Usually, waking up feels like re-entering the atmosphere without a heat shield.

  Dragging myself out of bed involves a deep, existential sigh about the state of the world. My mornings are usually a checklist of aches: the bruise on my hip from a failed basket toss, the cramp in my calf from running rooftops, or the lingering, phantom itch of fur trying to push through my skin.

  Today, I woke up buzzing.

  My ceiling—usually a boring expanse of white plaster that mocked my life choices—looked bright. The smog filtering through the window wasn’t gray; it was bruise-colored, but somehow it looked bright. My blood wasn’t sluggish; it was carbonated.

  I stretched, my joints popping in a satisfying rhythm. No pain. Just energy.

  I touched my cheek. The skin felt normal, but the greenhouse memory branded there. The cold press of Danny’s hands. The smell of rain and mint. The way he had looked at the wolf—seven feet of teeth and rage—and called it beautiful.

  I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow to stifle a scream that was equal parts “Disney Princess” and “Teenage Panic.”

  He kissed my lips. My human lips.

  A lunatic. Or a hero.

  Or a boy who was just as broken as I was.

  My ear buzzed. A bone-conduction vibration that rattled my teeth.

  “Dopamine levels critical,” Handy’s voice droned, devoid of warmth. “Heart rate one hundred and ten beats per minute. Assessment: High probability of chemical impairment because of subject interaction.”

  I groaned, rolling onto my back. “You’re a buzzkill, Handy. Has anyone ever told you that? You are the grim reaper of good vibes.”

  “I am a survival algorithm, Nikki. Euphoria suppresses threat detection. Data preserves life.”

  My wrist unit flared to life, projecting a holographic display into the air above my bed. Usually, Handy greeted me with the weather (acid rain, likely) or a summary of my caloric needs (steak, raw).

  Today, he greeted me with a graph that looked like a seismograph during an earthquake.

  Jagged red lines spiked and dipped in chaotic intervals. Warning symbols pulsed in the corners.

  “What is that?” I asked, sitting up. The cheerful buzz in my chest cooled slightly.

  “That,” Handy said, his synthesized voice dropping an octave, “is the electromagnetic disturbance log from last night. Specifically, the timeframe of your proximity to Subject Troy.”

  I squinted at the data. “It’s just interference. Danny has a scrambler. We know this.”

  “This isn’t just a scrambler, Nikki. A scrambler creates white noise. Uniform. Predictable. This?” He highlighted a massive red spike that went off the chart. “This is a homing signal. High-band frequency. Someone is pinging us.”

  “A ping for what?”

  “Unknown. But look at the timestamp.”

  I looked. The spike coincided exactly with the moment Danny had taken off his gloves. With the moment we touched.

  “Every time you engage physically with Subject Troy, the signal amplifies,” Handy explained. “It’s like two magnets getting too close. The interference isn’t just shielding him anymore. It’s a target lock.”

  I wrapped my arms around my knees. “So? He’s powerful. He’s a Dhampir. His biology is weird. My biology is weird. Maybe we just… spark.”

  “Sparks start fires, Nikki. And fires burn things down.” The hologram shifted, showing a probability model. A pie chart that was mostly red. “Attraction is a glitch in your survival protocol. It introduces variables I cannot calculate. It blinds you.”

  “It’s not blinding me,” I argued, sliding out of bed. My bare feet hit the plush carpet. “It’s grounding me. Last night, for the first time in months, the wolf was quiet. I didn’t need blockers. I didn’t need pain meds. I just needed him.”

  “Dependency,” Handy countered immediately. “You are replacing chemical suppression with emotional suppression. It is unstable. If he leaves—or if he turns out to be a Pandora plant, which is statistically probable given his lineage—the crash will be catastrophic.”

  I walked to my dresser, pulling out a fresh uniform. The purple and white fabric shimmered in the morning light.

  “He’s not a plant,” I said, yanking my t-shirt off. “He hates his father. He’s hiding, Handy. Just like us.”

  “Or that’s what he wants you to think. The best deep-cover agents don’t know they’re agents until the activation phrase is spoken.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “I’m alive. You’re alive. Paranoia works.”

  I pulled on the cheer skirt, zipping it up with a sharp zip. I grabbed my shell top.

  “Look at the data, Nikki,” Handy stated flatly. The hologram followed me across the room, hovering persistently in my eyeline. “The spikes are dangerous. If Pandora has a receiver tuned to this frequency, you aren’t just holding hands. You’re sending up a flare.”

  I stopped. I looked at the red lines. The jagged warning.

  It looked like danger. It looked like what got people killed.

  But then I remembered the hum. The vibration in my skull that had smoothed out the edges of the seizure. I remembered the way he had looked at me when I was a monster.

  He wasn’t the danger. The world was the danger. He was the shield.

  “It’s interference,” I said firmly. “Pandora is ramping up their scans. That’s why it’s spiking. It’s them, not him.”

  “That logic is flawed. The signal origin is local. It is—”

  “Stop.”

  “Nikki, I cannot—”

  I reached down to my wrist. My finger hovered over the hard-reset switch on the side of the unit.

  “I’m happy, Handy,” I whispered. “For one morning, I’m just a girl who kissed a boy. Can’t you let me have that?”

  Click.

  I slid the switch.

  The hologram vanished. The hum in my ear cut out, replaced by the silence of the room.

  My wrist felt lighter. Or maybe heavier. It was hard to tell.

  “Quiet,” I breathed.

  I finished getting dressed in silence. I brushed my hair, ignoring the way my hands shook just a little. I put on my sneakers.

  I didn’t need data. I didn’t need probability charts.

  I needed to see him.

  I grabbed my bag, checked for the taser out of habit, and headed for the door.

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  Just interference, I told myself as I walked out of the penthouse. Just noise.

  But the silence in my ear felt loud.

  *****

  The tram ride was a blur of neon advertisements and the smell of recycled coffee. Usually, I spent the commute analyzing threat vectors—watching the doors, profiling the passengers, checking for Pandora tails.

  Today, I watched the city.

  Chicago rolled by outside the window, a sprawling mess of chrome and decay. I ignored the surveillance drone buzzing near a rooftop garden. I ignored the scuffle breaking out on the corner of 5th and Main. Through the lens of last night, the crumbling buildings weren’t just hazards; they were history.

  Danny was out there somewhere. Maybe he was on his bike, weaving through traffic. Maybe he was already at school, waiting by my locker.

  The thought made my stomach flip like a botched basket toss.

  I got off at the school station, merging with the river of students. The morning air was humid, sticking to my skin, but I didn’t mind. I felt bulletproof.

  I walked through the main gates of my high school, my head high.

  There.

  I spotted him instantly.

  He was standing near the trophy case, right where we had our first real stare down. He was wearing the gray hoodie again, sleeves pushed up, revealing the pale skin of his forearms. He was talking to Perkins, of all people.

  Perkins was gesturing wildly, probably explaining the polymer tensile strength of his new 3D printer filament. Danny was nodding, his expression serious.

  My heart leaped.

  The wolf woke up. It didn’t growl. It didn’t pace. It pressed against the front of my mind, ears forward. Pack.

  I adjusted my bag strap, fixed a smile on my face—a real one, not the plastic cheer grin—and started toward him.

  “Hey!” I called out, weaving through a group of freshmen.

  Danny stiffened.

  He didn’t turn around immediately. He paused, mid-nod to Perkins. His shoulders rose, tension locking his frame tight.

  He turned slowly.

  I slowed down. The smile faltered on my lips.

  He looked… wrong.

  His face drawn sickly pale. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in a week. But it was the eyes themselves that stopped me cold.

  Usually, they were dark, intense pools that sucked me in.

  Now, they were walls.

  He looked at me, and there was no recognition. No warmth. No spark of the connection we had shared in the greenhouse.

  He looked at me like I was a stranger. Or worse. Like I was a threat.

  “Danny?” I stopped a few feet away. The magnetic pull was there—it was always there—but it felt jagged today. Like dragging bare skin over broken glass.

  He flinched.

  Actually flinched. He took a half-step back, putting Perkins between us.

  “Nikki. Stop,” he said. His voice was flat. Dead.

  “You okay?” I asked, stepping around Perkins, who looked like he was witnessing a car crash. “You look like you saw a ghost. Or a vampire.”

  I tried to make it a joke. A callback to our shared secret.

  Danny didn’t smile. He stared at a point somewhere over my left shoulder.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Did you get home okay? The bike didn’t…” I trailed off. Don’t talk about the bike in front of civilians. “Did you finish the reading?”

  “Don’t,” he said. He shifted his weight, looking at the exit.

  “Oh. Okay. I can come with. I have some data on the structural integrity of—”

  “No.”

  The word was sharp. Too loud.

  Perkins squeaked and scurried away, sensing the blast zone.

  Danny looked at me then. Really looked at me. His gaze flicked to my neck, then away, as if looking at me physically hurt him.

  “I have to do this alone,” he said.

  “Do what alone?” I stepped closer, reaching out to touch his arm.

  He jerked back.

  It wasn’t the fluid evasion of a martial artist. It was a recoil. Like I was diseased.

  “Give me space,” he whispered.

  My hand hovered in the air. Cold. Empty.

  “Danny?”

  He turned and walked away. He didn’t look back. He moved fast, disappearing into the crowd of students, leaving me standing alone by the trophy case.

  The buzz in my chest died. The carbonation in my blood went flat.

  I stood there, staring at the space he had occupied. The smell of mint lingered for a second, then the scent of floor wax and teenage sweat swallowed it.

  The heat drained from my face. In the back of my mind, the wolf snapped its teeth at the empty air, confused and angry.

  I lowered my hand.

  “Handy?” I whispered, tapping my wrist.

  Silence. I had turned him off.

  I was alone.

  ****

  First period was a blur. I sat in my seat, staring at the whiteboard, but the equations made little sense. They were just squiggles.

  Give me space.

  Why?

  My mind raced, a hamster wheel of anxiety spinning out of control.

  Last night. The greenhouse.

  I had shifted. I had turned into a furry monster in front of him.

  Yeah, he had kissed me. He had acted cool. He had said I was beautiful.

  But maybe that was just adrenaline. Maybe that was shock.

  Maybe, once he got home and the moon madness faded, he realized what I really was.

  A predator.

  I looked at my hands, resting on the desk. They looked normal. Manicured nails. Smooth skin.

  But I could feel the claws underneath.

  Maybe he smelled it on me. The animal musk. The hunger. Maybe, now that the romantic lighting of the greenhouse was gone, I just smelled like wet dog and violence.

  He flinched, the wolf whimpered. He was afraid.

  My stomach twisted.

  Dhampirs could be sensitive. Maybe his instincts were kicking in. Maybe his biology was screaming at him I was wrong. Unnatural.

  Or maybe, a darker voice whispered, he realized you’re not worth the trouble.

  I looked at the empty seat two rows over. Danny wasn’t in this class, but his absence felt heavy in the room.

  I felt sick. Physically sick.

  I needed Handy. I needed data. I needed someone to tell me I was overreacting.

  I fumbled with my wrist unit under the desk, sliding the switch back on.

  Buzz.

  “System reboot complete,” the synthesized voice whispered. “Cortisol levels critical. Hypothesis: Reality has reasserted itself.”

  “Shut up, Handy,” I subvocalized. “He… he blew me off.”

  “Surprise level: Zero. I warned you. Hormonal variables are volatile.”

  “He flinched, Handy. Like I was… toxic.”

  “Scanning recent biometrics,” Handy hummed. “Your cortisol is spiking. Your heart rate is erratic. You are spiraling.”

  “Why did he do it? Was it the wolf? Did I scare him somehow?”

  “Unknown. Without access to Subject Troy’s data, I can only speculate. But…” Handy paused. “I am detecting a resurgence of the targeting signal. The interference pattern. It’s stronger today.”

  “So?”

  “So, maybe it’s not about you, Nikki. Maybe the signal is getting too loud for him to handle. Or maybe…”

  Maybe what?

  “Maybe he received new orders.”

  I froze.

  Orders?

  His father?

  Danny had said his father watched him. Tracked him.

  What if his father saw us? What if the “interference” last night—the spark, the static—alerted him?

  Could his father be worse than Pandora?

  My blood ran cold.

  Maybe he wasn’t pulling away because he was disgusted. Maybe he was pulling away because he was protecting his secrets. Or protecting me.

  “Which is it?” I asked Handy. “Is he protecting me or trying to hurt me?”

  “Data insufficient. But his behavior—avoidance, lack of eye contact, physical recoil—aligns with someone under extreme duress. Or someone who is guilty.”

  Guilty.

  I pictured his face in the hallway. The dark circles. The way he looked at the floor.

  He looked guilty.

  My chest ached.

  It didn’t matter why he was doing it. The result was the same. I was alone again. The anchor line had snapped.

  The bell rang, jarring me from my thoughts.

  I gathered my books, moving on autopilot.

  I had to get through the day. I had to smile. I had to be Nikki Nova, the popular cheerleader.

  But as I walked into the crowded hallway, scanning the sea of faces for a boy in a gray hoodie, I knew the truth.

  The wolf was awake. And it was hurt.

  And a hurt wolf is a dangerous thing.

  I passed him again between third and fourth period. He was at his locker, staring into the dark metal depths.

  I didn’t stop this time. I didn’t wave.

  I put my chin up, locked my jaw, and walked right past him.

  You want space? Fine. I’ll give you a vacuum.

  I felt his eyes on me as I passed. I felt the tug of the magnet. But I didn’t turn.

  Because if I turned and saw that look of fear in his eyes again, I think I would have shattered right there on the linoleum.

  And weapons don’t break. They detonate.

  So I walked away, leaving the warmth of the greenhouse behind. I tightened my ponytail, checked my smile in the reflection of a locker, and let the wolf sharpen its claws on my ribs. If I couldn’t be happy, I’d settle for being dangerous.