Chapter 2

In the morning—what normal people consider morning, not the insanely early time Dad gets up—I drag my ass out of bed and rub my gritty eyes. I didn’t sleep much more, but I did finally nod off around six or so. Dad is hard at work burning food in the kitchen, already back from the first milking of the day.

I lumber to the bathroom and start shaving. I’m hideously stubbly; it grows so much faster than it did before. Something like the higher body temperature, I think. Everything in my body is accelerated. Which is cool, because I heal fast if I hurt myself, but the doctors also say I’ll have a shorter lifespan. I don’t know how they know. I don’t know if I even care. Live a long and fruitful life as a werewolf. Yeah, really top of my list.

I head down the creaky carpeted stairs, sliding my hand along the yellowed roses on the wallpaper. On the bottom step I stop, my nostrils widening. Eggs and onion and bell peppers and cheddar cheese and thyme—smells rush into my nose, overwhelming me for a second, before I piece them together into omelet.

“Hey,” Dad says. “You hungry?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

Now, more than ever. Now, I can’t say I’m ever satisfied. Then I sink my teeth into her peach-soft shoulder, biting to the bone and drinking the juice of her blood. I shudder and shove that nightmare to the back of my mind.

Blackjack, our brindled pit bull, lies under the kitchen table, his nose on the tiles, his eyebrows jumping as he glances around. Scars crisscross his neck and shoulders. I remember the day he got those scars, the same day me and Chris got bitten. I remember the silver-furred, yellow-eyed werewolf who did it.

“Brock,” Dad says. “Bring your plate.”

I grab a chipped plate and bring it to the stove. Dad shovels a giant omelet onto it, then starts cracking eggs for another.

“Looks good,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Dad says.

Neither of us meet each other’s eyes. It’s always been that way.

When I set the plate down on the kitchen table, Blackjack lifts his head with a rumbling growl. I freeze. Before it happened, me and Chris trained him as a curhounding dog, to hunt the very thing that I have become.

“Down, boy,” Dad says sternly.

Blackjack’s growl rises into a questioning whine. He glances at Dad, his ears pricked, his stump of a tail twitching with anxiety.

“It’s me, boy.” I bend down by Blackjack and hold out my hand for him to sniff. “See?”

The dog bares his teeth and growls again.

“Brock,” Dad says. “Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” I say, “he knows it’s—”

Blackjack darts forward as if grabbing a scrap of meat, only his teeth close on my hand. I shout and hit him on the muzzle.

“Blackjack!” Dad bellows.

The dog releases me and skitters back under the table, his claws scraping the tiles. He whimpers, his eyes darting between me and Dad.

“Shit,” I hiss. My hand has a crescent of red teeth marks on it; no blood, luckily.

“Told you not to touch him.” Dad yanks open the back door and drags Blackjack out by his collar. “Stay out there, dog.”

Blackjack whines as the door swings shut in his face.

“It’s not his fault,” I say.

It’s not his fault that I’m a cur now. He tried to protect me from the silver werewolf. He’s trying to protect Dad… from the wolf inside me.

“Should put that dog down,” Dad says. “Useless animal.”

“He didn’t break skin,” I say, as if that makes any difference. I drag a chair out and wince at the screech of wood on tile. “Can I eat this?”

Dad nods.

We don’t talk much more during breakfast, mostly just nods and grunts. Then we head upstairs to get dressed for Grandma June’s. All my nice shirts are wrinkled. I don’t think the clothes iron has been out of the closet since Mom put it there. A lot of things have stayed the same, like the photos I can’t stand to look at and the withering rose garden outside the kitchen. This farmhouse is too big and empty for two.

It’s been two years now since Mom passed away. I remember—even while I try not to remember—when she started wearing hats because she’d lost her hair, and how she got so, so thin, like a skeleton, and it scared me but I couldn’t cry, I was too old for that. Toward the end, when Mom stayed at the hospital more than at home, I remember Dad telling me to hold her hand. I was afraid of hurting her. She felt fragile, almost papery.

Now, standing before my mirror, I blink and scowl at myself. Do I even look like Mom? Grandma June says I have my mom’s eyes, the same gray-blue. But my square face and my hair, cropped and dishwater-blond, are my dad’s.

“You ready?” Speak of the devil.

“Almost!” I holler back to Dad.

I tighten a sloppy knot in my tie and yank my shirt straight. Grandma June insists that we all dress really nice when we visit for dinner. I hurry to polish the scuff marks off my fancy black shoes, then hear a horn honk outside.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I growl.

I thump downstairs, yank open the door, and nearly trip over Blackjack, who barks and jumps aside. Dad’s idling the pickup in the driveway. He waves at me and I sprint to him, yank open the door, and haul myself inside.

As I buckle my seat belt, he glances at me, his face blank. “Klutzy, huh?”

I grit my teeth. Dad’s always going on about how clumsy I am. Not like Chris, who was the star quarterback for the Cougars of Klikamuks High. I joined up, too, but I never amounted to much of anything on the team.

Dad shifts to drive and rumbles down the driveway. Blackjack trots hopefully after the pickup, but stops at the fence, his head high. I sigh. Poor dog. He can’t help that I fucked up my life in a spectacular way. If I were smart enough, which I know I’m not, I’d build a time machine and never do what I did.

We drive in silence away from the dairy, our windows rolled down, through cornfields hissing in the wind of the truck. Out by the Rutgers’s orchard, apples weight the trees and dot the grass like rubies that fell from a crown.

“Oh, hell,” Dad mutters, his foot on the brake.

“Aw, somebody hit a dog,” I say.

On the side of the road, a brown animal slumps in its own blood. As the truck crawls forward, I suck in my breath. No… only the hindquarters of a dog, then the naked arms, breasts, and face of a black-haired woman.

“Not a dog.” Dad talks through clenched teeth. “A gick.”

We slow to a stop, and I can see it clearly now: half-beast, half-woman. My gaze drifts down to where the skin below her bellybutton shades to fur. Her hindquarters look mangled. She must have dragged herself there before she died.

“Werecoyote,” Dad says.

“What, really?”

“Haven’t seen one in years. Must’ve strayed from the Indian reservation down south.” He snorts. “Roadkill was a lucky way to die. Werewolves here would’ve ripped that bitch apart for trespassing.”

All my muscles tighten. I’ve heard that werewolves and werecoyotes fight over prey and territory, but now it seems more… personal. Like if I sat still enough, I would feel an instinct to hate deep in my gut. Right now, I just feel sick.

“Are we leaving her—it—there?”

“Yeah.” Dad lets his foot off the brake. “They’ll clean up that bitch eventually, if the scavengers don’t get there first.”

As we pass the werecoyote, I turn to look at her face. A mistake. She was beautiful, I’ve got to admit, with glossy black hair clinging to full lips, and high cheekbones, and perfect breasts—dangerously deceptive.

I force a laugh. “Must’ve been a really stupid gick, to get run over like that.”

Dad laughs more heartily. “Too bad all of them can’t be so stupid.”

Yeah, Dad, what about me?

He accelerates, leaving the werecoyote behind. I blow out my breath. I wonder why this werecoyote ventured into dangerous territory, anyway. Was she chased here by werewolves? By the silver werewolf who bit me? I haven’t seen him since it happened. I haven’t seen any of the pack, but I know they’re still here, lurking in the forest and in my nightmares, in the nightmares of everybody in this town.

Dad switches on the radio, and country music replaces conversation and thought.