Chapter 9: Ghost Line

Lena didn't sleep.

Not after the shift. Not after the moon slipped behind the trees like a secret that had already taken what it came for. Not with her skin still buzzing from bones bent wrong and the memory of running too close to something she didn't want to name.

She'd showered until the water ran cold, put on a sweatshirt that was three sizes too large. Then she sat at her desk with the candle burning low and her laptop open, watching the sun creep in slow through the pines outside the window.

She could've let it go.

Should have.

But Eliot Chase was still in her head. And not in that sharp, hot, devouring way she usually carried people. Not lust, not hunger.

Worse.

Need.

The quiet kind. The one that whispers instead of demands. The one that builds behind the ribs and waits.

And Lena didn't do need.

She did information. Patterns. Control. The kind of knowing that made the world manageable. And Eliot was starting to feel like a variable she couldn't chart.

That made him dangerous.

She pulled the laptop closer.

First stop: the company intranet. Again.

His profile had updated. Small things.

Birthday: March 12.Emergency Contact: Juliette Chase – sister.Photo: New. Studio-lit, soft-focus. The kind they schedule between emails and awkward meetings. Eliot looked like he'd been told to smile twice, and only halfway committed. His eyes didn't match the shape of his mouth. But they tried.

She stared at the photo too long. Then forced herself to scroll.

Juliette was easy to find. Instagram private, but not paranoid.Bio: Artist. Wife. Mama to one lazy cat. Married to the best man I know.Location tagged once, maybe twice—a small house on the edge of town, tucked behind an old bookstore and a dog grooming salon. Low property taxes. Stable mortgage. Local co-op donations. She baked. Or pretended to. There were photos of bread.

Juliette was the kind of person Lena usually ignored. The kind who made contentment look ordinary. Boring.

But Eliot had put her down as his emergency contact.

That meant something.

The husband—Ronan Callahan—came up clean. Private family law. Lots of quiet donations. Zero personal scandals. The kind of man who took PTO to volunteer for food drives and meant it. Nothing sharp in the teeth.

Normal.

Too normal, maybe.

Lena kept scrolling.

No mention of Eliot in any of Juliette's recent posts. No birthday throwbacks. No old-school sibling nostalgia. Not even a mention of "my brother" unless you knew what you were looking for.

Until—

One post, buried.

Two years old.

A photo of Juliette holding a chipped mug on the front porch in October. Orange leaves and bad lighting. No filters.

Caption: Not all roots run backward. Some grow forward. Some break the ground where no one planted them.

Lena reread that three times.

Her chest went tight. Not in fear. In recognition.

She closed the tab.

The absence of parents wasn't strange. People lost family all the time.

But the silence?

That was loud.

That was deliberate.

And Eliot wore that kind of silence like armor. Not to keep people out—but to keep something in.

She leaned back in the chair, stared out the window. The candle beside her hissed as the wick hit the last of the wax. The flame twitched, then steadied.

The forest beyond the glass moved softly. Wind curling through the branches like breath. The air was still silver-edged from the moon, but it was fading.

Eliot wasn't a mystery anymore.

He was a mirror.

That careful way he moved. The space he gave her. The way his gaze lingered like he was memorizing something but didn't want to be caught. He understood restraint. Not as a virtue. As a survival tactic.

He knew how to hold himself in.

And that—more than anything else—unsettled her.

Because that's what she did when the teeth itched behind her lips and the wild thing inside her started to pace. She tucked it down. Smoothed it over. Smiled just enough to pass.

Eliot Chase lived like someone who had learned how to vanish without going anywhere.

And Lena didn't know what to do with that.

She looked down at the empty tea mug. It had gone cold an hour ago. She hadn't touched it.

The edge of her sweatshirt sleeve was wet from where her hand had been resting against the mug. She pulled it back, wiped her fingers on her thigh.

Thought about texting him.

Something small. Something harmless.

"Is March 12 the real day, or just the one you settled for?"Or"You strike me as the kind of guy who remembers soup. Your sister make good soup?"

But she didn't type it.

Because the screen suddenly felt too loud. Too exposed.

Some questions only felt safe out loud, face to face, with soft music playing and a second cup of coffee already half-drunk between them.

And Lena didn't trust her voice around him anymore.

Didn't trust herself to say only the things that were safe.

Not now.

Not with the way the hunger inside her had gone quiet whenever he looked at her like she wasn't a creature to be solved—but a presence to be understood.

And she hated that.

Because Eliot Chase had stopped being an observation.

He'd become a choice.

And if she made the wrong one—if she stepped too close, opened too much, let herself want—

Then someone else would get hurt.

Again.

Lena stood, pushing her chair back gently.

She moved to the window, opened it wider.

The breeze smelled like ash and pine.

She closed her eyes, let it touch her face.

Outside, the forest shifted. Watched. Waited.

Inside her chest, something old and patient stirred.

Not with hunger.

With longing.

And that—more than anything—was the real danger.

Because she could handle blood.

She could survive the shift.

But caring?

That had teeth deeper than any wolf ever did.