I didn’t know if anything had felt more horrible than the hangover I had. It took me almost twenty minutes just to physically get out of bed because I felt like I was either going to throw up right there or have to crawl to the bathroom so I could properly use the porcelain throne to throw up.
I somehow made my way into the kitchen; really, the only reason my legs moved was because they were set on following the faint scent of bacon. Elliot was flipping pancakes, a cup of coffee in his hand, while Derek walked around the porch religiously waving burning sage. Levi was outside draining a doe into a metal bucket on the front lawn. He had it tied at its back feet so it could hang upside down from a hick tree limb. His arms were covered in red, the sight of the crimson making my stomach slightly churn.
“Hangover?” Elliot asked with a sleepy smile, red hair tied back in his usual blue bandana.
“I feel like Levi’s wolf ate my brain, regurgitated it, then tried to stick it back in my head.” I groaned.
“Sleep?”
He smelled like the woods after a hard rain, which looked like it was coming for us outside. “Will it rain?”
“Probably snow,” he mused. “Hungry?”
“A little.”
“You should eat.” Before I could open my mouth, he had a hand out in front of me with a cup of coffee in it. “Most humans don’t make it this far, Charlotte,” he said. “Besides, Derek and I need a third person for our Halloween costume.
So don’t die. It would put a damper on our plans.”
A breathless moment passed before laughter erupted between us. Elliot hugged me to him while I wiped my eyes with my free hand.
“Elliot, what have you done?”
“I just told her she couldn’t die because we need an extra person for Halloween.”
Derek opened his mouth and closed it a few times.
“Okay. He’s not wrong.” He paused while I covered my mouth to stop a laugh mixed with a sob from coming out.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said, zipping over so he could hug me. “Now, we are going to feed you because you’re going to eat, dammit.”
“Fine, fine.” I laughed.
“Where’s Levi? Levi—”
“Right here,” Levi grumbled. His forearms were covered in blood that was turning the bottom of the sink red. “You’re going to burn those.” Levi motioned his chin toward the pancakes.
“Dammit!” Elliot hissed. He zipped back to the stove and quickly flipped the pancakes.
I took a seat at the table, taking a long sip of coffee and trying to ease my mind. If I hadn’t known any better, it would have been like another normal morning here. In this place that felt more like a home than the one I’d known for years. Than any I’d had before that.
Levi’s eyes found mine and in that moment everything became real. It wasn’t just an ordinary Sunday morning. It was the day that could be my last. The hourglass of my life turned over, and I was all too aware of how fast the sand was slipping through it.
“How is she today?” Derek asked as he set a plate of what had to be the world’s fluffiest pancakes in front of me.
“Quiet.” She was both quiet and vivid at the same time, silently moving through my veins like she was already a normal part of my blood.
“We’re going to throw some blankets outside and set you up there tonight, so you’ll have more room,” Levi explained, scrubbing the blood off his arms and into the clean sink.
“We’ve got plenty of supplies, but if you think we need more I can run out to The Hole again today?” Elliot offered.
Levi nodded. “Double-check, we don’t want to run out of ice.”
“More ice?” I asked. My fork stabbed nervously at the food on my plate.
“You’ll be real glad for it later,” Levi replied. “The minute the moon calls for her, she’s going to want to run right out.”
“Gradually,” I said more to myself than to him. A mental note to help me pace myself.
Levi nodded. “Exactly.”
“How will I know when it’s time to really shift?”
“You’ll just know,” he answered, his eyes softening. I squirmed in my seat.
“And today?”
“Rest,” he replied, drying his hands on a towel. “If she gets restless, we’ll figure something out,” he added before walking back outside to the deer he had hung up on a low limb, blood draining into a bucket.
Derek smiled, desperately clinging to his facade of calmness. “Movie day?”
I nodded to him then started to work on my pancakes.
My appetite drained away like the blood of the deer outside, much like my own calmness throughout the day. A movie was a great idea until it wasn’t. Every little thing in the movie seemed to remind me of what was coming, and the beast in me was pacing with a jarring giddiness, stirring so much it gave me a headache.
Thankfully, Levi took me outside to chop some wood. I didn’t think I would ever be thankful for that log pile, but it was keeping my mind busy and wearing her out enough so she would stop her incessant pacing, which was a struggle to control the rest of the day. Levi kept me doing small chores to take my mind off things, but nothing worked.
Derek tried to make me eat a light dinner. I forced myself to get something down, but my nerves gnawed at my stomach. I ended up puking on the rosebushes.
The light from the day waned, the coolness of night turning into a bitter cold with the darkness, but I wasn’t cold at all. Elliot had offered me a jacket a few times, but I waved him off. He sat with me while I watched Derek and Levi from the porch as they set up some blankets with coolers next to them in the middle of the lawn. Ice in a large red one and medical supplies in two smaller white ones with extra towels and lamps. Derek also set out bowls of burning herbs—what smelled like sage—around the blankets while Elliot poured a circle of salt around them.
“What was that about?” I asked Derek as he walked to me.
“We can’t take risks tonight.” He watched as I wiped some hair out of my face. “You want a jacket?”
I shook my head. Levi had a bowl of blood in his hands.
We didn’t say anything. He handed me the knife, and I cut my palm then squeezed blood out until he told me to stop.
I wasn’t sure about this Moon Goddess, but I prayed that whatever we could do to please her would work.
Levi got another bowl and tossed some moonflowers in it then started to burn them while Derek dipped his own bouquet into the blood and hung them from the porch. I tugged at my long-sleeved shirt. The clouds hid the moon, but I knew she was there. It was like I could hear her faintly humming to me as the night waned on.
I didn’t even realize it was happening until a bead of sweat rolled off my forehead and onto the floor. Derek zipped to me and put a hand to my forehead. “You’re hot.”
Levi looked up from his task. The look he gave me only made the dread in me surge. “Go change, Charlotte.”
Derek followed me into the house then handed me the shifters, yoga pants, and a sports bra that Claire had gifted me. He left me to my dark bedroom, the night sky hidden behind the closed blinds.
I wanted to crawl under the comforter and pretend that this was all a bad dream. I threw the clothes on before I had second thoughts. As I looked in the mirror, I felt my scars laughing at me. All the exposed skin only welcomed an insecurity that I did not need present today.
I shoved those thoughts back and instead walked back to my window and pulled the blinds up. There were three rabbits’ feet tied to the bush outside my bedroom window.
Three white rabbits’ feet cut off right before the knee, still dripping with blood.
A smile tugged at my lips. I wasn’t sure what Liam was to me. I knew it would take a lot of time and work on myself before I could stomach someone being intimately close to me again. But he made me want to try—want the option.
That was all I wanted: options instead of being pushed into a goddamn corner.
Derek knocked on the door, startling me while I tied my hair back. “Come in.” The words stumbled out of my mouth.
He walked in with a sweatshirt in his hands, one I had seen Levi wear. I took it and tried to say something, to say thank you for everything, but only broken words came out. He hugged me then kissed my cheek. “You’ll be fine, yeah?”
“Sure,” I answered, and slipped the sweatshirt on, letting out a deep breath as I straightened it and smoothed out wrinkles that weren’t really there.
When I walked outside, Levi was waiting on the steps with a bowl of the blood paste in his hands. “Take that off, you won’t need it.” A droplet of sweat slithered down my neck. I opened my mouth to protest but Levi gave me a look that froze my tongue in place. “There’s more important things to worry about right now, all right?”
I took the sweatshirt off and handed it to Derek before I said something to Levi I’d regret. Levi stepped toward me and dipped his fingers in the paste.
“Does this really help?”
“It’s supposed to,” he answered, drawing the half circle around the edge of my face before he drew strange markings on both of my shoulders. “Go on. Get in the middle of the blankets.” I took a step forward, but his hand around my wrist froze. “Don’t cross the salt line once you cross over.”
“Why?” The look he gave me yanked the breath out of my lungs.
He released my wrist. “Just stay on the blankets. Go on.”
What the fuck?
I walked to the blankets where the sage practically gagged me. I wanted them to take it away, but I reminded myself that I needed all the help I could get, so I would just have to suck it up.
I sat down and Elliot zipped to me with a water jug in hand. “You’ll want to start hydrating.”
“Hydration is key,” Levi added, pulling a plastic chair inside the ring of salt, a cooler beside him. He reached inside and pulled out a bottle of beer while I tried to get comfortable on the blankets. But the heat was starting to make everything uncomfortable. My skin felt sticky, and the air felt like quicksand sucking me down to the hot core of the earth.
Levi offered me some of his beer. I shook my head and chugged more water.
“Suit yourself.”
I wanted to rip the yoga pants off, but I had no desire to be naked in front of three men. Derek handed me a new jug of water. He wiped some of the sweat away while Elliot handed me a new bag of ice.
But the heat rose to a point where the baggies of ice weren’t lasting long. Elliot kept trying to get me to drink water, but I could feel it sloshing in my stomach. The heat was making me feel bloated, and I was half afraid that I would pop if I drank any more.
Inside, I could feel her impatiently pacing back and forth under my skin, which felt like it was melting off. I didn’t even notice Levi sit next to me. He grabbed a towel and tried to wipe the sweat from my face before he gave up and dumped a bucket of water over me instead.
“Thanks,” I panted, sounding more canine than human.
“Here all night, Charlie girl.”
“Good.” I meant it. I didn’t want to do this without him even if I didn’t want to admit it to him.
The heat rose. I felt like my blood would start boiling. I could barely see straight—or hear my own thoughts. Derek put more ice around me while Elliot checked my vitals, vigorously writing them down in a black notebook. “You’re doing fine,” he told me with a soft smile.
Levi dumped another bucket of water on me but nothing worked. It felt like the water just evaporated once it hit my skin.
My fingers clawed at the ground, my mind trying to hold on to thoughts and not this fire burning in me, but it was impossible when my toes felt like hot coals about to combust. Derek had me drink more water but I choked. The panting was rapid now, inhuman. I was trying not to think about it, but the sight of my chest rising and falling like a dog’s sent my mind into a frenzy.
“Let’s play a game, Charlie girl,” Levi said as the vampires got more ice out of the cooler.
He had me rest my head on his thigh so he could wipe sweat out of my eyes and give me water. “Which one?” I huffed out.
“The lying one. You’re first.”
“Now?”
“Now is as good a time as any.”
“Shit.” He wiped my brow with a cool cloth while I struggled to think. “She scares me, this shift scares me, and I really hate chopping wood.”
He barked out a laugh and dumped a bottle of water over me then leaned back and grabbed another from Elliot.
“You love chopping wood and you know it.” He held the bottle to my lips so I could gulp it down, moving it away when I started to choke on it.
“You’re an asshole!” I coughed, water spitting out with my words.
“Okay.” He chuckled. “I actually hate smoking, her mother made that quilt that’s lying on your bed, and I think you’re going to die, Charlie.”
My vision was blurry, but I could still see his silver eyes cut through the blur, the truth in them so evident that it was the only clear thing in my hazy brain. “You don’t think I’ll die.”
“It’s not about what I think.”
“But it helps.” In that moment, it clicked in me.
Something raw wrapped its arms around me and shook me furiously until the fog parted. “I don’t want to die,” I said through the pants. “I’m not going to fucking die.”
“Good,” he replied with a pleased nod.
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the moon.
She was red in the sky, full like she had drunk a heavy filling of blood as she looked at me. I could hear Levi saying something to me, but all I could think about was how beautiful she was and how I so badly wanted to touch her.
I blinked again, and this thing in my mind raced forward. Levi wiped my brow. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by my screaming.
My arm had cracked, contorting into a bad Barbie limb.
More cracking sounded while she called to me like she was my mother calling me home.
It had begun.
I was shifting.
