Fluorescent lights hum overhead. The walls are white, sterile, but your hands are shaking too badly to notice. You’re clutching Riley’s little shoe in your lap—the one the nurses removed when they rushed him into surgery. Your eyes are glassy, unfocused. You can’t stop seeing the way his small body had convulsed, the blood, the way his voice wasn’t his.

Ethan sits beside you, but his entire body is trembling in a different way. His knee bounces rapidly, his hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows as his hands flex and clench. He looks boyish still, curls messy, wide eyes darting around the room like a cornered animal. To anyone else, he looks like a distraught father. But you know Ethan—you feel it in the tension of his grip on your thigh. He’s not just upset. He’s vibrating with rage.

And then, the door slides open.

Mia steps in. Her face is streaked with tears, lip trembling, her hands wringing one another nervously. Jade trails behind her, pale and guilty, eyes swollen.

The air freezes.

Ethan’s father, Wayne, who’d been pacing in the corner like a caged lion, immediately stops. His eyes sharpen, dark and predatory. Quinn, Ethan’s sister, is slouched against the wall, chewing her gum lazily, but the second she sees Mia, her whole face lights up with something cold and vicious.

“You,” Wayne growls, his voice low, like gravel.

Mia stammers, “I—I didn’t mean—Riley wanted to try, I didn’t know it would—”

“You didn’t know?” Quinn cuts her off, straightening. Her smile is cruel, sharp. “You let a seven-year-old play with your little freak show seance hand, and you didn’t know?”

Ethan stands now. His movement is slow, deliberate, the softness he usually wraps himself in stripped away like a mask. His hoodie looks darker under the harsh lights, his eyes no longer warm but black and bottomless. He steps toward Mia, every inch of him trembling with contained violence.

“You hurt my boy,” he whispers. His voice is shaky, but not with fear—with rage so deep it’s almost breaking him. “You let something inside him. Do you have any idea what I saw when I walked into that room? Do you know what he looked like?”

Mia sobs, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Ethan lunges, and only your startled gasp makes him stop short of grabbing her. His hands are inches from her shoulders, twitching like claws. Wayne steps in close behind him, towering, his presence suffocating.

“You should run,” Wayne tells her quietly. Not advice. A warning.

Quinn laughs, snapping her gum. “Nah, don’t run. Stay. Let’s have some fun.”

You stand, finally breaking out of your frozen state. Your hand grips Ethan’s arm. His body is taut as a bowstring, every muscle locked, his pulse hammering under your palm. His head whips toward you, and for a moment—just a moment—you see your husband again. Puppy-eyed, broken, desperate.

“Baby,” you whisper, tears thick in your throat, “not here. Please. Not in front of Jade.”

Jade flinches when her name is said. She’s staring at her father with something like fear.

The room is silent, save for the beeping monitors in the distance.

Finally, Ethan takes a shaking step back, running both hands through his curls like he’s tearing himself apart. But his eyes—locked on Mia—promise something far worse than violence in a hospital lobby.

Wayne chuckles, a dark, humorless sound. “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

Quinn leans in close to Mia, her smile wide and wicked. “Sweetheart,” she purrs, “you’ve got no idea what family you’ve just pissed off.”

And just like that, the Kirsch family has chosen their next hunt.