Mina’s POV

“Look at her! The silent Rat got a bath!”

Someone shouted as a bucket of dirty water crashed over my head. The smell hit my nose before the shock hit my brain.

Cold.

Filthy.

And the hallway – loud and crowded and merciless exploded into laughter.

I stood frozen as muddy water dripped from my hair, my face my oversized gray hoodie in one ugly second.

My fingers tightened around the stack of books in my arms still pressed against my chest like I could protect them from what had already happened.

I didn't react.

Neither did I speak, because I never speak.

I lowered my head and started walking again.

A foot shot out and I stumbled hard.

The books flew from arms and scattered across the wet floor – pages splaying open.

And the laughter grew louder, bouncing off every locker in the hallway.

I already knew who it was before I looked up.

Jace Grayson.

Future Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack.

Golden hair. Cold gray eyes.

A perfect life built on a foundation of other people's pain.

A monster.

He stood above me with his arms loose at his sides, looking down at me the way someone looks at something they accidentally stepped on.

A monster wearing a prince's face.

Beside him stood Ryder Kane, the Football captain. Built like a wall of solid muscle that someone had given a bad attitude to.

He was already smirking.

And on the other side, Damian Vale. Rich. Charming. The kind of handsome that made girls forget how sharp his edges were. He was smiling at me with that soft, practiced smile that never once touched his eyes.

The three kings of Silver Moon Academy.

And I was their favorite target.

"Oops." Damian pressed a hand to his chest, voice full of fake concern.

"Did you drop something?”

The crowd laughed harder.

I dropped to my knees and began gathering my books. One by one. Quietly. Like always.

Then Ryder stepped forward and put his foot down on one of the books.

Crunch.

The cover tore away completely. I looked at it and my chest tightened.

It was the science textbook I had borrowed from the library — the one I had already renewed twice, one with a replacement fee I absolutely could not pay.

"Please..." I almost whispered. But no sound came out.

Jace crouched in front of me, slow and unbothered.

"You know," he said, "sometimes I wonder if you're actually mute."

He paused.

"Or maybe you're just too scared to talk."

I looked away.

Because if I kept looking into his eyes, I might forget my promise. And if that happened people would get hurt. Badly.

I'm a cursed anomaly.

My silence is a choice—a desperate seal placed upon a terrifying power: my voice can shatter the strongest will.

To avoid being hunted as a weapon, I hide under oversized hoodies, scraping by as a shadow.

When I was years old, the day I last opened my mouth and spoke — the day I watched a grown man's eyes go wide and then completely empty, his whole mind wiped blank, his body standing still and waiting like a puppet for me to pull the strings

I had sewn my lips shut after that and never opened them again.

If I stared at Jace too long, I might forget why.

He reached out and grabbed my chin.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

I obeyed.

My heart pounded.

"Pathetic," Jace said.

Then he shoved me backward and stood up straight.

The hallway belll rang.

Students began moving, the crowd breaking apart, drifting toward class. The show was over. The kings had bigger things to do.

Jace glanced back over his shoulder.

"Lab after school."

Ryder smirked on his way past. "You still clean it, don't you?"

Damian was last. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and tossed it at me without even looking. It bounced off my shoulder and landed on the wet floor with a small, clean clink.

I slowly picked up the coin.

Five dollars.

I stared at it.

My stomach growled. Quietly, like even it knew better than to make noise around here.

Humiliation didn't pay bills. Money did.

I slipped it into my pocket, and finished gathering my ruined books.

After classes ended, I headed toward the science building.

The sun was already setting, burning low and orange behind the trees at the edge of campus. Most students had gone home. The pathways were empty. The noise had drained out of the school like water from a tub.

I liked it that way. To be alone.

The lab was dim when I pushed through the door. I dropped my bag against the wall and had the mop out before the door finished swinging shut.

That's how it always goes — everyone else rushes out, laughing, shoving, leaving behind whatever mess they made, and I stay bacy with Bucket and bleach.

The sharp chemical smell rising up like a greeting I'd long stopped noticing.

I didn't mind the smell anymore.

What I minded was the envelope sitting on the front desk.

It had my name on it. Mina. Written in that sharp, slanted handwriting I had learned to recognize and hate over three years.

I already knew what was inside. Another essay. Another deadline. Another fifty dollars that would disappear into my landlady's hand before I even felt it between my fingers.

I left the envelope where it was and kept mopping.

The door swung open behind me.

"You didn't pick it up."

I didn't turn around. I knew that voice.

Deep, flat, bored — the voice of someone who had never once been told no and wouldn't know what to do with it if he was.

Jace Grayson. Again.

I kept mopping.

"Mina."

The way he said my name sounded like he was reading it off a list. I tightened my grip on the mop handle and dragged it across the tiles, leaving a clean streak between us.

His footsteps were slow and deliberate. He stopped right in my path — right where I needed to mop next — and waited.

I looked up.

Still in his ootball jacket. Collar up. Arms crossed. That same square jaw and dark, unreadable gaze. He was looking at me Like I was something that used to work and didn't anymore.

He pointed at the envelope.

I looked at it. Then at him. Then I moved the mop around his shoes.

Something shifted in his expression. A flicker – fast, like a candle catching wind. Then it was gone, and his face was stone again.

"Damian needs it by Thursday," he said. "Political theory. Twelve pages. Don't make it sound like you."

Don't make it sound like me. I almost smiled. As if anyone in this building believed I was capable of a single original thought.

I nodded once.

He picked up the envelope and held it out. I took it without letting our fingers touch. I had gotten very good at that.

He left.

I went back to mopping.

By the time I finished, the hallway outside was completely empty.

The school felt different at night – less like a cage and more like just a building. I pulled my hoodie tighter around myself and pushed through the side door into the cold evening air.

The Dream That Wouldn't Leave

Mina's POV

The cold air hit me as I stepped outside.

I pulled my hoodie tighter and kept walking. The path from the science building to the school gate was long and poorly lit, just two rows of dying streetlamps that flickered more than they shone.

My sneakers were still damp from this mornings incident. Every step made a soft, wet sound against the pavement.

I always counted my steps when I walked alone at night. It helped me stay focused inside my own head.

One. Two. Three.

The envelope was still tucked under my arm. Twelve pages on political theory. I had already started building the argument in my head, the structure first, then language, then I would sand it down until it sounded like Damian.

Confidence. A little arrogant. Heavy on opinion and light on evidence, because that was how Damian Vale moved through the world.

I had ghostwritten eleven essays for the three of them this semester alone.

Eleven.

And not one of those teachers had ever looked at me and thought — wait.

Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four.

I turned off the main path and cut through the narrow lane behind the equipment shed. Because it saves seven minutes to get to my house.

Seven minutes meant I could eat before my landlady locked the kitchen.

I was halfway through the lane when I heard footsteps behind me.

Not too close. But deliberate.

I didn't speed up.

Because speeding up tells people they've scared you. Instead I adjusted my grip on my bag strap and kept my eyes forward.

But the footsteps kept pace.

Then a voice — low, almost gentle, which made it worse.

"You walk home alone every night."

I stopped.

It wasn't a question. It was an observation.

Casually.

I turned around slowly.

Damian Vale was leaning against the wall of the equipment shed with his hands in his pockets, still in his school uniform, tie loosened just enough to look intentional.

He was watching me with that soft, unreadable smile.

"I'm not following you," he said.

"Relax."

I stared at him.

"I cut through here too sometimes. He said."

He pushed off the wall and fell into step beside me like I had invited him.

"It's faster."

I started walking again. Faster than before.

"You finished last week's chemistry paper in one night," he said, keeping pace easily. "I checked the sources. Every single one was legitimate. Some of them I'd never even heard of before."

He paused.

"Where did you find the Hartley study?"

I didn't look at him.

"Right."

He almost laughed — a quiet sound, not mean for once.

"Forgot who I was talking to. He said."

We reached the end of the lane. I turned left. He stopped at the corner, hands still in his pockets, watching me go.

"Two days," he called after me as he was about to turn.

I didn't turn around.

"Until your birthday, I mean."

My steps slowed for just half a second. Then I kept walking and didn't look back.

………….

My room was on the third floor of a narrow building that smelled permanently of old wood and someone else's cooking. I paid three hundred a month for a bed, a desk, a lamp, and a window that faced a brick wall.

I locked the door behind me, sat on the edge of the bed, and pressed my palms flat against my knees.

Two days.

I didn't know why it felt like a countdown to something terrible. Birthdays had never meant anything to me before — no cake, no calls, no one who remembered without being reminded. But this year the number sat in my chest like a stone that kept getting heavier.

I opened Damian's envelope. Read the prompt. I opened my notebook.

And started writing.

I always wrote by hand first. Something about the pen moving across paper felt like the only honest conversation I was allowed to have. The words came easily — they always did.

Within an hour I had six pages roughed out, argument clean and tight, exactly the kind of essay that would make a professor nod slowly and give it an A minus to seem balanced.

I put the pen down around midnight.

That was when the dream started — not while I was asleep, but in the space between awake and not, when my eyes were closed and my body was still but my mind hadn't fully let go yet.

Starlight.

A sky I didn't recognize — with too many stars, arranged in patterns I had never seen in any textbook. And below the sky, a forest made entirely of silver trees, their bark pale and luminous, their leaves catching light that had no source.

And a voice.

Not speaking words exactly. More like the idea of words — meaning without sound, the way you understand something in a dream without being told.

You are almost ready.

I snapped awake immediately.

My room was dark. The lamp had gone off — the timer I set to save electricity. My notebook was still open on the desk. The pen had rolled to the floor.

I sat very still and listened to my own breathing.

Then I felt it. The same vibration from this evening, back again, stronger this time. It moved through my chest like a second heartbeat, slow and deep and completely out of sync with my own.

I pressed my hand to my sternum.

My palm was warm.

I crossed to the small mirror above my desk and leaned in close.

My eyes.

The brown was still there — but at the very edges, threaded through like veins of metal in dark stone, something silver was spreading. Slowly. Quietly.

The way dawn spreads before anyone notices the dark is already gone.

I stared at my own reflection for a long time.

Then I went back to bed, pulled the blanket over my head, and made myself a promise.

Two more days. Just hold on two more days.

Mina's POV

The next morning came gray and cold.

I was already awake before my alarm. I had barely slept — every time I drifted off, the silver forest pulled me back in.

The voice. The starlight. The feeling of something enormous standing just behind me, breathing slow and patient, waiting.

I washed my face with cold water, changed into my cleanest hoodie — dark green, two sizes too big — and sat at my desk with Damian's essay in front of me.

Six more pages.

I picked up the pen.

By the time I finished, the sun had come up properly and my landlady was banging pipes somewhere below me.

I read the essay back once, changed three words that sounded too much like me, and slipped it into a fresh envelope.

One day left.

I pushed the thought away and headed to school.

The hallways of Silver Moon Academy were already buzzing when I arrived. Louder than usual.

There was an energy in the air that I recognized — the kind that meant something had happened, or was about to happen, and everyone already knew except me.

I kept my head down and moved through.

"Did you hear?"

"The Awakening Ceremony is tomorrow night…."

"Early this year –"

“Because of the blood moon –"

I stopped at my locker and let the conversations wash over me without catching on anything.

The Awakening Ceremony. Of course. Once in a year, on the night of the blood moon, every pack member who had turned eighteen in the past month gathered in the ceremonial hall to shift for the first time in front of the Alpha and the Elders.

Tomorrow night.

My birthday was tomorrow.

I stood very still with my hand on my locker door.

I had spent years telling myself it wouldn't happen to me. That whatever was broken inside me — whatever made me silent, whatever made grown men go blank when I was seven years old — had probably destroyed the shifting gene along with everything else.

That I would simply not shift. That I would stand in that hall and nothing would happen and I would walk home alone the same way I did everything else.

I had almost believed it.

"Mina."

I turned.

It was Ms. Vern — my homeroom teacher. An average woman.

She was holding a folded slip of paper between two fingers like she didn't want to touch it any longer than necessary.

"Ceremony registration," she said. "You need to submit this by the end of the day." She pushed it toward me.

"I assume you'll be attending. All eligible pack members are required."

I took the slip.

She was already walking away.

Required. The word sat in my stomach like a swallowed coin.

The third period was biology. I sat in the back corner the way I always did — close to the window, far from everyone.

The teacher was talking about cellular regeneration, and I was taking notes automatically, my hand moving while my mind stayed somewhere else entirely.

A folded piece of paper landed on my desk.

I looked at it. Then at the person who threw it.

Ryder Kane was two rows to my left, arms folded on his desk, not looking at me. Deliberately not looking at me, which was its own kind of looking.

I unfolded the paper under the desk.

I heard you're registered for tomorrow. Don't embarrass the pack, Mute.

I folded it back up.

My jaw tightened. That stirring in my chest came again — quicker this time, less like something waking up and more like something standing up. I pressed my foot flat against the floor and breathed through it.

Not yet.

After class, I was the last one out. I had made it exactly four steps into the hallway when a hand closed around my arm and pulled me sideways into the alcove beside the water fountain.

Jace.

He let go immediately — like touching me had been accidental, like he was already annoyed at himself for it.

He stood in the alcove with his arms crossed and looked at me with those gray eyes that never gave anything away.

"You submitted your registration," he said.

I looked at him steadily.

"You shouldn't go tomorrow."

I blinked.

It was the last thing I had expected him to say.

Not clean the lab early.

He was looking at me differently than usual — not with contempt exactly.

Something almost like — concern. He killed it quickly, but I saw it.

"The ceremony is not for people like you," he said, and just like that the coldness was back, smooth and even.

"You'll shift into something weak. The Elders will document it. And It'll be on record permanently."

He paused. "Save yourself the humiliation."

He pushed off the wall and walked away.

I stood in the alcove for a moment.

People like you.

I had heard those words my whole life. Spoken in a hundred different tones — pity, disgust, boredom. I had learned to let them pass through me like wind through an open window.

But standing there, one day before my birthday, with silver threading slowly through my eyes every time I looked in a mirror, with a voice in a silver forest telling me I was almost ready—

Something inside me did not let those words pass through.

Something inside me caught them.

Held them.

And burned.

I unfolded the ceremony registration slip, walked to the administration office, and slid it through the door slot.

Then I went back to class.