Claudia's vision blurred, the forest tilting at an impossible angle.Her knees buckled beneath her, no longer able to support her weight.As she crumpled to the ground, she caught a glimpse of movement—a figure, indistinct through her rapidly failing vision, stepping out from behind a nearby tree.
She tried to scream, but no sound emerged from her throat.Her lungs seemed to have forgotten how to function.Panic flooded her system, but even that was muted, as if experienced through a thick fog.
The last thing Claudia saw was a pair of boots stepping into her narrowing field of vision.Dark boots, practical, slightly muddy.Then darkness claimed her completely, the forest and the wolf and the boots all dissolving into nothing as consciousness slipped away.
Her last thought wasn't of Keir, or her students, or even of her own mortality.It was simply a flash of irritation that she wouldn't be at book club tomorrow to discuss the ending ofBlackbriar Hollow—the one where you never saw the killer coming until it was too late.
CHAPTER ONE
Piper Graves floated in the peaceful waters of deep sleep, her body nestled in the familiar curves of her childhood mattress.Her breathing came slow and steady, a rhythm untroubled by the world outside her dreams—until the voices sliced through the silence of her mind.
Wake up.
The command sounded distant, like someone calling from across a vast canyon.Piper rolled onto her side, burying her face in the pillow, trying to cling to the dissolving sleep.
Wake up, Emma.You need to wake up now.
Her eyelids fluttered.The room came into focus—the pale yellow walls, the bookshelf still lined with dog-eared paperbacks from her teenage years, the collection of polished stones on the dresser.Everything exactly as it had been, preserved like a museum exhibit of a life interrupted.
Piper blinked, her gaze finding the digital clock on the nightstand.7:03 AM.Mom would be making breakfast by now—the scent of coffee already drifted up from the kitchen below.
“Time for breakfast,” she murmured, pushing herself upright against the headboard.
That's not what we mean.The voice was sharper now, insistent.You need to wake up from being Piper Graves.
She clutched at the edge of her quilt.“What?”
This isn't real.You're dreaming this.You're Emma Kirby, and you're trapped in a dream where you think you're someone named Piper Graves.
“Stop it,” Piper whispered, pressing her palms against her temples.“I know who I am.”
These voices had been unwelcome companions for as long as she could remember—even before she'd fled from home at sixteen.They'd told her to run, that she was a danger to her family.They'd shown her terrifying visions.They’d also persuaded her to change her very identity—first by making her adopt the name Emma Kirby, and over time making her forget she was ever Piper Graves.
But that was over now.Piper knew who she really was.And she hadn’t expected her voices to try to drag her back into that delusion.
You constructed this fantasy yourself,the voices said.The reunion with your twin, the mother who takes you back without question—it's what Emma wanted so desperately.
“I'm not Emma,” Piper said, her voice stronger now.She swung her legs over the side of the bed, feet finding the cool hardwood floor.“I'm Piper Graves.I was born here in Trentville.My sister found me after twenty years.”
Look around you.Notice how perfect it all is?Too perfect.The bedroom preserved exactly as you left it.The mother who forgave you instantly.The twin sister who had never stopped searching for you.This is the dream of a homeless woman who's been alone too long.
The doubt, small as a seed, found purchase in Piper’s mind.Was it possible?The last thing she could recall clearly before all this was being at Wendell Gillis's farm.Her earlier memories had fractured into jagged, confusing pieces—years on the streets, running from city to city, the name Emma Kirby.
“No,” she said, standing up now.“Jenna found me.I'm home.This is real.”
This dream is dangerous, Emma.There's a wolf hiding in it.It has already killed someone.If you wake up—truly wake up—that monster will go away.
“There's no wolf,” she replied firmly.“Not here.”
There IS.The wolf is HERE, Emma.It has already tasted blood.And these people—they’re really just traps, and every secret you share with them tightens their grip on you.Be careful what you tell them. They will NEVER let you leave this dream willingly.And when you're too weak to fight anymore, that's when the wolf will come for you.
Piper gasped in confusion.She knew that the voices had been wrong before.They'd told her terrible things that never came to pass.They'd driven her from her home with their whispered threats and horrific visions.
Yet sometimes—sometimes they'd been right.
“I'm not listening to you anymore,” she said.“I'm Piper Graves.This is my home.Jenna is my sister.Margaret Graves is my mother.I'm not dreaming.”
She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.Then another.And another.She imagined building walls in her mind—high, thick barriers of stone and steel.She visualized the voices trapped behind those walls, their warnings muffled until they faded to whispers, then to silence.