After a few more reassuring messages, I make the call I climbed into this tree for.

My mom picks up after the second ring.

“Sweetheart! I’ve missed your voice! And you’re calling from your cell? You must be in town. How is it there? Found a good place to buy a cup of coffee? When I was a teenager⁠—”

“Mom! Stop talking!” That comes out with more bite than I meant.

But after my discovery and this nagging worry about my mental health, I’m finding it hard to be happy-go-lucky. Besides, if I hadn’t cut her off, she’d have gone on for another ten minutes with barely a break for breathing.

“What’s wrong?”

At least she knows I wouldn’t snap for no reason.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just …” Different words play across my tongue, trying to fit themselves into the right question. I’m assuming that having grown up in Pine Falls, Mom would know about the wolves.

But wouldn’t she have told me if she did?

And if she doesn’t know, she’ll probably think I’m losing it, down here alone in this cabin. Then, she’ll tell my brothers, and there’d be no stopping them from migrating down here en masse.

Still, my need to solidify the truth overrides the experiment to distance myself from my family.

“When you lived here, did you ever notice anything … strange?”

“You’re being vague, sweetheart. It’s making me worry.”

A frustrated sigh gusts out of me, and I consider a different angle. “A few days ago, the truck broke down outside of town. When I was walking, a mountain lion attacked my friend and me.”

A gasp filters through the phone. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. The mountain lion didn’t touch me.” I conveniently leave out the part where I decided to wound myself. “It didn’t get a chance to.”

“That’s a relief. How did you get away?”

“A …” I take a deep breath. “A wolf saved me.”

The truth of that statement rings through the small tree-top enclosure. Up until this moment, I didn’t allow myself to fully examine what had happened. The giant mythical-creatures-are-real blockade kept my mind from remembering that my life had been in danger and Warner saved me.

I might be dead if he hadn’t transformed into his other shape.

Warner revealed a secret, terrifying part of himself to rescue me.

“Are you saying one of the werewolves fought off the mountain lion?”

My mom’s question might as well be a defibrillator, shocking me back to the present moment.

Silent seconds sit between us as my lungs struggle to pull in air.

Then, I’m gasping.