CHAPTER 61: NEW IDENTITY.

Raquel was running.

She couldn’t see what was chasing, but she had the crushing certainty that if she stopped, it would catch up with her. So she kept running. The hallways stretched on forever, lined by unfamiliar walls covered in portraits of older people she couldn’t recognize.

She finally burst into a classroom full of students. They sat neatly on their desks, but the faces staring back at her weren’t familiar.

"Who are you? Where am I?" She asked shakily.

Their mouths moved, whispering a name, over and over, except it wasn’t hers. It wasn’t Raquel.

She turned to the window. Her reflection blinked back the same hair she knew, the same freckles on her face, but her eyes were strange. Instead of the usual sea-blue, they gleamed gold. Almost unreal.

"Who am I?"

"Oh no—" she exclaimed, as her face took on a new look. Her once rounded jaw became sharper at the edges, giving her a cleft chin. The soft almond shape of her eyes narrowed into slits, hardening into a siren’s gaze.

"WHAT AM I BECOMING?" She screamed out.

Then she could hear a voice, feminine but malicious, layered and echoing. She could recognize it.

"I made you and I brought you here. You are not who you think you are. You will forget your past life and do my bidding."

The sound sliced through her, and just like that, the pieces of her life started slipping away slowly, her mom’s face, her dad’s face, the smell of her old room, the memory of her friends, gone in a snap.

A new name, strange and unfamiliar, burned itself into her mind, Raquel forgotten.

Her hands flew to her head, "ARGHHHH..." She screamed.

Raquel shot up in bed with a jolt so hard it rattled her bed frame. Her chest heaved, air scraping out of her throat in short gasps. She shoved the sheets off, slick with sweat, her hands shaking.

For a second, she didn’t know where she was, her mind was still half in that classroom, half in her bedroom.

"Raquel!"

Liam was already beside her. He jumped from the couch the second she cried out. His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. "Look at me. Look at me, Raquel. It’s just a dream."

Her vision blurred with hot tears. "It... it didn’t feel like a dream."

"I know." He slid onto the bed beside her, pulling her against him until her head rested against his chest. His shirt was warm and smelled faintly of their body wash. Normal. Human. Real. His heartbeat thudded steady under her ear, and she clung to it because it was real.

"Breathe," he said quietly, matching her rhythm with his. "In, out. With me."

Her body slowly obeyed, though the trembling didn’t stop. She swallowed hard. "Something’s wrong with me."

Liam pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes soft and caring. Then, he smoothed her damp hair back from her face and said, "You’re okay. You’re here. It was just a bad dream."

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to sink into his voice and let it be enough. But deep down, she knew this was more than that.

Because Mira’s words still echoed, low and merciless, at the back of her skull.

’I made you and I brought you here. You’re not who you think you are.’

Liam stayed with her, rocking her from side to side until she felt calm again.

—-

Finally, Raquel lay back down, Liam’s one arm draped protectively across her. He kept listening, not for her, she was quiet now, but for himself.

This thing wasn’t just with her.

He’d felt it since last night. He’d noticed the change in his own body too and nothing felt right anymore.

Even his sense of hearing was heightened, but he hadn’t told her, because what was he supposed to say? How could he explain what he didn’t understand? He only knew something was wrong and that was it.

But when she said ’something’s wrong with me...’ he knew then that it wasn’t just her. So it gave him the courage to open up.

"Raquel." His voice came out lower than he expected, then he cleared his throat and tried again.

"Raquel. Listen... you’re not crazy. You’re not the only one."

She turned toward him, her eyes still wet from her nightmare. "What do you mean?"

Liam ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with words.

"Since last night," he said slowly, "I’ve been... off. Like, my skin’s buzzing all the time. And I keep getting these flashes of... anger. Not normal being mad, like I want to tear down something."

His jaw flexed, and he looked away. "And my hearing Raquel, I can hear shit I shouldn’t. It’s bad enough now that I can hear water dripping on the next floor.

At first, I thought it was from here, but as I went round this house, no tap was leaking. That’s when I realised it wasn’t from this apartment. I can hear the dog from the ground floor barking like it’s right here in the room. And I... I feel strange in my own body."

Raquel’s lips parted. "You too..."

"Yeah." He leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. "And it’s not just in my head. I know what my body feels like, but this—this is different. I feel like..." His voice dropped. "I feel like my mind is an intruder in my own body. I feel very strange. I feel like something’s waking up inside me."

The silence stretched between them. Raquel shifted, hugging her knees to her chest, her expression pale.

"I dreamt that I was another person too," she whispered. "I was in this strange school and the students recognised me as this new person. I started losing memories of who I am as... Raquel. And when I woke up, I thought I was losing my mind. But now you’re saying—"

"I don’t know what I’m saying," Liam cut in, sharper than he meant to. He rubbed a hand over his face, dragging down hard like he could scrape away the tension. "But I know it started last night. After she locked herself in that damn room."

Raquel stiffened. Mira.

They didn’t say her name, but the thought pressed down heavy on both of them.

Liam looked at Raquel then. "Something happened. And she’s not telling us. But whatever it was... it’s in us now."

Raquel’s skin prickled, the buzzing worse than before. She didn’t want to admit it, but deep down, she knew he was right.

"I think I heard her voice in my dream too. She said she made me and I’m no longer who I used to be."

"What?"

"Yes," she whispered. "I didn’t see her face...but that voice was unmistakably Mira’s."

___

Mira came back to consciousness. Her entire body felt like it’d been wrung out and left to dry, her joints aching as she tried to stretch. When she touched her face, her fingertips came away with a smear of dried blood from her nose.

She releases a throaty crooked laughter. "The ritual always demands a price."

She staggers to the bowl still sitting on the floor from last night. The mixture had cooled off, but she can still feel the energy humming through it. She didn’t need to test it, she already knew it worked.

Because she can feel them.

Raquel’s heart beating faster than usual. Liam’s confusion at all the changes going on in his body. They’re threads tugging at the edge of her consciousness, her wolves-in-making. A smile spread slowly across her lips.

But beneath her satisfaction lurked unease. The ritual left marks, faint lines of black tracing her veins, her hands shaking when she tried to lift the bowl. She forces herself to still them, muttering, "Control, Mira. Control."

Because if she falters now, if Raquel and Liam catch on before they’re remade, then all of this, the hiding, the lies, the ritual, would have been for nothing.

Mira drags herself to the mirror. For a moment, she doesn’t recognize her own reflection. Dark eye bags glaring beneath her eyes, her skin looking thinner like she had been sick. But she tilts her head as she studies herself, and whispers reverently, "Worth it."

She paces, thinking aloud. About how much more they’ll fight her once they realize something is wrong. But that doesn’t matter. They can hate her, distrust her, even try to run from her. It changes nothing. In the end, they’ll lose their memory. And when they do, she’ll be there to piece them back together to her will.

But she feels a slight tremor run down her spine.

Fear.

If she doesn’t succeed this time, if she can’t forge her pack again, she will be left exposed. Alone. And she cannot—will not—face that.

She steadies herself, wiping the last smear of blood from under her nose. A knock rattles her door, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Raquel’s voice, sharp and shaky on the other side:

"Mira... we need to talk."

Mira freezes, her lips curling into the faintest smile. She straightens, masking every crack in her armor, and calls back sweetly,

"Of course we do."