Chapter 11 Danny's Unraveling (Danny POV)

Chapter 11 Danny's Unraveling (Danny POV)

The ball hits my hands and I pass it without thinking.
"Nice, Walter!" Coach Morrison's voice echoes across the gym. "Keep that energy up!"
I've been on the basketball team for exactly one week. Coach found me practicing alone after school last Thursday—working through drills I'd studied obsessively on YouTube, trying to exhaust myself enough to sleep without dreams. He watched for ten minutes, then told me to show up to tryouts the next day.
I made the team. Not as a starter, obviously, but as actual rotation. Not the statistician. Not the waterboy. An actual player.
"Walter, you're up!" Coach points at me. "Defensive drill. Marc, you're on offense."
Marc jogs over, senior, starting forward, the kind of naturally athletic guy who makes basketball look effortless. He's grinning, relaxed. This is just another drill for him.
My heart is hammering.
"You good?" Marc asks, bouncing the ball.
"Yeah. Fine."
He drives left. I react on instinct, my body moving faster than my brain can process. I'm in position before he commits to the move, my hand swiping for the ball.
Contact.
There's a sound. A crack like breaking wood.
Marc screams.
He's on the floor, cradling his right wrist, which is bent at an angle that makes my stomach lurch. The screaming doesn't stop. Other players are rushing over, and I'm just standing there, frozen, staring at my hands.
I barely touched him.
"What the hell did you do?" someone shouts.
Coach Morrison shoves through the crowd, dropping to his knees beside Marc. His face goes pale when he sees the wrist. "Someone call 911! Now!"
"I didn't..." My voice sounds distant. "It was just a normal..."
"Normal?" Coach rounds on me, and there's something wild in his eyes. Something that makes me take a step back. "You broke his goddamn wrist in a routine drill! What the hell are you on?"
"I'm not on anything!"
"Bullshit!" He's in my face now. "You show up out of nowhere, suddenly you're faster and stronger than guys who've been training for years? That doesn't just happen, Walter!"
"Coach, I swear..."
"Steroids? HGH? What are you taking?"
The gym has gone silent except for Marc's whimpering. Everyone is staring. Blake Morrison stands at the back of the crowd, arms crossed, watching with an expression I can't read.
"I'm not taking anything," I say, but my voice shakes.
"Then explain to me how a kid who couldn't make JV last year suddenly has the grip strength to snap bones!" Coach's face is red, a vein pulsing in his temple. "You think I'm stupid? You think I haven't seen this before?"
"Dad." Blake steps forward. "Maybe we should..."
"Stay out of this!" Coach doesn't look away from me. "I had guys in my unit who used performance enhancers. Thought they were invincible. You know what happened to them? Their bodies broke down. Their minds went with it. Some of them never made it home."
He's not seeing me anymore. His eyes are unfocused, somewhere else. Afghanistan, maybe. Iraq. Wherever his PTSD takes him when he gets like this.
"I want you tested," he says. "Today. You piss in a cup or you're off this team."
"I'll take the test. I'm not on steroids."
"You're off the team anyway." His voice is flat now. Final. "Get out of my gym."
"Coach..."
"I said get out!"
I grab my bag and leave. Behind me, the paramedics are arriving. Marc is still crying. Nobody says anything as I walk past.
In the locker room, my hands are shaking so badly I can barely tie my shoes.
I didn't mean to hurt him. It was just a drill. Just a normal defensive play. But the sound of his wrist breaking keeps replaying in my head.
My phone buzzes. School office: Danny, please report to the main office. Your mother called.
My stomach drops.

Mom is drunk.
I can tell the second I walk through the door. She's sitting at the kitchen table, still in her nurse scrubs from the morning shift, with a bottle of vodka in front of her. Not a glass. Just the bottle.
"Mom?"
She looks up, and her eyes are red. "You're home early."
"You called the school. They said it was an emergency."
"Did I?" She laughs, but it's not a happy sound. "Must've slipped my mind."
I haven't seen her drink in seven years. Not since I was ten and she went to rehab after driving drunk with me in the car. She's been to AA meetings every Thursday night for as long as I can remember. She has a seven-year sobriety chip on her keychain.
"Mom, what happened?"
"What happened?" She takes a drink straight from the bottle, and I watch her throat work as she swallows. "What happened is that I've been lying to myself. Thinking I could keep you safe. Thinking if I just... if I just pretended hard enough, it wouldn't happen."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're changing, Danny." Her voice breaks. "I can see it. God, your eyes are starting to look just like his."
"Like whose?"
"Your father's." She laughs again, bitter and sharp. "You're becoming just like David, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
I pull out the chair across from her and sit down slowly. "Mom, you're not making sense."
"I'm making perfect sense. For the first time in ten years, I'm making perfect sense." She stares at the bottle. "I thought the binding would hold. David said it would hold until you were at least twenty-five. Time to live a normal life. Time to be human."
"What binding?"
But she's not listening anymore. She's somewhere else, talking to herself more than to me. "Seven years sober. Seven years pretending everything was fine. And now it's all falling apart."
The kitchen tilts. "You're drunk. You're not making sense."
Her voice cracks. "I can't lose you like I lost David."
"Dad died in a car accident."
"Is that what you think?" She laughs, and it's the saddest sound I've ever heard. "Oh, baby. I've failed you so completely."
I pull my hand back. "I'm calling someone. You need help."
"I need another drink." But she pushes the bottle away, covering her face with her hands. "God, I swore I wouldn't do this. Swore I'd stay strong for you."
"Mom, please. Just tell me what's going on."
She's quiet for a long time. When she finally looks up, there are tears on her face. "Do you really want to know? Because once I tell you, I can't untell you. Your whole life changes."
"My whole life is already changing." My voice is harder than I intend. "I broke a kid's wrist today during basketball practice. I barely touched him and I broke his bones. I'm having dreams where I'm something else, something not human. I can hear conversations from three rooms away. So yeah, Mom. I really want to know what the hell is happening to me."
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she stands up, swaying slightly, and walks to the hallway closet. When she comes back, she's carrying a metal lockbox I've never seen before.
"Your father left this for you." She sets it on the table between us. "He made me promise not to give it to you unless... unless this happened."
"Unless what happened?"
"Unless you started to change." She slides the box toward me. "The combination is your birthday. He wanted you to hear it from him, not from me. Maybe that was cowardice on his part. Or maybe he just couldn't bear to tell you the truth himself."
My hands shake as I spin the combination lock. 0-8-1-5. August 15th.
The box opens.
Inside is a letter, a USB drive, and a small silver pendant on a leather cord. The pendant is carved with symbols I don't recognize—geometric patterns that seem to shift when I look at them directly.
I unfold the letter. The handwriting is messy, rushed, like it was written in a hurry.
Danny,
If you're reading this, it means the binding failed and you're starting to manifest. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I'm not there to help you through this.
You're a werewolf. So was I. It's genetic, passed down through the male line of our family. By the time you read this letter, you're probably experiencing enhanced senses, increased strength, violent dreams. It will get worse before it gets better.
But if the binding broke, it means you've met your fated mate. That's the only thing powerful enough to override the magic I used. And if you've met your mate, then destiny has other plans for you.
I love you, son. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the normal life you deserved.
—Dad
I read it three times. The words don't change.
Werewolf. Fated mate. Binding magic. 
"Danny?" Mom's voice is small. "Say something."
I look up at her. "Is this real?"
"Yes."
"Werewolves are real."
"Yes."
"And I'm one of them."
"You will be." She's crying now. "The transformation is starting. It'll be complete on the next full moon. You'll shift for the first time, and there's nothing we can do to stop it."
"When's the next full moon?" I ask.
"Uh?" Mom wipes her eyes. "I don't know son."
I stand up, taking the box with me. "I need to think."
"Danny..."
"I just need some time, Mom."
I go upstairs to my room and close the door. 
Somewhere around 2 AM, I finally drift off.
I wake up cold.
Not just cold. Freezing. And naked.
I'm lying on grass, wet with dew. 
"No." I sit up fast, looking around frantically. "No, no, no."
There's blood on my hands. On my chest. In my mouth, I can taste raw meat.
Twenty feet away, near the fence, is a deer. Its throat is torn open, its belly ripped apart. The grass around it is dark with blood.
I killed it.