They sat on the opposite side of the room, Elijah’s expression blank and controlled, Caleb pouting like he’d been cheated out of a game.
The teacher gave me a tight smile. “It seems there was… an incident during art class.”
I crouched in front of my boys. “What happened?”
“They started it,” Caleb muttered, scowling at the other two boys.
Elijah’s eyes flicked to me in a steady and unapologetic manner. “They called us freaks. Said we didn’t have wolves. Said we shouldn’t even be here.”
The word “freaks” landed in my chest like a stone.
My breath caught, hot and sharp. That word again. It wasn’t just an insult—it was a wound being reopened, a reminder of every time power had been stripped from me and those I loved. My boys weren’t old enough to know the weight of it, but I did. And I s
