Erica's new room smelled faintly of fresh linens, disinfectant, and something softer—like the quiet hum of hope no one trusted enough to name yet. The curtains were half-drawn, letting in a gentle wash of morning light that made the pale hospital walls look almost warm. Only hours ago, she'd been in the ICU surrounded by machines, monitors, and the tight faces of specialists who had already begun preparing her parents for the worst.
Now she lay in a standard recovery room, breathing steadily under a thin hospital blanket.
Nurses paused in the doorway every time they passed, each wearing the same expression of stunned disbelief. They whispered to each other as if speaking too loudly might undo whatever impossible thing had happened overnight.
She was dying yesterday, one murmured.
She shouldn't be awake, another said.
Even the doctors—usually stoic, composed, untouchable—huddled in the hallway like they were swapping ghost stories they didn't quite believe themselves. Pages of her chart were turned, re-read, flipped back again, as though the answer might appear if they stared hard enough.
Her parents sat close to her bed, hands clasped, shoulders touching, their entire bodies leaning toward her like she might float away if they didn't anchor her. They watched the color that had returned to her cheeks, listened to her steady breaths, and clung to the pulse they thought they had lost.
No seizures.
No weakness.
Not a single sign of the illness that had dictated every chapter of her life so far.
A miracle, the staff called it.
If only they knew how literal that word was.
In the cafeteria downstairs, Lucas sat at a sticky table with Malia and Isaac, staring into a paper cup of hospital coffee that tasted like burnt rubber and regret. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, turning everyone a shade paler.
Malia sat across from him, arms tense, eyes narrowed like she was deciding whether to hit him, yell at him, or both.
"You're out of your damn mind," she announced, voice sharp enough to cut through the cafeteria noise. "You took the biggest, stupidest gamble in the history of stupid gambles. Who Bites someone who's already halfway to the afterlife?"
Lucas didn't answer. He knew better than to interrupt her when she got like this.
Isaac jumped in before Malia could really unleash. "He saved her. And somebody had to do something. I'd be dead right now if Lucas hadn't taken a chance on me."
Malia scoffed dramatically. "Yeah, but that was different and you know it. You weren't—" she pointed at Lucas like her finger was a weapon, "—her."
She leaned forward. "Erica is now a werewolf and she doesn't even know it. How exactly are we supposed to hide something like that from the doctors? What if she heals too fast right in front of them? What if she accidentally shifts because someone hands her grape Jell-O instead of cherry?"
Isaac blinked. "Do they even have flavors here?"
Lucas cut in before the conversation devolved into a critique of hospital menus. "Her transformation's slower because her body was shutting down when I Bit her. She still has to finish the process. By the time she's strong enough to show anything supernatural, she'll be discharged."
Malia sat back, arms crossed tight over her chest. Her expression dipped from anger into reluctant acceptance. "Fine. Then we get her out early. Whatever paperwork we need to push, whatever loophole we need to find—AMA, miracle exception, divine clearance—we'll make it work."
Lucas nodded. "One of us stays with her at all times until she's out of this place. No exceptions."
Isaac raised his hand like they were in school. "I'll take evenings. I don't care if I have to sleep in those torture-device chairs."
Malia sighed through her nose. "I'll take nights. I see better in the dark anyway."
Then they both looked at Lucas.
He didn't volunteer a shift.
He didn't have to.
They all already knew.
He'd be there the rest of the time.
Every moment she wasn't alone.
The three of them sat in a quiet bubble for a few seconds, the urgency easing as the plan settled.
Then Lucas froze.
Something brushed the edge of his senses—like a spark catching a dry branch. A pulse of energy he knew as intimately as his own name. A presence he'd been terrified he might never feel again.
Two floors above them, in a room still buzzing with whispered disbelief…
Erica was waking up.
And her heart—stronger now, fuller, unmistakably different—beat with a rhythm that thrummed straight through him.
Alive. Steady.
And undeniably werewolf.
Lucas stood abruptly, chair legs screeching against the floor.
"She's waking up."