Claw marks
16: 16.
Claw marks Liam
I shouldn’t be this relieved.
That thought repeats in my head as I pull the truck to a stop at the curb across from our childhood house.
The engine ticks as it cools, the late afternoon light casting long shadows across the lawn that used to be perfectly trimmed when Mom still cared about appearances.
Now the grass is too long.
The siding looks dull.
And the yellow police tape tied around the porch railing flutters lazily in the wind.
Two days.
Aria has ignored me for two damn days.
When the lawyer called and said the police cleared us to go to the house and look through Mom’s things, my first thought was, now she can’t ignore me.
How shit is that?
I glance sideways at her in the passenger seat.
She’s staring straight ahead at the house like it might bite her if she blinks.
Her dark hair falls forward as she leans slightly toward the window, eyes narrowed.
My chest tightens.
I missed years of her life.
Years I can never get back.
But damn, my sister can hold a grudge.
You expected hugs?
My wolf rumbles in the back of my mind.
I rub my jaw.
Didn’t expect a cold war.
She’s hurt, he replies simply.
Yeah.
I know.
It was a choice I made, even though it killed me.
Aria finally opens the door and steps out before I can say anything.
Gravel crunches under her boots as she starts toward the front yard.
“So,” I mutter, climbing out after her, “still not talking to me?”
She pauses halfway up the cracked walkway but doesn’t turn around.
“I didn’t realize what I had to say mattered,” she says flatly.
Well.
At least that’s something.
Progress, my wolf chuckles.
I shoot him a mental glare and follow her up the steps.
The front door still hangs slightly crooked on its hinges from when the police forced it open.
The smell hits me immediately when I push it inward.
Dust.
Old wood.
And faint copper.
Blood.
Aria steps inside first, her boots crunching on something.
Glass.
“Wow,” she murmurs, looking around slowly.
“The investigators really rolled out the red carpet.”
The living room looks like a hurricane tore through it.
Couch cushions tossed aside.
A lamp on its side.
Broken glass glittering across the floor from the back windows.
My stomach twists.
This used to be the safest place in the world.
Now it feels like a crime scene because… it was.
Aria walks farther in, careful with her steps.
“They didn’t even pretend to clear some of this out after they got their evidence, huh?” she says.
“No,” I reply quietly.
“Looks like they just collected what they needed and left the rest.”
The broken back windows gape like missing teeth.
Cold air slips through them, stirring the old curtains.
My wolf shifts uneasily.
Something feels wrong.
I inhale slowly, letting my senses stretch.
Old scents.
Police.
Dust.
Nothing fresh.
But the feeling lingers.
Aria drifts toward the kitchen, and I follow.
Every step echoes with ghosts.
The kitchen table is still here.
My throat tightens. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Aria runs her fingers along the scratched surface.
“Mom used to make pancakes here every Sunday,” she says quietly.
“ She would use the cut-up fruit to make the ugliest faces.”
There is almost a smile at the end of the sentence.
“You used to drown them in syrup.”
“You used to steal half of them.”
“Masochist,” I tease.
“Cannibal.” She snorts softly.
It’s the first almost-laugh I’ve heard from her since she came back.
Then her shoulders stiffen.
“And then you left. She stopped making pancakes. Got busy with more work hours and other things.”
The air goes heavy again.
Yeah.
Here it is.
My wolf goes still.
Careful.
I lean against the counter and exhale slowly.
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to.”
Aria turns, eyes flashing.
“I know that now.
But it doesn’t change what happened.
Doesn’t erase the fact that you disappeared, Liam.
One day you were here and the next—nothing.
No call.
No letter.
Nothing.”
“I know.”
“You left me with Mom and all that mess while you ran off without a backward glance.”
“All I did was think about you.”
Her laugh is sharp.
“That’s funny. Because from my side, it looked exactly like you were happy getting rid of us. Now I’m not saying it was all easy, but you can’t tell me that part of you didn’t grab hold of your new life.”
I push off the counter and step closer.
“I fought for you.”
She crosses her arms.
“Really? Because I must’ve missed that part.”
My wolf presses forward, restless.
Tell her.
I meet her gaze.
“My fight had to be different. I know you would have wished that I would come back. That I would have told you, and in your fantasy world, we could have figured it out together.” She rolls her eyes.
“I was turning into a wolf, Aria.”
The words drop between us like stones.
She freezes.
I continue, quieter now.
“Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally. The first time it happened, all I could remember was pain. When I woke up, I was in a forest, covered in blood, with dead rabbits around me. Then everything changed. The fevers came, the noise, the smells, and this voice. A voice that wasn’t mine but was, that had a will that could be contrary to mine. And on the second shift, I almost killed someone.”
I step closer, lowering my voice.
“I would have if Ronan hadn’t found me and stopped me.”
Her eyes widen slightly.
“He explained what I was. Gave me a place in his pack and showed me what I had to do to keep you safe. There are real monsters out there,” I continue.
“Not just men with bad intentions. Things worse than that and the truth is, I could have never been able to save you then. I had to get stronger if I was ever going to be able to protect my family. So I left.”
My wolf growls low in agreement.
I swallow hard.
“I couldn’t risk bringing that back here, leading anything back because of a mistake I might make. Not to you. Not to Mom.”
Aria looks away.
The kitchen goes quiet except for the wind rattling the broken window.
“I thought you didn’t care,” she whispers.
That hits harder than anything else she’s said.
My chest tightens painfully.
“I cared too much.”
She wipes at her cheek quickly, annoyed at herself.
“Well,” she mutters, “that’s great to hear eight years later.”
Fair.
I nod slowly.
“You’re right. I should’ve found a way to tell you.”
My wolf huffs.
You were barely surviving.
Aria sighs and leans against the counter across from me.
“So what now?” she asks.
“You’re a wolf. I’m apparently the sister of a supernatural creature.”
I smirk slightly.
“Technically, I’m a shifter.”
“That makes it so much less weird.”
I chuckle.
She studies me for a moment.
Then her expression softens a little.
“We’re going to need time,” she says finally.
“Yeah.”
“A lot of it.”
“Not like we have anything else to do.”
She gestures vaguely at me.
“It’s not just the whole ‘sprouting hair and howling at the moon’ thing.”
“I do not howl at the moon.”
My wolf perks up.
Yes, we do.
Whose side are you on?
Aria shakes her head.
“You’re basically a stranger now.”
That hurts.
But she’s not wrong.
“I’d like to fix that,” I say quietly.
She nods slowly.
“I want that to.”
It’s not forgiveness.
But it’s a start.
Aria pushes away from the counter and starts wandering back toward the living room.
“Come on,” she says.
“Let’s finish looking around.”
We move through the house slowly.
Every room hits like a memory bomb.
The hallway where we used to race toy cars.
My bedroom door hangs half open.
I don’t go inside.
Some things are better left alone.
Aria pauses near the fireplace in the living room.
“Wait.”
Her voice sharpens.
I turn immediately.
“What?”
She kneels near the hearth.
“There’s something here.”
I step closer.
Inside the fireplace is a messy stack of papers.
Some are burned halfway.
Others were barely touched by flame.
My wolf growls softly.
Why would the humans not notice it?
Aria pulls one free carefully.
“What the hell…”
I crouch beside her.
The papers are official-looking.
Forms.
Lists.
Names.
Lots of names.
“What is this?” she asks.
I pull out my phone and start snapping photos.
“Don’t know yet.”
She flips another page.
“Why would someone try to burn this?”
“Good question.”
More names.
Dozens of them.
My wolf’s instincts prickle.
Something is not adding up.
I type a quick note into my phone and save the photos.
“I’ll send this to Ronan,” I say.
Aria looks up.
I continue typing.
“And Marcus will probably dig into the names.”
“Marcus?”
“Tech genius.”
Aria stares at me.
“You’ve really built an entire wolf support system while I was gone.”
“Pretty much.”
She gestures to the papers.
“Still doesn’t explain why someone tried to burn these.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t know.”
But something about this feels deliberate.
Calculated.
Aria stands and dusts off her hands.
“Maybe whoever attacked Mom didn’t want this found.”
“Maybe.”
My wolf suddenly stiffens.
Wait.
I freeze.
What?
Look at the window.
I slowly turn toward the broken back window.
Glass covers the floor beneath it.
But that’s not what my wolf is focused on.
Lower.
I step closer, crouching near the sill.
At first, I see nothing.
Then I tilt my head slightly.
And there it is.
Three tiny claw marks.
On the underside of the wooden sill.
Almost invisible.
Like someone tried very hard not to be seen.
But wolf claws leave signatures.
My stomach drops.
Aria notices my expression.
“What?”
I point under the sill.
“Look.”
She crouches beside me.
“…those scratches?”
“Claw marks,” I correct.
Her eyes widen.
My wolf bares his teeth inside my mind.
I straighten slowly, staring at the broken window and the dark yard beyond it.
Cold realization spreads through my chest.
A human didn’t break into this house.
Someone like me did.
And that means the worst possibility is suddenly very real.
I look at Aria.
“A wolf was here.”