Chapter 296

Chapter 296
Caitlin's POV

My arms seized up next the muscles in my forearms tightened so hard and so fast that my hands curled in toward my wrists.

I watched it happen like I was watching someone else's body. My fingers bent. My knuckles went white. The tendons in my arms pulled tight, and the pain that came with it was sharp and deep and constant.

Then my muscles stretched.

Something was pulling them in two directions at once, lengthening them, reshaping them. My calves cramped so severely I cried out again and grabbed my own leg, trying to squeeze the pain out of it. My shoulders bunched and rolled forward on their own.

"Breathe," Alex said from outside the bars. "Caitlin, breathe. In through your nose. Out through your mouth."

"I'm trying," I sobbed. "I'm trying, I'm trying-"

Tears ran down my face and mixed with the sweat already there. I was crying and I didn't even fully realize it until I tasted the salt on my lips. I pressed both palms flat on the floor and tried to breathe the way he said. In. Out. In. Out.

It didn't stop the pain but it kept me from completely losing my mind.

Then I felt my teeth.

Something was happening to them. A pressure starting in my gums, pushing outward. At first I thought I was imagining it. Then I ran my tongue across my front teeth and stopped.

They were sharper.

I pressed my tongue to the point of my canine tooth and pulled it back immediately. It had broken the skin. I tasted blood, sharp and immediate, flooding into my mouth. I gagged. My gums were throbbing now, a deep pulsing pain that radiated up into my jaw and into my temples.

I pressed my hand to my mouth.

"My teeth," I choked out. "Alex, something is wrong with my teeth-”

"I know."

"I'm bleeding. My gums are bleeding, I can taste it-"

The pain in my gums sharpened into something stabbing and I cried out again, the sound muffled behind my hand. I spat blood onto the floor

Bright red against the grey stone. My whole jaw felt like someone had hit it with something hard. I pressed my fingers against my cheek and whimpered.

My fingernails were wrong.

I noticed it when I pulled my hand away from my face. My nails had been short, bitten down to almost nothing. They weren't short anymore.

They had pushed out past the ends of my fingers, dark and hard and curved at the tips. I spread my hand out in front of me and stared at it. The nails kept growing, slowly, visibly, each one sharpening as it lengthened. By the time they stopped, they were claws.

I made a sound I didn't recognize.

"Caitlin." Alex's voice was very calm. Very steady. Like he was working hard to keep it that way. "Look at me."

"I can't." I was shaking too hard. The pain was still there, rolling through different parts of my body in waves.

"Caitlin. Look at me."

I lifted my head. He was still there at the bars, hands wrapped around the iron, looking straight at me. His jaw was tight. His eyes were dark and serious.

"You are okay," he said.

"I'm not okay," I whispered. "Look at me. Look at what is happening to me. I am not okay."

"You're going to be okay. There's a difference. I know you don't believe that right now. I know this is the worst thing you have ever felt. But you are going to get through this. You are stronger than you think you are."

"Why is this happening?" A sob broke through my voice. "Why is this happening to me, what did you do-"

"Caitlin-"

"You bit me." The memory hit me without warning. Days ago, before the cell, before any of this. In the chaos and the dark. Something sharp. A moment of pain I had convinced myself I imagined.

"You bit me. I felt it. I thought I was wrong, I thought I imagined it, but I didn't. You bit me, Alex."

He didn't say anything.

"You bit me," I said again.

The heat surged through my body again, violent and sudden, and my spine arched without my permission. I gasped and caught myself on my hands, claws scraping against the stone floor.

"Caitlin, let me explain-"

"You did this." My voice dropped. It didn't sound like mine anymore. It was lower and rougher and it vibrated in a way that scared me. "You turned me."

"Caitlin, please-"

Something built up from somewhere behind my sternum and climbed into my throat. A growl. Low and real and animal. It came out of me before I could stop it.

"You turned me," I snarled.

And then the darkness rushed in from every direction at once, and I didn't feel anything at all.