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You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“I am sick,” his mother said. “Sick with worry. Jordan’s the one who will pay the price for us being careless... My sweet boy. Oh God, Marc, what will we do if he has it?”
“We’ll love him anyway,” his father said. “What else could we do?”
The sound of his mother’s sobs should’ve chased away any lingering hunger, but Jordan’s stomach only ached more. What were they talking about? If he had what?
Last year, Penny Devereux had been diagnosed with leukemia. She’d had to miss almost the entire school year, and when she’d finally come back, she’d worn a scarf to cover her bald head. She’d been thin and pale, and she still laughed a lot, but she wasn’t quite the same.
His parents had gone silent, but Jordan caught a whiff of smoke. That was bad. His mother only lit up when she was superstressed. She’d been trying to quit. Now she was smoking, right there with his dad, who hated it. Something was very wrong.
It didn’t stop him from going to the fridge, though. It was as though a phantom hand pulled him, actually, an impulse he couldn’t fight. He was so hungry he thought he might faint from it, that and the anxiety from overhearing what he knew they didn’t want him to know.
He’d come down hoping to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake or some of his mom’s homemade tapioca pudding, but what his hands pulled from the fridge’s bottom shelf was the plastic-wrapped platter of uncooked burgers his mom had put together for tomorrow’s dinner. Without thinking, Jordan tore the plastic off. Handfuls of soft ground beef went in his mouth. He barely chewed, shoving the food past his lips and licking his fingers. He couldn’t get enough.
The lights came on. His mother cried out. Jordan turned, as guilty and embarrassed as if she’d walked in on him in the shower or doing what he’d just discovered he could do under the tent of his sheets late at night. No, this was somehow worse, because somehow he knew it was related to what his parents had been saying.
Something was wrong with him.
“Put that down!” his mother cried, but she wasn’t angry, as she ought to have been. Fear had widened her eyes. He could hear it in her voice.
He could smell it on her.
“Jordan, give me that.” Dad was calmer, pushing past Mom, who clung to the doorway and burst into tears.
No. Mine. The thoughts rose unbidden, and though Jordan would never have dreamed of disobeying his father, he backed up still clutching the platter. His mouth hurt. He tasted blood, and not from the meat but from his own gums. He ran his tongue along his teeth and felt the burn and sting of a wound opening—he’d cut it on something sharp.
His own teeth.
Mine.
The thought rose again, but this time, he tossed the platter to the floor. Raw meat splatted on the linoleum, and he backed up with his hands in front of him. There was more pain. He clenched his fists. More cuts, fingernails long, sharp. There was blood.
He would carry the scars on his palms for the rest of his life.
“You’re going to be okay, son. It’s all going to be all right,” his father said, but the look on his face told Jordan that nothing was going to be all right.
Not ever again.
* * *
Jordan woke with a startled gasp, hands in front of him. He’d clenched his fists and winced automatically at the expected sting of his nails pressing his flesh, but the years of self-discipline had worked. He wasn’t going to run off into the night and start making mayhem.
Still, he got to his feet with the memory of those long-ago burgers coating the inside of his mouth. He spat, then again, but he could still taste them. He still wanted them. He would always want them, the way he’d always want to run and punch and break and devour.
With a low groan, he closed his eyes and breathed deep. He focused. Not full-on meditation, which he did every day, but still a forced pattern of breaths that was supposed to relax him. A minute passed. He opened his eyes.
At fourteen, everything had changed for him. His parents, recessive carriers of a set of genes that had combined in him to make him different, had never planned to have children. And if he’d been a girl, he’d never have ended up this way, since only males manifested the condition.
Monica had said werewolves did not exist, but Jordan could’ve told her otherwise.
Monica had just decided to turn back and head for home when the first muttered cackling reached her ears. DiNero kept a bunch of peacocks that were allowed to roam freely over the estate. They weren’t particularly exotic, not compared to the big cats or rare Russian foxes, but they were pretty. And they screamed, Monica discovered when the sound rose.
She didn’t think twice but ran toward it, changing direction when another scream came. Her boots pounded the bricks, but then she dodged off the path and ran through the grass, past several habitats and into darkness. There was light from the house in the distance but she had to blink rapidly to try to get her night vision working. It didn’t happen fast enough. She tripped over something and went sprawling.
It was a dead peahen, its throat slashed and long runnels carved into its body. Just beyond it lay another, a carcass rather than a bird, most of it missing. Monica rolled with a small groan and pushed up from her hands and knees, already expecting something to rush at her from the darkness.
Instead, she heard another chattering set of screams from the distance. She didn’t want to run with her knife in her hands—that was a good way to end up stabbing herself. The best she could do was hope that whatever was killing the birds wouldn’t see her before she saw it.
The menagerie hadn’t been set up in grids or blocks, so she had to circle around one of the habitats, this one with a tall, domed cage. Inside it, small gray monkeys screamed and chattered. None of them appeared hurt and she couldn’t see any breaks in their cage, so she kept going. She was heading for the exterior wall, heart racing, when something hurtled at her out of the darkness.
Something growling. Something with eyes that flashed red and sharp teeth that snapped at the air in front of her, coming so close she felt the breeze of it on her eyelashes. Claws raked her side, pulling the blow at the last second so she could roll away with her shirt flapping in shreds. Pain stung her, but she was still able to get her hands up to push away the thing on top of her.
Too dark here to see more than shadows. All she could do was twist and turn, getting an arm up to keep the snapping jaws from getting at her throat. Monica screamed, anticipating the crunch of teeth on her forearm, but it didn’t come. She kicked upward and out, connecting.
The thing, which smelled of grass and dirt, growled but didn’t retreat. It fell on top of her again, crushing her into the ground. She felt hair and limbs and another press of teeth, but by then she’d fought her knife free of the belt sheath. No hesitation, Monica slashed upward. Her aim was off, but she still connected. Her knife stuck and she pulled it free. This time, the thing howled and backed off.
She needed light, but back here close to the exterior wall, she was in a giant blind spot. Her head spun from hitting the ground, and bright sparks of pain made everything a blur anyway, but she did see a shape, a head and a half taller than she was. She smelled blood. She slashed again, her grip weaker this time, but the thing smacked her knife from her hand.
Whatever it was hit her in the face, not claws but a curled...fist? A hand? All she knew was the crisp feeling of hair on her face and the solid thunk of flesh on hers. The blow drove Monica to her knees. She rolled, and the next hit her shoulder hard enough to drive her face forward into the ground again.
This time, she didn’t get up.
* * *
She