Jack again navigated using back roads to get to the address on the other side of the settlement, knowing that I wasn't ready to be paraded through town after our frosty reception. When we pulled up to the front of the small apartment building, which sat more than two blocks away from any other structure, there were no lights on inside. I wondered briefly whether there were other tenants, or if I was the only one.

The front door, which I had to unlock with the larger of the keys, opened directly into a stairwell, and the rough state of the entryway indeed confirmed my suspicion that I was likely the only one living there. Jack led the way up the narrow wooden stairs carrying my suitcases to apartment 2A, one of only four units in the building.

There was no chance the apartments were designed to house wolves, let alone Castle wolves: if all of the apartments had similar layouts to mine, they'd barely fit through the doorframe. The place likely hadn't been used since humans were run out of the area.

The apartment smelled stale and stuffy and was dimly lit by a floor lamp in the corner that Jack found and plugged into the wall as I stood in the doorway. The only overhead lighting was a harsh fluorescent bulb in the kitchen and another in the bathroom. It was furnished, barely, with a futon in the living room, a bare mattress and dresser in the bedroom, and a thin cotton bathmat beside the shower. There were a few plastic hangers in the closet and some mismatched utensils, dishes, and pots stashed haphazardly in the kitchen cupboards, but there was no food. The refrigerator was empty. I just counted myself lucky that someone had thought to turn on the heat and electricity. I hoped they'd turned the water on, too.

"I can't leave you here like this," Jack said after taking everything in.

"You don't have a choice," I said quietly, choking on the lump growing in my throat. I didn't want him to see me cry again but the way his voice wavered tore at my resolve. I launched myself into his arms and buried my face in his warm chest. His whole body shook with the effort of trying not to break down.

Jack broke our embrace to lean down and kiss me. A wet, salty, teary kiss. I pressed my lips against his desperately for several seconds before regaining control. It took everything in me to pull away and step back out of his reach knowing that this could be the last time I'd feel his arms around me. I wanted to be strong for him. I had to be.

"I love you. I'll call you." I promised. Looking up at Jack's tear-soaked face, my resolve nearly faltered. If I begged him to take me away, I knew he would risk everything to do exactly that.

"I love you, too."

And then I was alone. I collapsed onto the floor, ignoring the pain of my knees striking the linoleum. I didn't think I had any tears left in me, but they flooded out hot and fast. Despite being by myself in the building, I held one hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs. I wrapped my other arm around my waist as though I could somehow hold myself together that way. As though I could keep myself from breaking. I was wrong.

I slept that night in fits and starts huddled under my coat on the futon so that I could see the front door. I didn't trust that I was safe here and each time I nodded off, a voice in my head screamed for me to wake up. Just before dawn, I gave up on sleep altogether and went to try the shower.

The water came out rusty at first and the dull orange swirled with the dust in the shower pan while the water heated up. To my surprise, after it ran for awhile, the water was pleasantly hot and the pressure was strong. I forced myself to stay under the stream as long as I could stand, letting the warmth seep into my bones until my skin turned red. When I got out, I dried myself off with a t-shirt and dressed, still damp, in jeans and a sweater. Jack had packed my overcoat and a set of scrubs, but I wasn't sure what the normal dress was at the Castle clinic. I shoved both into my medical bag.

As I dug through the larger suitcase for my scarf, I found it wrapped around a framed photo of me and Jack. I remembered the day it was taken, not long after we'd moved into our house. His little garden box, the first of many, had produced its first carrots and he insisted on setting up the camera to take a photo of us with it. The evening light was soft and golden around us and Jack had pulled me to lean back against him, one arm draped over my shoulders and the other holding a bunch of carrots in the air triumphantly. He was grinning; I was mid–laugh. We were happy. It was my favorite picture of us.

I sat on the futon holding the frame, burning the photo into my mind so that I could carry it with me all day. I hoped that it might make me feel less lonely. I felt strange, like there was something missing inside of me. There was an emptiness in my chest that I'd never felt before.

The sharp sound of a car horn outside made me jump to my feet. Peeking through the dusty blinds, I saw Marie in small car idling in front of my building. I threw my coat on and grabbed my medical bag and ran downstairs to meet her; something in her countenance told me she wouldn't take kindly to being made to wait long.

She greeted me with a tight nod and began driving slowly nearly before I closed the door.

"What is that?" Her eyes flicked down to my bag at my feet.

"My medical bag. I didn't know whether I would need it," I explained.

"You won't," she said, clearly disinterested in any further conversation. To distract myself from the gnawing hunger in my stomach, I watched out the window. When we proceeded up the center street, I was finally able to get a glimpse of the Castle settlement.

It looked similar to ours for the most part, lined on either side with repurposed human buildings. Here, however, everything was slightly bigger. I could tell even from a distance that the buildings had been retrofitted around Castle wolf specifications: doorways were expanded, ceilings were raised, even the sidewalks looked wider.

A deep growl sounded from my stomach as it turned over on itself. I coughed to try to mask the noise.

"The grocery store is just there." Marie pointed it out on the left side of the road. "You can stop in after your shift."

"Thank you." I did the mental math and cursed silently at the prospect of waiting another eight hours to eat. The drive to the clinic wasn't long—just over two miles—but I was already dreading walking back in the cold and dark.

Unlike the rest of the town, the clinic looked like a new build. I shouldered my bag and hastily followed after Marie, who had not stopped to wait for me after she parked the car. As much as I imagined Gabriel had felt like a giant in our clinic, I felt tiny in this one. Each feature and piece of furniture seemed about six inches larger, wider, or taller than it would have been originally. I wondered whether they had their own carpenters and woodsmiths, or if they had brought someone in for the job.

Muted conversation leaked out from behind the doors of two of the exam rooms, and I hoped that Marie would be showing me to the third, which was open, to get set up for the day. Instead, she led me down the hall to the very last door on the right. She unlocked it with a key that she wore around her neck and gestured for me to go inside.

The room, though large, felt much tighter as it was lined with messy shelves of bottles and vials: tinctures, salves, tonics, and draughts. Canisters and jars of dried herbs and plants and other elemental ingredients numbered in the hundreds. This was wolf medicine, ancient and traditional. A far cry from my practice.

"We've been busy of late, and this room has been neglected. Your job is organization and inventory." Marie nodded toward a table under the far window with a pad of paper and a pen laying on top. My heart sank as I realized this would be my life here: isolated in strange buildings and shut into back rooms, far away from everyone else.

"Sure," I said. I tried to sound upbeat but I couldn't pull off the lie. When the door swung shut behind Marie's retreating figure, I half-expected to hear the scraping of her key turning, locking me in. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had.

I made my way around the room slowly and traced my fingers over the different vessels, looking for ones I recognized. There were a few, but not many. I had picked up a good amount of wolf medicine working with Shiva and Rosalind, but it was my knowledge of human medicine that set me apart. Our strengths balanced each other well: between the three of us, we had managed to cobble together a unique approach to healing that seemed to work well for our pack and even some from other packs who traveled to visit our clinic.

As I continued to inspect the bottles and jars, I realized what a task this truly was. Some of the labels had been hastily scrawled on with faded ink, while others were meticulously printed with neat handwriting. Some jars were filled to the brim, and some were nearly empty. It was clear that the inventory had been neglected for a long time, certainly longer than Marie had let on.

I took a deep breath and started to work, beginning by choosing one cabinet and arranging the contents of one shelf at a time into neat rows on the table. I carefully inspected each one, checking for expiration dates and making a list of what needed to be restocked. On stickers I found in a drawer, I drafted fresh labels for each and painstakingly pasted each on as straight as I could manage. It was a tedious process, but there was a certain satisfaction to be found in bringing order to the chaos of the neglected room. The space began to take on an earthy, herby smell as I opened and closed various bottles and jars that made my head swim pleasantly.

The day wore on and I listened distantly to the sounds of patients arriving and leaving and wondered what they were being treated for. If I'd had a better mental index of what each ingredient was used for, I might have been able to guess based on which were low and which looked like they hadn't been touched in months.

While I worked, I found my mind wandering back to Jack. It had been less than twenty-four hours and the sharp pain of missing him was only getting worse. My concern for myself was far overshadowed by my worry for him. I knew he was much too far away to feel it, but I silently sent as much warmth as I could muster in his direction.

I leaned into the pain of missing him—it kept my mind from straying back to Gabriel. His coldness. His hatred for my human blood. The twisting, pulling sensation I felt inside when I was standing in front of him. It was fear, I thought, and I hated that he could make me feel afraid with only a look.

I was startled from my thoughts by the sound of the door swinging open. I turned, expecting Marie, but another woman breezed in. She moved quickly to a shelf but stopped when she noticed it was empty and turned to me.

"Where is all of it?" She asked, gesturing to the empty space.

"Sorry, I have most of it over here." I stood to the side so she could see the jars stacked up on the table.

"Ah, you're the new healer," she said. "The life-debt."

I flinched at the term. "Kiera."

"Hmm." The woman moved to the desk and began picking through the jars. "I'm Aubrey."

"You're a healer here?" She picked up a jar and gave me a look that said obviously. Aubrey wasn't quite as tall as Marie, but she was strong and sturdy. She had auburn hair and ruddy cheeks and although she didn't seem eager to talk, she was already the nicest Castle Pack member I'd encountered yet. Granted, that wasn't a high bar.

"How long have you worked here?" I asked when she went to leave. I didn't realize how desperately I wanted conversation until I began trying to force it on this stranger. Aubrey sighed and turned.

"About seven, eight years now. Pretty sure this is the first time anyone has gone through this room since I started." She looked around. "Marie put you back here?"

"I don't think she cares for me much," I said.

"Marie doesn't care for anyone much," Aubrey supplied. "It's everyone else you need to worry about."

"What do you mean?" My mouth suddenly felt dry as cotton.

"Most of this pack doesn't take too kindly to outsiders. Especially ones..." She looked me up and down. "Well, like you." Human. A cold shot of dread flooded my veins. The unspoken word hung between us and I shifted uncomfortably.

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say.

"Just don't expect much, is all I'm saying." Aubrey shrugged.

"Noted. Thanks." I crossed my arms across my chest, feeling instantly defensive. She gave me a dismissive nod that I interpreted as her goodbye and left the room. I sat down hard on the chair and pressed my palms against my closed eyes. Tears, this time ones of frustration, burned and fought to fall. I felt fragile and alone and a sense of unease hung off my shoulders like a wet, heavy cloak.

I just wanted to go home.