Lena's voice came from behind, trying to anchor me. But the world was already dissolving, the edges fraying, pulling me down, down into the familiar, terrifying current. It was happening again. My head felt like it was splitting open and a thousand shards of glass were piercing my skull as the air around me thickened with fear and something else... something I could pinpoint on. I saw it... I felt the city bleeding. Shadows writhed, coalescing into grotesque shapes, then sharpening into faces of terrified people begging for their lives. I saw women, children, elders, their eyes, wide with a terror that clawed at my throat, then dulled and extinguished into ash. Then a symbol, a twisted double helix, burned into the ground and into my mind. It pulsed like a heartbeat, echoing the thrum beneath my skin, a reminder of the torn mate bond. Kaleb. He was there. Not in the ash, not in the terror, but standing in a space that was both here and nowhere. His eyes were wrong...too bright and a little too empty. His skin stretched too tight over bones that seemed to shift beneath it. It was...unnatural. And when he looked at me, a desperate plea tore from his lips. "Help me, Tiana..." My breath hitched. Help him? How? My hand, trembling, reached out, a foolish attempt to bridge the chasm between us, to touch the Kaleb I remembered... My fingers brushed his arm, and it wasn't cold, it was fire. A searing, agonizing burn shot through my entire being, making me wince in pain as I tried to pull away, he didn't let me. Instead, his features began to distort, to stretch into something else. His jaw elongated, teeth sharpening, eyes glowing with a feral, untamed madness. His skin rippled, fur sprouting, muscles bulging, tearing at the fabric of his clothes, tearing at the very image of him. He was becoming 20mething else, something monstrous, something that screamed torment and power and a will that wasn't his own. 21% "Kaleb!" I screamed, the sound ripped from my throat, a desperate attempt to hold onto him, to stop the transformation. "Kaleb, no! Stop!" My body shook, a violent tremor that rattled every bone in my body as tears pooled my eyes. I kept calling his name, even as the monster consumed him, its eyes locking onto mine, filled with this possessive hunger. Then the world shattered. A guttural scream tore from my lips, as my knees buckled, and I was falling into the darkness. "Tiana! Oh my god, Tiana!" Lena's arms were around me immediately pulling me close as I buried my face in her shoulder, tears streaming down my face soaking her shirt. My body convulsed with sobs, the vision still burning behind my eyelids, the ash, the terror, Kaleb's plea, the monstrous change, the burn. It was all too much. "Shhh, it's okay, Tiana. You're safe. You're here with me. It's okay," Lena whispered, her hand stroking my hair, a soothing rhythm against the chaos in my mind. "Just breathe, honey...just breathe." But it wasn't okay. It was never okay. And I couldn't breathe, not with the burning realization that Kaleb was still alive...somewhere. Probably lost and confused. And not when Bainbridge was bleeding right under us and we couldn't do anything about it. My nose started bleeding again, running down my lip. I tried to wipe it off but it kept coming, my head throbbed, each pulse a reminder of the chaos I'd just seen. My stomach churned as I felt Lena's hand on my back, rubbing circles, but it didn't help...nothing helped. My body felt like a live wire, buzzing with leftover fear. "Tiana, your nose," Lena said. I felt her fumbling for something before handing me a tissue. I just wanted to curl up and disappear. This wasn't normal. None of this was normal.