Chapter 158: Old Instincts

Chapter 158: Chapter 158: Old Instincts

Erik didn’t sleep well that night, though he couldn’t have said exactly why.

He lay awake in the dark long after everyone else in the penthouse had settled, Hrimnir curled at the foot of the bed in his smaller, borrowed shape, breathing slow and even, though every so often a faint tremor ran through him — not quite a dream, not quite waking, something restless stirring beneath the surface of his rest.

You’re not sleeping either, Erik said finally, giving up on his own attempt.

Hrimnir’s eyes opened, amber and alert despite the late hour. No.

Still thinking about the door.

A pause, then, reluctantly: Yes.

Erik sat up slightly, resting his back against the headboard, studying the wolf’s shape in the dim light. Three weeks of bond between them, and he’d learned to trust Hrimnir’s instincts the way he trusted his own — maybe more, in certain specific cases, given how many times those instincts had proven sharper than anything Erik’s human senses could offer. But he’d never heard Hrimnir describe a threat in quite those terms before. Not human either. Not fully.

"Tell me again what you sensed," Erik said quietly. "As precisely as you can."

Hrimnir considered the question the way he always did, careful, deliberate, choosing words that didn’t come naturally to a mind built more around instinct than language. Scent was human. Sound, when I listened past the door, was human. But underneath — something else. Something that didn’t smell like fear or sickness or any of the things I’ve learned to recognize in this building.

"What did it smell like?"

Hunger, Hrimnir said finally. But not the kind that wants food.

The words settled uncomfortably in Erik’s chest, some old, careful part of his mind already cataloguing the sensation the same way it catalogued every unresolved threat — filed, flagged, not yet acted upon, but no longer able to be fully set aside either.

"You said this the first time you met her too," Erik said. "Before we even knew her name."

I remember.

"And I didn’t do anything about it then either."

Hrimnir didn’t answer that directly, though something in the way he shifted, resettling his weight against the blanket, suggested he’d noticed the same thing Erik had just admitted out loud — that this wasn’t new information so much as an old warning Erik had quietly set aside once already, buried under everything else the building had demanded of him since.

"I should have listened the first time," Erik said, mostly to himself now.

You had reasons not to. The family needed you elsewhere. That isn’t the same as ignoring me.

"It’s close enough." Erik ran a hand over his face, exhaustion pulling at him despite the restlessness keeping sleep at bay. "I don’t like that we walked past that door twice now and I still don’t actually know anything concrete. Just a feeling. Yours, not mine."

Feelings have kept this family alive more than once.

"I know." Erik glanced toward the window, rain still tracing steady lines down the glass, the building beyond it sunk deep into its own quiet, uneasy dark. "I’m not doubting you. I’m frustrated that I don’t have anything more solid to bring to Penny or Kai. ’My wolf doesn’t like the smell of someone’s apartment’ isn’t exactly actionable."

Then don’t bring it to them yet.

Erik glanced down at him, surprised. "You don’t usually suggest waiting on anything."

I don’t usually suggest anything at all. You rarely ask. A faint, dry note colored the thought, almost wry, the closest thing to humor Hrimnir ever managed. But this feels different from the usual threats. Zombies, desperate people, hunger for food or shelter — those are simple. This isn’t simple. I don’t think rushing toward it with half information helps anyone.

"So what do you suggest?"

Watch. Learn more before deciding what it requires from us. Hrimnir’s amber eyes held Erik’s steadily. You are good at that. Better than you give yourself credit for.

Erik considered that for a long moment, the particular discomfort of sitting with an unresolved threat instead of moving decisively against it settling uneasily against every instinct his father had ever drilled into him. Assess. Decide. Act. Waiting had never come naturally to him, not when something in his own household — his own bonded companion — was telling him, clearly, that something dangerous existed only a few floors below the people he loved most.

But Hrimnir wasn’t wrong, either. He had nothing concrete. A smell. A feeling. A single strange encounter weeks old, half-remembered by everyone except the two of them.

"I’ll watch," Erik said finally. "But if it happens again — if you sense that same thing anywhere near this floor, near Penny, near any of us — I’m not waiting for more information before I act. I’ll take the door down myself if I have to."

Understood. Hrimnir’s tail thumped once, softly, against the blanket, something satisfied in the gesture despite the grim subject matter. That is all I wanted from you tonight. Not action yet. Just belief.

"I believe you," Erik said, and meant it completely. "I always do."

The wolf settled back down, some of the earlier tension easing out of his frame now that the conversation had reached its resolution, though Erik noticed he didn’t fully relax — one ear staying tilted, alert, angled faintly toward the door even in rest.

Erik lay back down eventually, though sleep still refused to come easily, his mind circling the same unanswered questions from a dozen different angles. Not human either. Not fully. What did that even mean, in a world where zombies and awakened abilities had already redrawn every line he’d once understood about what counted as human at all? Half the building had developed powers by now. Grace herself had awakened something, presumably, the same as everyone else — maybe whatever Hrimnir sensed was nothing more than an unusual ability manifesting in ways his wolf simply hadn’t encountered before.

Maybe. He turned the possibility over, testing its weight, and found it didn’t sit comfortably against the specific dread in Hrimnir’s voice when he’d said hunger, but not the kind that wants food.

That wasn’t the description of an ability. That was the description of a person.

Morning came gray and unremarkable, the rain having settled into the same steady, endless rhythm it had held for nearly three weeks now, and Erik rose before anyone else in the penthouse had stirred, careful not to wake Hrimnir where he’d finally, fully drifted into rest sometime near dawn.

He didn’t go looking for answers immediately. That wasn’t how he worked, and he knew better than to let one restless night push him into acting faster than the situation actually warranted. Instead, he made his way to the small kitchen, started the coffee out of habit more than desire, and let his mind work through the problem the same methodical way he worked through everything.

If Hrimnir was right — and Erik had never once known him to be wrong about a threat, not in three weeks of testing that instinct against every danger the building had thrown at them — then Grace represented something none of them had encountered yet. Not zombie. Not desperate survivor. Something else entirely, wearing a shape that passed, at a glance, for ordinary.

He thought back to that first meeting, turning it over with sharper attention than he’d given it in weeks. She’d been disoriented, he remembered that clearly — genuinely confused about her own name, unsteady on her feet, the kind of vulnerable that had made Kai soften his usual humor without needing to be asked. Erik had felt something wary about her even then, some instinct he’d chalked up to simple caution around a stranger rather than anything more specific.

Had that been Hrimnir’s warning bleeding through, even before either of them had fully articulated it? He hadn’t paid close enough attention at the time to be certain.

Kai wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later, hair still mussed from sleep, reaching for the coffee without needing to ask if it was ready. "You’re up early."

"Couldn’t sleep."

"Rare for you." Kai poured himself a cup, studying Erik over the rim with more attention than his casual tone suggested. "Something on your mind?"

Erik considered how much to say, weighing Hrimnir’s advice against his own discomfort with sitting on unfinished information. "Do you remember the woman we met, weeks ago. Eighteenth floor. Disoriented, dark hair, didn’t seem to know her own name at first."

Kai’s brow furrowed, working through the memory. "Vaguely. We were sweeping the lower floors that first night, right? I remember thinking she seemed kind of lost."

"Grace," Erik said. "That was her name."

"Sure. Why?"

Erik hesitated, then decided a partial truth was better than none at all. "Hrimnir’s had a strange reaction to her floor the last couple of times we’ve passed it. Nothing concrete. Just enough that I want to keep an eye on it."

Kai’s easy expression sobered slightly, some of the sleepiness clearing from his face. "Strange how?"

"He won’t fully explain it. Just says something feels wrong. Not zombie, not ordinary human either."

"That’s..." Kai set his coffee down slowly. "That’s not exactly reassuring, coming from the wolf who’s never once been wrong about anything dangerous in this building."

"I know."

"Are we doing something about it?"

"Not yet." Erik’s jaw tightened slightly, some of the same discomfort from the night before resurfacing. "I don’t have enough to act on. I don’t even know what we’d be acting against. But I wanted someone else to know, in case anything happens and I’m not the one who notices first."

Kai studied him for a long moment, something unusually serious settling over his expression — the particular focus he reserved for moments that actually mattered, stripped entirely of his usual humor. "Okay. I’ll keep an eye out too. Quietly, though? Or should I tell Ben and Killian?"

"Quietly, for now," Erik said. "I don’t want to alarm Penny with something this thin. Not on top of everything else she’s already carrying."

Kai nodded slowly, accepting that without argument, though something in his expression suggested he was filing the information away with more weight than his easy agreement let on.

"For what it’s worth," Kai added, after a moment, "Hrimnir’s earned the benefit of the doubt. If he says something’s wrong, I believe him. Doesn’t mean we panic. Just means we don’t forget about it either."

"That’s exactly what he told me last night," Erik said, something faintly surprised in his voice.

"Great minds," Kai said, managing a thin, tired smile despite the weight of the conversation. "Or maybe your wolf’s just smarter than both of us."

"Wouldn’t be the first time," Erik admitted, and for the first time since waking, allowed himself the ghost of a smile too.

The rain continued outside, steady and endless, and somewhere below them, on the eighteenth floor, behind a door neither of them had yet found reason enough to open, something patient and unseen continued waiting — unaware, for now, that it had already been noticed, and unaware that the noticing had only just begun.