CHAPTER 10 — AFTER SUMMER
I don’t remember how the fight ends.
Later, Patrick tells me that memory fractures when bodies change—that the mind protects itself by letting go of the worst parts. All I know is that one moment there are teeth and blood and the sound of Shane screaming like he’s being torn apart from the inside, and the next there is silence.
The woods go still.
Too still.
The moon drifts behind a cloud like it’s embarrassed by what it watched.
I come back to myself on my knees, hands pressed into warm dirt, breath tearing in and out of my chest like I’ve run miles without stopping. My body aches in a way that feels deep and permanent, like it’s learned something it can’t unlearn.
Patrick is in front of me immediately.
“Walter,” he says, voice breaking. “Walter—look at me.”
I lift my head.
His face is bruised. Blood streaks his cheek, his jaw, his hands. One eye is already swelling shut. But he’s upright. He’s breathing.
He’s alive.
Relief hits me so hard I nearly collapse.
“Patrick,” I whisper.
He pulls me into his arms like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t. His grip is fierce, desperate, real. I cling to him just as tightly, burying my face in his shoulder, breathing him in until my heart slows.
“What happened to Shane?” I ask quietly.
Patrick stiffens.
“He ran,” he says after a moment. “When he realized what he was becoming… he ran into the swamp.”
“Is he—”
“I don’t know,” Patrick admits. “But he’s gone.”
I close my eyes.
I don’t know whether to feel relieved or guilty or both.
The camp shuts down the next morning.
No explanations. No apologies. Parents arrive early, frantic and furious. Camp Magnolia empties out like a dream dissolving in daylight. By noon, the cabins are bare, the docks silent, the woods pretending nothing ever happened.
Patrick and I leave together.
No one stops us.
We don’t go home.
We take a bus into New Orleans, the city unfolding around us like something alive and ancient and forgiving. The air is still thick with summer heat, the streets humming with music and movement and life continuing stubbornly onward.
We walk without talking at first.
Past wrought-iron balconies dripping with flowers. Past street performers and tourists and people who don’t know anything about wolves or blood or how close the world came to breaking us apart.
Finally, Patrick takes my hand.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I consider the question honestly.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’m here.”
He nods. “Me too.”
We end up at the river.
The Mississippi stretches out wide and brown and powerful, moving slow and unstoppable, carrying things away and bringing others back. The sun is setting, bleeding orange and pink across the water. Boats drift past like ghosts.
We sit on the stone steps, shoulders touching.
“Do you feel it?” Patrick asks quietly.
“The moon?” I ask.
“Yourself.”
I close my eyes.
There’s something inside me now. Not wild—not exactly. Not wolf. Not human either. Something balanced on a knife’s edge. Waiting.
“I feel… changed,” I say. “But I’m still me.”
Patrick exhales shakily, like he’s been holding his breath for days. “That’s all I hoped for.”
I slip my fingers into his, staring out at the river.
“What happens after summer?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a long time.
“My family will keep hunting me,” he says finally. “Your life won’t be normal again. Mine never was.”
I turn to him. “I don’t want normal.”
He looks at me like that’s both the most beautiful and terrifying thing I could’ve said.
“You don’t know what you’re choosing,” he says.
“I know who,” I say. “And that’s enough.”
He swallows hard.
I pull the ring from my pocket—the cheap metal band, scratched and imperfect and real. The one that survived blood and dirt and teeth and fear.
“I don’t know what I am,” I say. “I don’t know what I’ll become. I don’t know how long this lasts.”
Patrick’s eyes shine.
“But I know this,” I continue. “If I’m changing… I want to change with you.”
I slide the ring back onto his finger.
His hands shake as he does the same for me.
The city hums around us. Music drifts in from somewhere unseen. The river keeps moving.
Patrick cups my face in his hands like it’s something precious and fragile.
“Whatever you become,” he says softly, “you’re mine.”
I lean in and kiss him.
This time it’s not careful.
It’s deep and aching and full of promise and fear and want. The kind of kiss you give when you know the world doesn’t owe you a happy ending—but you’re choosing love anyway.
When we pull apart, breathless, Patrick rests his forehead against mine.
“We don’t know what comes next,” he says.
I smile, tired and real and alive.
“No,” I say. “But summer didn’t get to decide everything.”
The sun slips below the river.
Night rises.
And whatever we are now—we face it together
