Part 2
Talia had imagined this night many times. In some versions, she yelled. In others, she walked out while they begged her to stay. Once or twice, in the ugliest versions, she imagined Rook baring his teeth while everyone finally felt the fear she had carried as a child.
None of those imagined scenes had prepared her for the real thing: adults standing in party clothes, ashamed and defensive and frightened, each one waiting to see what shape the past would take.
Marisol Vega approached first.
She had cut her hair short, and the silver hoops in her ears trembled when she stopped in front of Talia. In school, Marisol had been the nearest thing to a friend after Bree turned. She had lent Talia paperbacks and sat with her twice at lunch. Then Jenna Pike told her she would be next, and Marisol began sitting somewhere else.
“I thought about writing you,” Marisol said.
Talia waited.
“I wrote emails and deleted them. I looked for you online and got scared when I found your research. You seemed…” She shook her head. “You seemed like you’d escaped us. I didn’t want to drag you back.”
“That sounds kinder than saying you were afraid.”
Marisol took the hit. “I was afraid.”
Rook sniffed her sleeve. Marisol froze, then let him.
“I should’ve stood with you,” she said. “I knew what they were doing was wrong. I knew it then. I just kept thinking if I stayed small enough, they wouldn’t turn on me.”
Talia looked at her for a long moment. She saw the girl in the library aisle, pretending not to hear Jenna’s voice. She saw the woman in front of her, carrying the same shame in different clothes.
“Fear explains it,” Talia said. “It doesn’t erase it.”
Marisol nodded. Her eyes shone, but she didn’t ask for more.
That, at least, Talia could respect.
Across the room, Eli had set his father’s letter on the podium and was gripping both sides of it as if it might keep him upright. People approached him in cautious little clusters. Some muttered apologies. Some patted his shoulder, more concerned with his grief than Talia’s. A few left without saying goodbye.
Bree stayed by the punch bowl, pouring wine into her cup though Caleb quietly suggested water.
Mr. Parrish found Talia near the photo display.
The board was covered with pictures from their teenage years. Pep rallies. Science fairs. Homecoming week. Eli in a football uniform, grinning with one arm around two teammates. Bree and three girls in matching blue face paint. Marisol looking uncomfortable in the edge of a group shot.
Talia was in one photo.
She stood behind the biology club table, holding a poster about desert scavengers. Someone had drawn antlers on her head in blue marker. The picture had been printed that way and pinned up as though humiliation were nostalgia.
Mr. Parrish saw where she was looking. His hand rose as if he might remove it, then stopped.
“I kept a copy of your raven study,” he said.
Talia turned to him.
“The one you did sophomore year. Before you left. It was better than most college work I’d seen. I sent it to a friend at Mesa State.” He paused. “I never told you.”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“I thought if I called too much attention to you, it would make things worse.”
“It got worse anyway.”
“Yes.”
His voice had no defense in it. That was the only reason she kept listening.
“I compared Bree to you,” he said quietly. “More than once. I thought I was encouraging her. I thought if I praised what was special in you, she might become curious instead of competitive. But she heard that I loved my student more than my daughter.”
Talia looked toward Bree. Her old friend was laughing too loudly at something no one had said.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Talia said.
“No,” Mr. Parrish answered. “It was mine. And hers. But not yours.”
The words slipped under her guard because she had needed them once. Years too late, but still shaped like truth.
Before she could answer, a young man near the door cleared his throat.
“I know this is probably a terrible time,” he said, “but are you Talia Yazzie? The wolf researcher?”
He was sixteen or seventeen, long-limbed and nervous, with Eli’s eyes but none of Eli’s old swagger. Talia recognized him after a second: Noah Mercer, Eli’s younger brother, who had been a little kid when she left town.
Eli looked mortified. “Noah, not now.”
“No, I’m serious.” Noah stepped closer, then stopped when Rook turned his head. “I read your article in Wild Earth Review. The one about vocal patterns and pack stress. I used it for my senior project.”
Talia blinked.
In this room, where every face carried an old wound, Noah’s admiration felt almost indecent. Clean. Untangled.
“You read that?”
“Twice. I didn’t understand all the graphs, but the part about separated juveniles calling differently after trauma was—” He stopped, embarrassed. “Sorry. I sound weird.”
A small, unexpected smile touched Talia’s mouth.
“No,” she said. “You sound interested.”
Noah looked at Rook the way children look at lightning bugs in a jar, all reverence and fear.
“Could I meet him?”
Half the room stiffened.
Talia studied the boy. Rook did too. The wolf’s ears moved forward, then relaxed.
“Palm up,” Talia said. “Don’t reach over his head. Let him decide.”
Noah obeyed exactly. He held out his hand and waited while Rook sniffed his fingers, his sleeve, the air around his knees. After a long moment, the wolf nudged his palm.
Noah’s face opened with wonder.
“Oh, man,” he whispered.
“You can touch his shoulder,” Talia said. “Slowly.”
Noah laid two fingers against Rook’s fur as though touching something sacred. Rook allowed it, then gave one dignified wag of his tail.
“He likes you,” Talia said.
Noah grinned. “Really?”
“He doesn’t waste politeness.”
The remark moved through the room without needing explanation. A few people looked away.
Bree saw the smile. Something in her expression tightened.
“You always did that,” she said, louder than necessary.
Caleb closed his eyes briefly. “Bree, please.”
“No, I want to know.” Bree stepped away from the table, wine sloshing in her cup. “How do you do it? Walk into a room with an animal that could tear someone open, and suddenly everyone thinks you’re mystical and brave?”
Talia did not answer at first.
Bree’s voice rose. “You were like that as a kid too. Everybody acted like your little animal obsession was some holy gift. You weren’t gifted. You were odd. There’s a difference.”
Mr. Parrish turned sharply. “That’s enough.”
Bree pointed at him, laughing once. “Of course you’d say that. You always did.”
The room seemed to pull back from her, leaving her exposed.
“You think I don’t remember?” Bree demanded. “Every dinner. Every ride home. ‘Talia noticed this. Talia observed that. Talia has such a mind for the natural world.’ I was your daughter, Dad. Me. But you lit up for her.”
Mr. Parrish looked as if she had struck him.
Talia felt a memory rise: Bree at thirteen, sitting on the curb after school, digging her nails into her palms while her father praised Talia’s field notebook. Talia had been too young, too hungry for encouragement, to see the wound opening beside her.
“That still didn’t give you the right,” Talia said.
Bree’s eyes snapped to her. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t know what you know. I only know what you did.”
Bree swayed a little. Caleb reached for her, and this time she let his hand touch her elbow before pulling away.
“You had no idea what it was like,” Bree said. “Living in my house. Being measured against someone who didn’t even belong there.”
The last words came out ugly.
Rook stood.
Talia’s hand dropped, palm open. He stopped beside her, muscles held tight beneath fur.
“Careful,” she said.
Bree laughed again, but it broke halfway through.
“Oh, look. Now I’m supposed to be scared.”
“No,” Talia said. “You’re supposed to be honest.”
That took some air out of her.
Talia walked closer, stopping several feet away. “You had a home. A father who came to your games. A bedroom that was yours. Food in the refrigerator. New shoes in August. You had a life full of things I used to think only happened to other people.”
Bree’s mouth trembled, then hardened.
“And you used all that safety,” Talia continued, “to make sure I had none.”
No one interrupted.
Talia did not raise her voice. She had learned in the forest that volume frightened wounded animals. It was stillness that made them listen.
“After I left, I lived with relatives who didn’t want me. I kept my clothes in trash bags because suitcases meant permanence and nobody wanted to offer that. When my mother died, I didn’t come home. I ran into the woods with forty dollars and a backpack because trees felt safer than people.”
Bree stared at her.
“I slept under a tarp through snow. I ate stolen crackers and berries I prayed I’d identified correctly. My grandmother found me and brought food because she knew dragging me back here would’ve killed something in me she couldn’t revive.”
Mr. Parrish made a soft sound, but Talia kept going.
“At nineteen, I found Rook in a trap. His leg was crushed. He would’ve died if I left him, and I almost did, because I didn’t think I had anything left to give.”
Rook leaned against her thigh as if remembering.
“But he wanted to live. Even in pain. Even after a human had set steel teeth in the dirt and walked away. He still fought to stay alive.” Talia looked around the room, taking in every face. “I didn’t know how to do that anymore. So I learned from him.”
Noah’s hand covered his mouth. Marisol wiped under one eye. Eli stood motionless near the podium, his father’s letter forgotten beside him.
“I taught myself field medicine because there was no one else to call. I learned tracking because hunger is a good teacher. I read every book I could get through interlibrary loan from the town library in Briar City. Eventually a researcher found my notebooks and realized the feral girl in the woods had data worth reading.”
The word feral made Jenna Pike flinch. Talia noticed.
“Now I have a grant,” Talia said. “I have a cabin. I publish work that actual scientists argue with, which is its own kind of compliment. Wild Earth Review wrote about my research last spring.”
Her mouth lifted without humor.
“So yes, Bree. I’m successful. But I still sit with my back to walls. I still can’t sleep in rooms without windows. I still hear a lock click in my dreams.”
Bree’s cup slipped from her hand. Wine splashed across the floor and the hem of her dress.
“You all got to grow up,” Talia said. “I had to survive first.”
The words stayed there between them.
Then Bree pressed a hand low against her stomach.
It was a small gesture. At first, Talia thought it was embarrassment, shame finally finding a place to live in the body. But Bree’s expression changed. Her eyes lost focus, and her breath came in short through her nose.
Caleb saw it too.
“Bree?”
“I’m fine,” she said automatically.
Then she looked down.
A dark stain had bloomed through the cream fabric of her dress.
For one second, nobody moved because nobody wanted to understand.
Bree touched the blood with her fingertips. Her face went blank in a childlike way that made Talia’s anger loosen its grip.
“No,” Bree whispered. “No, no, no.”
Caleb caught her as her knees gave.
The hall broke apart. Someone cried out. Jenna backed into the photo board, sending old pictures fluttering to the floor. Eli grabbed his phone, dropped it, picked it up again with shaking hands.
“Call 911,” Talia said.
Her voice cut through the panic because it carried no panic of its own.
“I’m doing it,” Eli said, already dialing.
Bree folded around herself on the floor, one hand between her legs, the other clamped around Caleb’s wrist. Her breathing had gone fast and shallow.
“The baby,” Caleb said. His face had turned the color of paper. “She’s pregnant. We weren’t— We were going to tell people tonight.”
“How far along?” Talia asked, kneeling beside them.
Caleb stared at her like he could not connect the question to the moment.
“How far?” Talia repeated.
“Twelve weeks,” he said. “Almost thirteen.”
Bree looked at Talia then. Fear had washed everything else out of her. The cruelty, the pride, the wine, the old rivalry. Only fear remained.
“Don’t let him near me,” she whispered, eyes flicking to Rook.
Talia turned her head. Rook had moved closer, drawn by distress, his body low, ears angled back. He was not hunting. He was worried.
“He won’t hurt you,” Talia said. “Rook, stay.”
The wolf lay down two feet from Bree, close enough to lend warmth, far enough not to touch. His eyes stayed on Talia, waiting.
Bree began to shake.
Talia stripped off her overshirt and folded it beneath Bree’s head. “Listen to me. I’m not a doctor. I know field first aid, and I can keep you stable until the ambulance gets here. That’s all.”
Bree’s lips parted, but no sound came.
Talia looked at Caleb. “Blankets. Coats. Anything warm. Don’t stand there.”
He scrambled up, grateful for an order.
“Marisol,” Talia said without looking away from Bree, “find clean towels. Not napkins. Towels. If there are sanitary pads in the bathroom, bring those too.”
Marisol ran.
“Eli,” Talia called. “Tell dispatch heavy bleeding in early pregnancy. She’s pale, conscious, rapid breathing. Possible shock. Ask for instructions and repeat them out loud.”
Eli’s voice steadied as he spoke into the phone.
Mr. Parrish dropped to his knees beside Talia.
“What can I do?”
For a moment, she saw him as he had been: chalk on his sleeve, kindness in his eyes, fear in his spine.
“Hold her hand,” Talia said. “Keep her talking.”
His face crumpled, but he took his daughter’s hand.
Bree squeezed it and gasped. “Dad.”
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m right here.”
Talia covered Bree with Caleb’s jacket when he brought it, then another coat, then a blanket from the storage closet. She had Marisol press folded towels gently against the bleeding, external pressure only, nothing invasive. She raised Bree’s legs onto a stack of coats and kept her face turned slightly to the side in case she vomited.
The old storage closet stood open now, spilling out blankets, folding chairs, and the smell of dust.
Talia did not look at it for long.
Bree did.
Their eyes met.
“I’m sorry,” Bree whispered.
“Save your strength.”
“I locked you in there.”
Talia checked her pulse at the wrist. Too fast. Thin.
“You helped.”
“I heard you crying.”
Talia’s jaw tightened. “Breathe slower.”
“I heard you,” Bree said again, as if confession had become a fever. “I stood outside and did nothing.”
Talia leaned closer. “Then do something now. Stay awake.”
Bree’s eyes fluttered.
“No,” Talia said sharply. “Look at me.”
Bree obeyed, barely.
“If there’s a baby in there,” Talia said, “that baby needs you fighting. Do you understand?”
Bree sobbed once. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” Talia glanced toward Rook. “Everything alive knows how. One breath, then the next.”
Rook inched forward and laid his head on the floor near Bree’s hand.
This time, she did not pull away.
Sirens came faintly through the walls eighteen minutes later. To everyone in the hall, it felt much longer.
When the paramedics burst in, they stopped at the sight of the wolf.
“He’s controlled,” Talia said. “Rook, back.”
Rook rose and returned to her left side immediately.
The lead paramedic gave Talia one quick look, then moved to Bree. “What happened?”
Talia gave the facts cleanly. “Twelve, almost thirteen weeks pregnant. Heavy vaginal bleeding started about twenty minutes ago. Pale, shivering, rapid pulse. We kept her warm, elevated her legs, used external pads only. No loss of consciousness, but she’s fading.”
The paramedic nodded. “Good. That helps.”
They moved fast after that. Blood pressure cuff. IV. Oxygen. Questions for Caleb. A gurney rattled in. Bree cried when they lifted her, and Caleb walked beside her with one hand on her shoulder, repeating, “I’m here, I’m here,” like words could stitch the body closed.
At the door, Bree reached out blindly.
“Talia.”
Talia looked at the hand.
The hall seemed to watch with one shared breath.
“She’s asking for you,” Caleb said, bewildered and desperate. “Please.”
Talia thought of the closet. Of her mother’s hands around her. Of every ugly name Bree had handed to the world and let it throw.
Then she took Bree’s hand.
“I’ll ride behind you,” she said. “I can’t leave Rook with strangers.”
Bree nodded once, eyes already half-closed.
The ambulance doors shut.