he reappeared, it was with a cup of water. "Drink this. I'll hold it, just drink."

I drank, maybe just because I was frantic to do anything else. Kane held my arms down for God knows how long. I couldn't even register how much time had passed altogether. Kane murmured small things as we sat on the tile in silence. I'd tell you it in detail. I'd tell you if I knew.

The only thing I could recall was the buzzing of my and his phones, and the faintest sound of him saying, "Go home without us," to someone on the other line.

I closed my eyes, and waited out the storm.

The fade took too long for me to notice any of it was gone until all of it was. I blinked blearily in the fluorescent white of the bathroom. My voice was shot, and whatever taste was on my tongue, I wanted nothing more than to be stripped of it. The world became too stark, too quick.

Kane seemed to think I was sane enough to release my hands. They still shook, so I shoved them under my knees and rested my head. After a beat, I whispered, "I'm sorry."

Kane didn't answer for a long, long moment. Then, he said, "Come on. Let's go home."

He hauled me to my feet. A sharp jab in my stomach made me stumble, knees shaking under the sheer weight of my own body. I seized my middle. "I'm sorry," I gasped. I didn't know anything else to say.

Kane turned around and bent down. "Get on."

"I—"

"Just do it, Echo."

I figured I'd put up enough of a shitfest for the night.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him hoist me onto his back. He sighed, and we headed out of the bathroom. Kane took a right to head out the back.

The brisk winds of April swept over me, a pleasant ice on my still-singed skin. Cotton and soap placated the sting of salted meat in my diaphragm. Kane took the streets until we reached a bus stop, benchless, which left him standing. I wondered what the sight looked like: two overdressed college kids playing piggyback in the sidewalks of LA at the heart of the evening. Pathetic, maybe.

It sure felt that way.

When we got on the bus, Kane let me slide off onto a seat before sitting next to me. Only three other riders were with us, leaving the whole vehicle in an eerie, yellowed silence.

We rode wordlessly the whole way back.

Back at the Talon, Kane and I made the slow ascent to the rooms. Uma gave us a concerned look, and went to ask, but Kane shook his head, likely too mad to talk about it with me still there. She let us go up.

To my immense gratitude, Corvus was elsewhere, the unit vacant. Kane hung his coat up and placed his Oxfords on the rack. He gestured at the bathroom.

"Wash up," he said.

I dragged myself over as told. I splashed water over my face, washed out my mouth until there was nothing but the taste of tap water left on my gums. By the time I was done, my bangs were wet, and my eyes dried beyond repair.

Kane said, "I told you to wash up, not take a shower in the damn sink." He tapped the counter with his rings. "Get up. And change out of those clothes."

He handed me a shirt and shorts that weren't mine before disappearing out the door again. I used the alone time to strip off the ruined silk shirt and dress pants, folding them up and placing them on the countertop. I took minutes too long to pull on the fresh clothes, the lavender soap infesting my nose.

Kane returned with a bottle of water, Neosporin, and bandages. He handed the water to me. "Drink some now." I took it, pouring small sips into my mouth. When I'd gotten through a third of it, he uncapped the Neosporin. "Hold still."

"Kane—"

"Don't talk, it's on your jaw."

He dabbed a bit of the ointment onto my skin, and it only just registered to me that I'd scraped my skin hard enough to leave marks in my frenzied state. I winced at the sting. He worked to smooth the ointment over my jaw and throat before tossing the tube aside and pasting bandages over the worst ones.

"Drink the rest of this for as long as you can," he said, tapping the water. Kane grabbed a towel from the bar and wrapped it around my neck. "And Jesus, dry your hair, you'll catch a cold."

He was strangely gentle trying to squeeze the water from my bangs with the towel. A part of me ached at the memory of my mother doing the same when I was younger, sitting across from me to ruffle my then-black hair between her hands. Perhaps it was good I vomited then because I likely would've done it now just from the reminder.

"Sleep with your head up," he told me when he finished.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, wincing. "I shouldn't have—I never meant to—"

"Stop."

He faced me then, eye to eye, hands splayed between us, inches from my arms. His face was void of anger and inquiry. For the first time since I'd known him, it was soft, almost sad.

"Stop saying that," he said, quieter. "You're saying sorry like it's someone's fault." I ducked my head at that. Kane knocked a ring lightly against my forehead. "Echo. It's okay."

"It's not."

"It's okay," he repeated. He pushed his ring against my skin, and my head tilted up. "I promise, it's okay."

With that, he returned everything back to its respective place, and shut off the light in the bathroom. When he opened the door to his room, a slice of golden light broke across the tile, and sliced a thin line of light over his face.

I said, "Why'd you go after me to the bathroom?"

Kane's face was indiscernible in the shadows, but his voice was clear. "First rule."

We shut our doors. I saw a wolf in the darkness, body ready to pounce in the blue evening.

I closed my eyes and let it take a bite.

(o-k this chapter was written in a serious rush and so is likely intensely messy and discombobulate, but thank you anyway for being kind enough to read:) the little star is forever grateful for your patience, thank you very much)