Izzy had backtracked the way she came after swearing, a few tears and a spit in my direction. I knew it was her coping mechanism. I learnt over the last year that death does remarkable things to people.

Some individuals, when hearing about death just encase themselves in shock. Some burst into tears, some deny it, some collapse. And some, like Izzy, prefer to scream at the top of their lungs and throttle you until you have to knock them across the back of the head to remind them strangling others won't change the past.

She had released her fingers from around my neck at that moment and said Hannah's death wasn't worth it. She'd hissed I should've replaced her in death and that I belong in Hell. I'd let her yell at me. She spat, screeched, trembled.

I had stood there.

After several minutes she had calmed down, running a hand through her hair. She'd then looked at the speared stick I had given her and brought it down across my face.

I had let her.

Even when it splintered into my lower cheek. I still let her.

Izzy said, after heavy breaths, that she needed time to think. And then she had disappeared.

Now I was trailing back home, letting the blood gush from my wound. It was a guilty memoir of the pain I gave people. I let Izzy do this to me because I deserved it. Fin, Hannah, Lola, Colton, my father. Dead. The common dominator was me.

I knew I ought to pick out the splinters and disinfect the wound, but I was too exhausted.

It was the type of exhaustion that couldn't be slept away. It was like a shadow, constantly attached to me until all I could hope for was surviving each day. It was painfully agonising.

A part of me wondered if this was how my mother felt every day. Did she wake up with a pounding, inescapable wrath of misery? Did she feel like I am, with no purpose, no motivation to keep going; no reason for living.

I pictured Fins bones, encased in the wooden coffin I had seen lowered into the earth. Those bones foretold the truth others were too frightened to hear. Life is fragile, and when placed in the wrong hands, it can easily be torn into shreds.

And then I remembered Izzy's face. Her smug smile when she stood in the court room, her eyes trained on mine. I thought she had been oblivious to us, to me. I couldn't be more wrong.

She knew, as soon as Isaac threw the knife into the wall clock, she knew of the supernatural. She had sat, her face blank as a painted over canvas as she mouthed the words 'yes' to condemn me to prison for murder, knowing I was innocent. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it earlier. Her lifeless eyes, her sunken gaze. The hair pins.

I was sure, at that moment, she knew of the Parade as well. Chelsea was corrupted from her father; Izzy was corrupted from the truth. What had Miss Anderson told her when she gave them the silver pins? Had she said I was a killer and had Izzy played along with it? Did Izzy stare at Miss Anderson and see The Huntress beneath her grey eyes?

Or did she simply not care for my existence. Either way, unknowing of the truth or not, Izzy would have driven the pin through my flesh when given the slightest trace of the command.

Anyone would judge her for it. I was too ridden with reality, too bloated of it to know I would do the same.

Who would blame her? I had killed her best friend, the Parade took away her friend's father, and with it, scraped what little insanity Chelsea had left. She saw with her very eyes as Hannah grew into something she would fear. At least I could be someone to blame.

Her, the girl with those haunted brown eyes. The girl with invisible blood on her hands. The girl who would ruin us all.

That's what I was wasn't it? Isaac threw Francesca's bloodied knife for me. Aleena took that bullet for me. My mother was gone because of me.

Isaac was broken because of me.

I stared down at the skin hanging by threads on my knuckles. I was hurting people before I even turned into the lethal beast I was. How long would it take before everyone I loved was killed for my sake?

I wondered what Isaac would say if he heard my thoughts. You can't attack yourself when things don't go your way. You've done the damage, accept it, he would say. If I told him my thoughts now, he would just nod and ponder in silence.

I allowed a slice of self-loathing to touch the crevices of my heart. Turning my misery into guilt wasn't a trait to be proud of. I could keep feeling sorry for myself or pick my dignity up with a tip of a knife and claim it back.

If I hadn't been so caught up in my thoughts, I would've seen the figure on the veranda immediately. But as I exited the tree line to walk up the back stairs, I didn't notice its low breaths.

It wasn't until my shoe lost its grip when I finally glanced down. Blood coated the wooden floor boards, dripping down between the cracks. I froze, phone in hand as I scanned the blood to wear it cascaded from. My eyes narrowed on a large figure, slightly smaller than a horse. It was lying on its side, its brown fur dowsed with a paint of red.

My heart skipped a beat in recognition. A wolf.

It seemed, at that immediate instant, that my adrenaline kicked in. Without thinking, I neared the beast. Its eyes were scrunched shut in pain, its ears flattened to its head. I could hear each of its lungs wheeze for breath. I could tell, just by the sound of its breaths, that its lungs had been punctured.

My first thought was a bullet, but as my eyes travelled down its body, I could see great, winding claw marks embed deep in its chest, snagging its ribs.

The wolf was unconscious. I was sure calling for Isaac would be beneficial, but my logic didn't mix well with the adrenaline in my system. I dropped my phone, and replaced my hands with the paws of the wolf. It made a pained noise, but its eyes didn't open.

With slippery footing, I dragged it into the lounge room, ignoring its blood flow into the carpet. A thought struck me. Mum is going to kill me. But then I remembered my mother wouldn't care – she wasn't here to see the damage.

Closing the sliding glass door with a bang, I turned the lights on in the house to find the wolf splayed back on its side. Its breaths were shallower, its body shivering from blood loss.

A shadow appeared around the corner before tricoloured eyes landed on mine. There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes, the moment before the storm hit. "What happened to your face?" Before I replied, his eyes travelled to the wolf on the floor.

A muscle in his jaw tightened, and a vein thrummed along his neck. "What the hell is that?" he said plainly.

I knew it was rhetorical question. A question that he already knew the answer to it. I didn't need to say 'wolf,' Isaac had gathered that by its immense size.

Another pause and then, "How did you get it in here?"

I reverted my gaze back to the dying creature. "I dragged it."

There was a noise of approval. Isaac made no move to attend to the wolf, instead he turned back to regard me with an arched eyebrow. "What are you going to do with it?"

The wolf let out an agonised noise before I replied. "It's dying," I said, ignoring his question with another statement.

Isaac pursed his lips. "I know."

My eyes flickered from him to the wolf and then back again. "Do you know how to help it?"

Isaac considered this for a moment. "You're the one that dragged it in here. With that rash decision, it's your burden to have, not mine."

I blinked at him, a mixture of rage and shock flooding through me. "It's going to die," I elaborated. To prove my point, I gestured down at his shoes that were now covered in the wolf's blood.

Isaac curled his lips in annoyance and took one step backwards. His calculating gaze swept back to the wolf, taking in its collapsed form. In that split second, I knew he was weighing up its appearance. Its closeness to death, how dangerous it was, how deadly the wound was. He faced me again, his expression placidly bored. "Put it in the bathtub."

"Excuse me?"

"The tub," Isaac repeated. "The Paidi ceremony involves us being slaughtered in a moon rinsed lake. Water brings us strength." He inclined his head to look out the window. "With the moon tonight and the water, it will live."
I didn't ask him to explain to me how it worked in detail, I knew we didn't have a lot of time left. Instead I neared the wolf, feeling my eyes watering from the smell of it. I hadn't noticed it before when adrenaline sang in my mind, but now I could. It was like it was rotting, like its insides were burnt and shrivelled. I looked back up to Isaac. "Can you please help me carry it?"

"No."

"Isaac—"

"Fine." He rose from the arm rest of the couch and with a grunt of effort, wrapped his slender arms around the torso of the wolf to lift it up. It didn't even make a noise. This, I knew, was a bad sign.

Trailing blood through the halls, Isaac kicked open the door with his leg and dumped the mass of fur in the tub. With long fingers, he turned on the tap. It rinsed over the wolfs head, matting its fur so it clung to its skinny frame.

We stared in silence, both noticing the way the water turned red as it whirled down the drain.

"Put the plug in," Isaac said.

I obeyed, reaching over to plug in the stoper in the drain. As soon as I lowered my fingers, icy coldness touched my skin. After plugging the tub, I reefed my hand away to interrogate Isaac. "The water is freezing."

He nodded soberly, his gaze thoughtful. "When put in a bucket of freezing water, it forces the heart to slow its beats. It's like going into a trance. The entire body goes into the lowest gear, and this makes it easier for it to recover." His tricoloured eyes captured mine. A smear of blood was drying across his cheek. "It gives us, as Night Children, time to heal. For humans, it's a slower way of dying."

I nodded slowly, tearing my gaze away to examine the wolf. The tub was half full by now, coating the wolf in crimson water. Its hind legs were draped out of the bath, too large and inhumane to fit. It was a dreadful sight, one that Aleena would make an immensely appropriate comment on.

"Who is it?" I asked.

Isaac's lips tightened and his pupils darkened. In the moonlight shining through the small, rectangular window in the corner of the bathroom, Isaac looked like he always had. Regal, tall, proud and dangerous. It was hard to pin point exactly what animal he was. He didn't look like a wolf. His features were too sharp, too confident. His fingers were too slim, his figure too willowy.

To me, he was feline.

Isaac didn't look at me when he replied. "I don't recognise it."

The wolf had an unusual pattern on its forehead. I hadn't noticed it until the water had rinsed away some of the blood. The majority of its coat was light brown, but in one section it was a darker brown, almost red. I found it vastly beautiful but unnerving.

"Do you think it came from another pack?" It was a question I had constantly wondered. I only knew the wolves from Brookefield, the children my father Turned. A part of me didn't believe there would be more. However, I was struck with the realisation that Isaac wasn't a Brookefield bred wolf, nor was Aaron. Both of them were foreigners, specimens of curiosity in this small town.

"Most probably," answered Isaac. He leaned forwards to turn off the tap once the water neared the top. As he leant across the wolf, his frown deepened. "It's a male."

He said it more like a hiss than anything else. I glanced at him in surprise. "How do you know?"

I had learnt from my research how to identify the gender of a wolf through the size of its paws, the roundness of its ears and the structure of its face. But all I could see from the wolf in front of me was a great lump of soggy fur.

Isaac stepped back towards me, a crease settling in between his eyebrows. He put his weight against the sink, bracing himself with both his arms. "Its skull. Males wolves have larger and thicker skulls than females." He tilted his head towards me, his lips inclining ever so slightly. "Cleary it's because men have larger brains."

Despite the situation, my lips quirked into a half smile. Isaac's eyes drifted to it, settling down on my mouth. A look crossed his face, one that was instantly wiped away with considerable effort.

Clearing his throat, Isaac rose from the sink. "I'm going to bed. It's late."

I didn't know the time, but judging by the height of the moon, it was probably around one in the morning. "What do I do with it?"

He paused at the doorway, drumming his fingers on the frame. He peered back around the corner. "Leave it. If we got to it in time, it'll regain consciousness by morning."

I nodded. He made another move to leave but he eruptedly paused, his gaze trained on my knuckles. His lips tightened. "What did you do to your hand?"

I paused before replying. "I got carried away."

Isaac hesitated, indecision captured across his face. Normally, he would've sat down beside me and asked me what truly happened. Now he only nodded with a firm frown to then disappear around the corner without another word.

Dragging my knees to my stomach, I slid to the tiled floor. I couldn't understand him. It was like struggling parts of him battled for the front line. In an instant he would be dismissive, next sarcastic, and then blank.

There was no explanation. He was a broken mirror trying desperately to recorrect his reflection.

I studied my knuckles, at the bone jutting out. Dried blood caked under my fingernails. I didn't dare look in the mirror. I could already feel how swollen the side of my face was.

It seemed I was a punching bag. Reality uppercutted me in the gut, knocking out my teeth so I could no longer smile. Traces of its unfairness lay in the blood smeared across my body, seeping into my pores. I wondered how long it would take for me to be satisfied no more blood clotted in my skin.

Several hours most probably.

I rose my head to stare at the wolf. If I knew any better, I would've suspected it was dead. I tried to match a face to its soaked head. Its nose was ridged and sharp, its mouth curved into a grimace. The bones in its face were well structured and pointed. This wolf would have a sharpened face in human form. All pointy angles and jagged lines.

My pulse jumped. How sinister I felt wondering if the wolf in front of me would have human eyes.

I blinked and put my head in my hands. Only tomorrow would hold the truth.