Page 60 of Such Sharp Teeth

“I can see it,” I’d said. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

At the time, I viewed these fun, easy conversations as standard, unextraordinary. When you’re young, you’re oblivious to what is rare because you don’t have enough experience to identify it.

A diamond is just a rock until you hold it up to the light.

I know now how rare it is to have these fun and easy conversations. To understand someone and be understood.

But understanding someone and accepting them are two different things. One doesn’t guarantee the other.

I clear the missed call from my screen and put my cigarette out on the back of my hand.

—

It’s the middle of the night, and I’m descending the stairs. The house is dark and quiet. Quiet enough I can hear someone breathing.

Their inhale/exhale is interrupted by something. A slopping. A crude, wet noise so unnerving, I lose my balance and slip down the final step, alerting the breather to my presence.

They snarl.

If I could, I’d run back upstairs, hide in my room, lock the door.

But I can’t. I’m dragged forward, towed into the kitchen like a hooked fish.

“Scarlett?” I ask.

The lights flick on, and I’m staring at myself. A version of me partially transformed. My mouth isn’t my mouth. It’s a wolf mouth, and it’s saturated in blood. Red tendons dangle from my fangs. I’m feeding on something. There’s carnage on the counter, and I hunch over it, feasting. Devouring. Fervently lapping up pools of blood, grinding bones between my teeth.

I look up, and my eyes burn red.

“Rory?”

I turn around, and behind me, it’s Ian. He looks past me, through me. He can only see the monster.

—

It’s the day of Scarlett’s shower, and I am overwhelmed with dread. Also, I’m supremely pissed off. I’m mad that this is happening. That Scarlett has to suffer through this. That I have to suffer through it. That once again no one listened to me. My mood is foul.

I’m up early to make myself look presentable, to change out of this grimy sweat suit, which has become my uniform. I peel it off and toss it into the laundry, then go into the bathroom for a long-overdue shower.

I take a deep breath and face myself in the mirror.

It’s there, lurking behind me. A smear of knotted fur and red eyes and cavernous jaws. I know if I just close my eyes, it will be gone when I open them, but I can’t look away. I can’t blink.

I smell it. I can smell the creature’s breath. The fresh death lingering inside its open mouth.

I can almost feel the coil of its hand around my side. The sinking of its nails into the place where it bit me. Where it took me. Where it turned me.

“Fuck,” I shout, throwing my hands up over my eyes. I leave them there, breathing into my wrists.

I allow my left hand to come down, let it slowly drop.

The wolf is still there. There, with one eye covered. Like me.

I step away from the mirror, and it does, too.

Its lips curl. My lips curl. It growls.

I growl.