The morning sunlight picked up the silver in Levi’s hair in a way that almost made it look as if it was glowing. I had seen people pay ungodly amounts for that shade of silver, and it was growing in a mess on top of his head. It figured he could’ve cared less—like Levi himself, even his hair was cool without any effort.
Levi watched me closely while the line on the other end of the phone rang. I wished he would leave me to this humiliation on my own.
I clutched my coffee with one hand and struggled to hold my burner phone with the other as my hands grew balmy.
Derek had biscuits in the oven that should have made my mouth water, but my nerves had chased my appetite away. If
Levi hadn’t been here, then I would have thrown up.
“Hello?”
My breath caught. “Uh—hey, Yulanda.”
“Charlotte?”
“It’s—uh—it’s me. Sorry it’s been a few days. I just—I made it.”
Lie number one came out easier than it should have. My stomach churned.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured. I could hear kids in the background before a door slammed. Silence replaced the happy laughter of children. “You’re okay?”
My heart was pounding. My tongue was starting to feel heavier in my mouth. “I’m okay.”
“And you found the cabin? Did you make it to a store to stock up? My brother has a lot of things canned, but you’ll need fresh groceries.”
“I found it. I was going to go to the store today. I had a lot left over from some things I picked up along the way.”
I paused. I could imagine her now. Her eyes softening while her brow furrowed. She always had this look of understanding when she was trying to put the pieces of me that Nate had torn apart back together.
“Charlotte,” she said. “Charlotte, please tell me you’re not going back.”
“I’m not,” I replied. And that wasn’t a lie. “I’m not going back to him. Ever.”
The moment the words left my mouth was the moment I knew I could never take them back.
She released a breath. “Promise me?”
Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine. I should have left a long time ago. “I promise,” I choked out. “I’m sorry. I put you through—”
“Never mind that. You never apologize. Never. Do you understand me? This is not your fault.” She paused. “Do I wish you would have left earlier? Yes. Do I wish I would have said something earlier? Yes. Do I wish I could go back in time and drag you out of that house? Absolutely.
“But that’s the past. Past is the past. You need to let go of it and look to your future. You have so much time ahead of you. Don’t let him have any more years of your life.”
I blinked hard as the first tear fell. A bottle of emotions had been capped for too long. Anger, bitterness, self-loathing, and even rage bubbled inside me. “I don’t know why I couldn’t just leave,” I found myself saying, my own voice breaking. “I can’t get him out of my head. Why is this so hard?”
Why is this so fucking hard for me?
“Because you loved him, baby girl. There’s no shame in love. The shame is on him for abusing you and your feelings.”
“But you’re right,” I admitted. “I should have left sooner.
I was so stupid.”
“Enough of that,” she stated. “Enough. You only need to worry about yourself.”
I nodded. “Has he tried to look for me?”
She sighed. “He won’t find you. He has no idea about my brother.”
“Please tell me you don’t work for him anymore.”
“Like you, I wish I would have left a long time ago. But I couldn’t have left you alone with him.”
I sucked in a painful breath and wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry, Yulanda.”
“Stop with that. Just worry about yourself.”
“If he comes looking?”
“If he does, he’s going to snoop around us first. I can let you know if I hear of anything.”
“Please do,” I replied with a sniffle.
“I’ll do what I can to throw him off. Promise me you will call if you need anything? I mean it, Charlotte.”
“I promise. Thank you.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Thank you so much, Yulanda.”
“Be safe, Charlotte,” she told me.
“You too,” I answered, before hanging up.
My body shook as ugly sobs came out of my mouth.
“Charlotte?” Derek asked, lingering at the door while my body slowly began to break all over again. Eventually, I found myself clinging to him while I cried in the ugliest way.
I could very well be dead soon. The thought of Nate coming after me seemed so tiny in comparison to this ugly truth.
“It’s all right,” Derek said. He was petting my hair almost like my mother used to. It always calmed me down when I was little and the storms outside were the monsters I couldn’t hide under the covers from. But now, it did anything but that. Because when I opened my eyes, I saw silver ones staring back at me. Fear hummed through me but there was something else starting to break through the fog. Something else smoldering like the embers of a fire. I wasn’t sure what it was, but ever since I was bitten, it was making itself more and more known.
Levi held my gaze for a moment, something flickering in his silver eyes, but I couldn’t place it, because it was gone as soon as it came. He didn’t ignore me after that, but he wasn’t exactly trying to make friendship bracelets with me either.
Rather, it felt like he was stalking me the way a vulture stalks a dying animal. Just close enough to smell death.
I knew my days were numbered—I had three left, to be exact.
Within those three, my body seemed mostly healed from that night the rogues attacked me. The fake tan still held on to the corners of my body, but every shower I took washed more of it down the drain. The only thing I couldn’t run from was my scars. The jagged pink lines would always be a reminder.
I also had started to put on weight, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Derek claimed that I needed the meat on my bones, but I just felt like a calf being fattened for slaughter.
In the back of my mind, I could hear Nate commenting on how chubby I was letting myself get.
I just wanted him out of my head, but the closer I got to the full moon, the more vicious he became in my dreams.
His hands would turn to claws and his mouth into a muzzle that I could hear growling at me until I realized that it was my chest vibrating when I eventually did wake up.
The day of the full moon Derek tried hard to keep my mind off things, but I still felt like a soda being slowly shaken up. Anxiety ate away at me, while the lunch I ate eventually ended up in the toilet.
“So, when does this thing start?” I asked as I put a fork down on the table. I had tried to push the inevitable out of my brain, but now I was looking straight down the barrel at my fate. There was no more putting it off.
Derek had made a giant dinner of cheesy lasagna for me, although my churning stomach wasn’t thrilled at the sight. I still ate some to be polite. It would be a shame to let all that cheese go to waste.
“Go on, Levi, tell her.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose. Levi was pouring himself a glass of wine, bright-silver eyes looking right at me. “Once the moon is out, it can start anytime. Sometimes right after for some, and sometimes much later into the night. It’s different for everyone.”
“How long does this first time take?”
“Depends,” he answered. “The other humans it was on and off all night. Some ended early in the morning, before the sun came up, and some it wasn’t until daybreak that it ended.”
I licked my lips and looked at my fingers. The thought of each of them breaking one by one made all the food in my stomach feel like bricks.
“So, the beast comes closer this time?”
Levi nodded. “You’re going to feel like she’s trying to rip out of your skin. Some things may break, some may not.”
He pushed the cork back into the bottle.
“And?” I asked.
His broad shoulders shrugged. “Probably best if you don’t let her rip out of your skin.”
He walked outside with his glass, the door slamming and springing Derek to life. He zipped around in the kitchen then over to me, stopping right as he uncorked a bottle with fancy cream tissue paper wrapped around it.
“We don’t tell Levi when we unwrap bottles. Got it?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You keep thinking that way, then he’s right—she’s going to rip you apart. But I don’t think that’s really what you want, is it?” It wasn’t. I nodded, even if the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth, because I had no desire for that kind of death. “If you can’t fight for what you want, then why would anyone else help you?”
He left me with a glass of wine and my meal, which I ended up inhaling. If there was one redeeming thing, it was that this had to be one of the best meals I’d ever had. Even with all the fancy five-star restaurants Nate always wanted to try, nothing beat a home-cooked meal from someone who actually gave a shit.
After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen while Derek ventured outside. When he returned, he had a dead snow-white rabbit in hand. He set it on a stump outside used as an end table, next to a rocking chair. His eyes glistened in the dusk as they caught mine. “Come out here!” he called through the screen door.
It was a soft dusk out, the kind that held the magic of night and promise of day all in the same breath. Silence crept over the yard. The breeze through the trees was quiet—almost as if it was being careful to not disturb something.
I licked my lips as my nerves sizzled to life. Nothing crazy had happened yet. I wondered if the two of them had been blowing smoke up my ass. But I knew better. The minute I looked at the moon, I knew there was something about it. Goose bumps broke out over my arms at the sight of it—a sight that drew me in like a siren.
“I need some blood.” His voice broke me out of my trance.
I blinked and looked over at him. He had a pocketknife out and a bowl next to the rabbit. “Small cut should do it,” he said, pointing to my hand.
“Uh—why?”
“Tradition for wolves in their shifting phase. You make a sacrifice to the moon so she will show you favor. You give her the blood of something pure, along with a sacrifice of your own.”
I returned my gaze to her in the sky. It felt too quiet now, like the forest was holding its breath. Ripping my gaze away, I nodded at Derek. I would take whatever help I could get at this point.
He made a small cut in the center of my hand, drawing a hiss from my lips, and quickly moved the bowl under my palm. “Sorry, I don’t need much,” he said, letting blood pool in the bottom. “That should be good. Better go wrap that up.”
“Is there anything else?”
“A few more things,” he replied, slicing the rabbit’s neck over the bowl, where its crimson blood swirled with my own.
My stomach churned at the sight. I walked back into the kitchen as my heart started to flutter in anticipation.
Mechanically, my hands reached for the sink and rinsed the blood off. It swirled down the drain, dark stains on shiny silver; the next thing I knew, I was puking into the sink.
“Fuck me,” I groaned, wiping my mouth off.
I reached for a glass and washed my mouth out, then spit into the sink. I had to get a grip. But all I could do was wait. I hated the wait.
I found myself sitting on the porch and watching Derek.
He picked some moonflowers that grew in large pots and dipped them into the blood mixture. He had me hang them in the windows of my room, giving me something to distract myself, but I could feel my stomach eager to churn again.
I paused and wiped some sweat off my forehead after I hung up the last flower. I was hot. I wiped my forehead again and stared at the sweat on my fingers, my heart picking up in my chest as realization came to me.
I thought I had just been working up a sweat, but I was close to panting. I shouldn’t be like this from this amount of work. This felt like I had been sprinting around the house with a thick coat on.
“Shit,” I murmured, my eyes still stuck on the glistening beads of sweat on my fingers. I could feel another one slowly rolling down my cheek as I tugged at the collar of my shirt.
Something cut through the air, making a light whistling sound. “You’re going to want to strip down.”
I froze. My eyes snapped up to meet Derek’s. “What?”
“You’re getting hot but you’re going to get warmer. You won’t be comfortable. I promise, you’ll thank me.”
“I don’t—” I wasn’t about to let two strangers see me half naked. I was more self-conscious even than being around Nate, and he had seen every ugly inch of me.
“Something loose then? Shorts? Big shirt? I can bring one of mine?”
“Okay.” I gulped with a nod. Sweat rolled down my back between my shoulder blades.
He zipped out of the room while I took my shoes off. I had barely pulled my socks off when he set a gray shirt and some shorts on the bed next to me. “You’re going to be fine,” e told me.
He stepped out and let me change into the things he’d brought me. But even in his clothing that hung loosely on me, I was burning up. It still felt like the material was hugging me in the wrong places, sticking to and grasping areas that I didn’t even know could feel this swampy.
“Can I?”
“Yeah!”
Derek stepped back into the room and went straight to the windows, opening all the blinds.
“What are you doing?”
“So her eye is on you. Hiding from her now would be bad luck.”
I tugged at the collar of the shirt again. “Right.” I wiped some sweat off my brow then sat back down on the bed.
Derek whizzed out of the room only to return with the bowl, and motioned for me to tie my hair up. “Hold still.”
He dipped his finger into the blood then traced a line on the outside of half my face—from the edge of my brow all the way to the tip of my chin.
“What’s that for?”
“Moon’s favor,” he said. “I’ll get you some water.”
“What now?”
“Wait,” he said, forcing a bleak smile. “I’ll be back.”
I found myself leaning against the windowsill. I could feel the blood on my face running with the drops of perspiration. I pressed my cheek to the cold glass, but it didn’t help.
Everything felt too tight. Too hot. Steam was literally rising off my body.
I kept moving my cheek to try to find a cool spot on the window. My fingers rose to the glass while I blew out a long breath. I felt like I couldn’t get any fresh air—I wanted to get out of this hot skin that felt like a permanent sweat suit.
Derek tried putting baggies of ice on me, but those melted quicker than he could refill them. The cold wash-cloths were no better. They ended up clinging to me like my clothes.
“How much longer?” I gurgled through the water I was chugging. It felt like I had crawled through the desert. My mouth was like sandpaper, and no amount of water was sating me.
Derek reached next to him where he had coolers lined up with ice, water, and towels. He grabbed another water from the bottom, quickly uncapped it, and lifted it to my lips. “She’s getting closer—”
A whimper of relief came from my lips. I tilted my heavy head to meet the bottle. Water spilled into my mouth and all over my front as I chugged it down in messy desperation.
I pulled away with a cough. “She?” I croaked.
“The moon,” Derek answered, his eyes looking to the sky through my window. “I’ll be back. I need to get the extra bag of ice in the kitchen.”
I closed my eyes. My body felt so heavy—every heartbeat felt like a kick drum inside me, the beats demanding that I listen to it, and only it, while also shaking me down to the core.
The sound of footsteps nearing the room tempered my racing heart. “Did you get more ice?” I asked.
“You’ve made it this long. I’m surprised. Fever usually kills humans off.”
My eyes shot open. I stopped listening to the drum inside me. Something about his presence in the room yanked my attention to him.
Levi pulled a chair up next to my bed and took a seat, watching me with amusement before he looked outside. He closed his eyes, as if taking a deep breath, then opened them to reveal glowing silver eyes. His pupils pulsed to life like there was something else watching me behind him. “Like Derek said, we can’t escape her.”
My head rolled to the window. She was high and heavy in the sky, light reaching into the night like hands extended to combat the darkness. I found myself moving closer, the glow from her rays so calming—I wanted to go outside and let them comb over me. Hug me. It felt like they were the only thing that would keep me safe. But then her light pulsed, and when it did, something inside me ignited.
A sharp cry tore out of my mouth. It felt like that rogue wolf was biting my leg again. The scar felt like someone had poured gas on it and lit it on fire. The pain rushed up the veins in my legs in a rampage, coming through the rest of me with hot malice that rendered a silent scream from me.
It moved all the way down to my calves while also pummeling right through my stomach. I felt my back arch unceremoniously. My fingers clawed at the bed while my mind spun in circles. I tried to listen to the beat of my heart again, but as the pain moved to a new part of me, I was forced to listen to it and only it. I tried to take tiny breaths, breathe through it, but it was angry, lashing out at me as if it was screaming at me to pay attention.
“Charlotte!”
I knew it was Derek shaking me, but his face looked like a blur through the tears and black spots taking over my vision. The cold water he gave me a sip of brought me closer to reality, but the heat of my body only made focusing on the present a losing battle.
“It’s early, Levi,” Derek said, his voice sounding slower than I remembered it.
“The moon wants what she wants. We can’t stop her,”
Levi replied, his voice cutting through the heat wave around me and coming in almost too clear for comfort. “Go, Derek,” e ordered, as another wave of pain rolled up my leg and right to my stomach.
“Levi—”
“There’s nothing you can do now.” The pain was picking at my gums. My canines were almost itching before a stabbing feeling took over. “She has to do it on her own.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes softening as he looked at Derek. “You won’t want to see it.”
Derek stepped back, looking down at the ground.
Conflicted, he looked up me with a sad smile. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he told me before he stepped out of the room.
He doesn’t want to say good-bye, I thought.
My back was arching away from the needles crawling up my spine as something scratched at my brain. My head rolled toward the window. The feeling was too great for me to fight. I opened my eyes to look at the moon and immediately regretted it, because the minute I saw her full figure glowing in the night sky was the minute I felt something roar to life in my mind. I sucked in a breath, the presence so loud and so clearly there. I looked back at the moon and felt this thing move in me. My eyes trailed down to my legs where ripples curled over my skin as something pushed closer to the surface.
“What the fuck?!”
Levi’s eyes were glowing brighter in the dim light of the room. He snapped his gaze over to mine. “Do not let her out.”
“Her?” I groaned as the scratching started. It felt like it was scratching at my skin from the inside, trying to get out. I cried out as needlelike claws felt like they were raking against the inside skin of my arm; I looked over to see actual claw marks start to appear.
Levi grabbed a cold towel and wiped the blood off. “She.
Your wolf. She’s here now. She wants out—you’re not ready.
You let her out and that’s it. Both of you die.”
Another moan rolled out of my mouth as a wave of heat and pain tided over me. “How?” I begged. “She’s not even real. How?”
Levi chuckled darkly. “Oh, she’s real all right. She’s as real as it fucking gets right now. If you can feel her, then you can grab her—then you can stop her. And by the looks of it, it seems like you can feel her.”
I bit my lip so hard that blood pooled in my mouth.
I wanted so badly to look at the moon but knew better. I was terrified of what would happen if I did. I was terrified I wasn’t strong enough to stop her if I did.
Closing my eyes, I tried to “find” her. Tried to “feel” her.
And he wasn’t wrong. It was like I could feel her pacing back and forth in my mind. She was anxious, angry, and absolutely over being held back. She wanted out, wanted to run free.
With my mind, I reached out to her. Carefully, I approached until I could gently nudge her with my brain.
I felt her pause her pacing as curiosity surrounded her. I held my breath, hoping she would calm down, but that was a wasted hope.
Another wave rolled over my legs. My scar started to rip open, blood rolling over the new skin. She charged forward, ready to run right out.
But I was done being a fucking doormat that people could bulldoze over. I grabbed whatever it was and yanked it back. Another cry came out of my mouth as the knifelike claws raked along my ribs.
“Bitch,” I hissed. I could feel her snapping out of my mind. She slammed her jaw shut, the sound of her teeth sending chills over my skin.
“She wants to come out,” Levi said before he leaned forward. “You either are going to let her win or keep her where she belongs.”
“How?” I squealed. Needles felt like they were trying to pierce my gums. She was so angry—an anger I wasn’t sure I could beat.
“That’s up to you,” he replied. A challenge.
Another wave of pain pulsed through me. In the back of my mind, I could hear Nate laughing at me, shaking his head at my insolence before his eyes turned angry. A familiar fear flared in me.
She paused her raking claws at my skin to pay attention to the memory. It was then that I felt the shift of her anger away from me toward him. She wanted to rip his throat out.
She wanted to jump out of my skin so she could claw his eyes out. I paused as the memories of Nate kept playing. It was as if I could feel her paw at them for more—like I could feel her hunger to know me.
I held my breath as an idea flared. What did I have to lose at this point? I closed my eyes and let the memories flow—all of them. I let her see the things I never wanted anyone to see—let her know about the true monster that had been chasing me. If she, this beast in me, was going to be part of me, then she deserved to know about the demons we had to dance with.
But the memories only enraged her. She wanted to jump out of my skin, but this time it felt like she was hungering for Nate’s blood and not mine.
I yanked her back again, already growing tired of this deadly game of tug-of-war.
I rolled my head to see Levi looking straight at me. My nail beds felt like they were being stabbed with steak knives, but somehow, I held on. I hadn’t made it this far so this thing could kill me, and I would be damned if I was going to let someone like Levi see my last breath.
I could feel another pulse of pain coming for me, and in that moment, it felt like I was slipping. In that moment, I was in my old backyard picking flowers with my mother while she drew in her favorite sketchbook. Wind was blowing through my hair. It smelled like fresh detergent and wildflowers. My mom had all the sheets drying on a line outside.
I could hear a whining behind me but I didn’t turn around because I could see my mother. She looked around from one of the sheets, her mouth frowning at the sight of me. “What are you doing here, Charlotte?”
My eyes found Levi’s. Besides the light from the moon, his eyes were like the light of a lighthouse pulling me through the fog.
A stabbing feeling twisted in my leg while tendrils of torment tried to rip at my skin, like Nate had ripped at my clothes my last night at home. I had told him to stop, begged him to wait until the morning when he wasn’t drunk, but he hadn’t cared. He hadn’t been able to find the clasp to my bra that night—I still had the red marks all over my back from his drunken confusion.
She was clawing at that memory. I hadn’t wanted him that night, but at the time it was hard to think that I deserved better.
A sharp pain in my fingers snapped me back to reality. I could hear myself crying out for my mother while the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. It felt like either Nate was going to rip me apart in my memories or this thing in me was going to rip through my skin so she could sink her teeth into him. But she, this beast in me, paused for a moment before I felt her yanking at me, like she wanted me to join her in the fight.
Swirls of silver looked at me. My hand reached for them because they felt like hope, but something hit me then, like his fist had. It took all the air from me until there was nothing but the ringing in my ears while my lungs burned for oxygen.
There was a blackness calling to me. This time, I didn’t want to follow it. There was nothing peaceful about it this time. I wanted to scream for help but I couldn’t hear a sound come out of my mouth.
Levi opened his mouth, but a wave of pain hit me again.
His silver eyes were looking at me and his mouth was moving, but the blackness was clawing me down. I wanted to hold on. I had to hold on. This time, I couldn’t give in.
“I don’t—I want to—” My voice sounded nothing like me. “How much—longer?”
“Until she’s gone.” His eyes looked like the moon.
Glowed like it. In that moment I half wondered if they were truly that silver or if I was delusional.
“I hate her,” I gasped.
In that moment I did. In that moment I hated whoever could condemn anyone to this much pain. This hell was worse than whatever Satan’s worst sinners must be suffering deep in the circles of damnation.
Levi nodded then leaned his head on his hands, which were folded together as if in prayer. “I do too.”
