The Last Lycan System

Chapter 2: Bottom of the Pack

Noah didn't tell anyone about the statue.

What was there to say? *A stone wolf looked at me and something in my chest answered it.* They'd laugh, or worse, they'd send him to the infirmary for a scan, and the scan would come back the same way it always did … nothing. No wolf. No trace of one. Just a boy with a normal heartbeat and an overactive imagination, according to the last three doctors who'd checked.

So he said nothing, and by the next morning the whole thing already felt like something he'd made up to feel less alone.

The monthly rankings board was posted outside the mess hall every four weeks, and today was that day. Students clustered around it before breakfast, shoving for a look, cheering or groaning depending on where their name landed. Noah didn't need to push through the crowd to know where his was. It was always in the same place.

*47. Gray, N. … Unranked Wolf Class.*

Forty-seven out of forty-seven. Same as last month. Same as the month before that.

"Look at that," someone said behind him, not bothering to lower their voice. "Gray held his spot again. Consistency, I guess."

Laughter. Not cruel exactly … more careless, the kind that came from people who'd never once worried about where their own name would land. Noah kept walking.

He almost made it to breakfast without incident, which for him counted as a good morning.

Then Instructor Vess found him in the hallway outside the mess hall, clipboard in hand, and said the four words that ruined the rest of his week before it even started.

"You're in the arena."

Not the training yard. The arena … the one reserved for evaluated matches, the ones that counted toward rank, watched from the stands by whichever students had free period and nothing better to do. Which, at Blackfang, was most of them.

"Today?" Noah asked, already knowing the answer.

"Second period. You're matched against Ferris."

Marcus Ferris. Rank eleven. Not the strongest student in his year, but strong enough that beating him would have meant something … and losing to him would mean exactly what everyone already assumed about Noah, confirmed in front of an audience.

"Can I request a delay?" Noah asked. "I haven't trained for…"

"You've had four years to train," Vess said, already walking away. "Second period, Gray. Don't be late."

He wasn't late. He'd learned that lesson already. He stood at the edge of the arena floor at the exact minute the doors opened, watching the stands fill in around him … not packed, not for a rank-forty-seven match, but full enough. Full enough that when he lost, there'd be witnesses.

Ferris came out already grinning, wolf-arm shifted before the match even started, silver fur climbing up past his elbow like it was proud to be there. A few of his friends had come to watch, sitting in the front row with their arms crossed, already smiling at what they expected to see.

"Try to make it interesting, Gray," Ferris called across the floor.

Noah didn't answer. He'd learned that too … answering just gave them something new to laugh at.

He ran through what little he had. Vess's footwork drills, mostly, the ones meant for shifted students but the only ones he'd been allowed to copy from the sidelines. Keep low. Keep moving. Don't let a wolf-arm get a clean angle on you. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was the only one he had, and for a moment, standing there under the arena lights with his heart hammering, he actually let himself believe it might be enough.

The horn sounded.

He lasted eleven seconds.

He knew, because someone in the stands counted it out loud, gleeful, the way people counted down a countdown they were rooting for. Ferris came in low and fast, faster than Noah expected from someone who relied that heavily on brute strength, and by the time Noah got his guard up it was already too late … a clawed hand caught his shoulder, spun him half around, and the second hit took his legs out entirely.

He hit the floor hard enough to lose his breath. Lay there a second too long, trying to remember how his own lungs worked, and the arena went quiet in that particular way that was somehow louder than cheering.

"Down," the referee called. "Ferris wins."

Applause. Not for Noah. Ferris raised both arms, wolf-claw and human hand together, soaking it in, and his friends in the front row were laughing so hard one of them had to wipe his eyes.

Noah pushed himself up slowly, jaw tight, refusing to look at any of them directly. That was its own kind of strategy … if he didn't look, he didn't have to see their faces. He'd almost made it off the arena floor clean when Ferris's voice caught up to him.

"Hey, Gray." Loud enough for the whole arena to hear. "Maybe try picking a different sport. This one clearly isn't for you."

More laughter. Someone near the top of the stands actually applauded that, like it was a joke worth honoring.

Noah stopped walking.

He didn't turn around. He didn't say anything back. He just stood there for one long second with his back to all of them, feeling that same strange pressure from the day before build low in his chest … not pain this time, not embarrassment, something tighter and darker that made his hands curl into fists at his sides without him telling them to. His pulse thudded once, hard, almost like a second heartbeat answering the first.

It scared him a little, how much he wanted to turn around.

He didn't. He kept walking, out through the arena tunnel, past the row of trophy cases celebrating two centuries of champions who'd all had one thing in common that he never would. He caught his own reflection in the glass as he passed … pale, sweating, one sleeve torn at the shoulder … and didn't stop until he was outside in the cold air, alone, breathing hard for reasons that had nothing to do with the match.

He wiped his face with his sleeve … not tears, he told himself, just sweat … and started toward the dorms.

He didn't notice the note until he reached his door.

Folded once, tucked into the frame at eye level, no name on the outside. He almost ignored it … Blackfang students weren't above cruel little pranks, and a note left at rank forty-seven's door was rarely good news. But something about the paper stopped him. It was old. Not new stationery from the campus store, but thick and yellowed at the edges, like it had been sitting somewhere untouched for years before someone decided today was the day to deliver it.

He unfolded it with shaking hands, half-expecting it to be nothing … a dorm-mate's idea of a joke, someone's leftover homework note shoved into the wrong door. It wasn't.

Six words, written in a careful, old-fashioned hand he didn't recognize:

*They sealed you. It's time to wake.*

Noah read it twice, three times, his heart slamming against his ribs so hard he could feel it in his throat.

Then he heard footsteps coming down the hallway behind him … slow, deliberate, stopping just short of where he stood … and when he turned around, the corridor was completely, impossibly empty.