I'm running on legs that shouldn't hold up. Pain is a distant memory.

I slam past Mr. Whittemore, knocking him over. Leap into the room, and spend precious seconds trying to find the black wolf.

I catch a glimpse of a black tail going out through the window.

Smell blood.

I shouldn't be able to leap through that window, over Zeke's rumpled bed, avoiding the broken glass.

But I do.

I land in the melted snow and mud, slip and try to catch my breath as pain flares in my shoulder. The scent is strong, and I follow.

"Daad!" Zeke screams, his voice deafening me. He's back in his room. I vaguely remember rushing past him, a Zeke-colored blur.

I sprint after that black wolf, who is now so far ahead I can't see him. I wish I'd been able to hurt him, just a little, before this. He's perfectly healthy, well-rested, well-fed. Who knows, maybe if I wasn't injured and had eaten more than bread and jerky for the past week I still wouldn't be able to catch him. But I might have had a chance.

A few miles in, the adrenaline wears off. I begin limping. The scent is getting harder and harder to follow.

Panting, I slow to a stop, wanting nothing more than to collapse in exhaustion.

The black wolf is gone, and with him any hope of finding Kayla.

My options are to keep going, maybe after I lie down and take a nap, or go back to the Whittemore farm, after I take a nap. I imagine showing up, naked and bleeding, and watching the realization dawn on Mr. Whittemore's face when he matches the gunshot wound on my shoulder with the wolf he shot. I imagine slinking back and getting in my clothes and trying to hide my new injury, and my true self.

I decide to take a nap.

Crawling under the snowy branches of an evergreen tree, into the cozy, quiet, warm area created there, I fall asleep.

In my dream, time slows down as I run past Zeke in his bedroom. Instead of focusing only on the escaping black wolf, I notice the blood pouring down the front of his shirt, dark red against bright white. His pale face follows my movements as I go by, one hand clamped on his neck.

I can smell his blood.

It smells of pine and sweat and milk, pure and clean except for a sharp edge to it. A wet dog edge, too clean or maybe dirty underneath the clean. It confuses me, this smell on Zeke, as I'd never noticed it before. So confusing that for half a slow-motion step, I turn toward him.

That's when he peels his hand away from his neck like a band-aid on a gunshot wound, and I see the ragged edges of the bite.

Birds call to each other when my eyes snap open, telling each other to watch out for the strange creature in the evergreen tree. What is it? they ask, hopping on the branches they hope are out of my reach. A wolf but not a wolf, one says. A human but not a human.

I yawn, surprised when my jaw opens wider than I expect. I'm still in wolf form. I test my muscles – sleeping on the snow must have helped to numb some of my injuries, although the stitches in my side still feel pretty sharp. I roll my shoulder, feel nothing. There's blood in the snow and my fur is matted and sticky, but no pain. When I lick the blood away, there's nothing. Like I never got shot. I guess I overreacted last night, the bullet just grazed me or something.

(I flew backwards off my feet definitely got shot how did it heal so fast?)

The sun shines like the high beams of a car when I emerge from the shade of the evergreen. My own scent hangs heavy from last night, a trail back to the Whittemores.

If only I hadn't had that dream about Zeke. If only I could spurn all that Zeke and his dad have done for me.

Following my own scent back through the forest, I try to remember what Kayla told me about werewolves. Did she mention anything about biting, or am I confusing it with some movie I saw when I was younger – much younger – I haven't seen a movie in the past three years. Maybe something I read, although I don't read horror.

It doesn't matter. Zeke got bit, and whether it has an effect or not, he's hurt, and Mr. Whittemore might be too.

The morning is overcast and threatening snow. My shoulder might have felt good when I woke, but a few miles of steady trotting makes it sore again. The shoulder is the least of my worries. I begin to feel a tickle in my chest and cough a few times before noticing the blood spray I've coughed up onto the snow. There is something seriously wrong there.

(a punctured lung)

Definitely something that will be a problem if I don't do something about it. Of course, I can't just waltz into a hospital, no health insurance, covered in my own sloppy stitches, and a werewolf gene in my blood.

I smell the Whittemore farm long before I see it. Death hangs heavy over the entire place. It's too quiet. I can sense the restlessness of the farm animals. They can smell the death too. And the fear. The animals aren't used to being neglected in the morning, and after what they heard last night, they fear for their safety.

No, there's another fear tainting the air.

Zeke

The fear amplifies his scent, the one I'd grown used to over the weeks, the woodsmoke and onions and milk and manure that's engrained in his pores being pushed out through his sweat. My shoulder's on fire and my back leg feels like the stitches are ready to pop out, but I break into a run and head straight for the house.

The carcasses strewn about the yard are those of wolves, torn to pieces. One body lies whole amid broken glass. His neck is at an odd angle, likely paralyzed. When I approach him, one dying gray eye rolls toward me, seeking mercy. I grant him that much.

From the open window I smell Zeke and Mr. Whittemore and two other wolves inside, the coppery aroma of blood, lots of blood. Gunpowder stings my nose, and underneath the pungencies of shit and urine.

I hear breathing. One creature inside is alive.

There is no way I can leap through the shattered window like I did last night, and besides, If Mr. Whittemore is still alive in there with Zeke, I'd be smart not to show up as a wolf.

The change to human takes my breath away. I gasp sharply as my leg swells out and pulls the stitches, forcing me to use the house as a brace.

Inside, the living soul hears me.

He sounds almost like Zeke, smells almost like him. He moves when he hears me, readies himself.

"Zeke," I say when I can manage. "It's me, Dan."

I open the door and head inside.

Zeke's fear has not abated. In fact, it fills the air. I hesitate, confused. "Zeke?"

A scrabbling sound. He still hasn't answered. I listen for what he is doing. Dragging something, closing a door. Hiding something. I saw the dead wolves last night. And it smells like Mr. Whittemore is dead too, although that must have occurred after I chased the black wolf.

Slowly, I make my way down the hall, taking care not to slip in one of the many puddles of blood. I note the dark stain on the wall where I was shot, the nearly black puddle on the floor there.

"Zeke, it's only me. Daniel."

Then I smell it –

wolf

and I connect my dream to reality. "Zeke, I know you were bitten. You're probably confused right now. But I can help you. You don't need to be afraid." I reach for the doorknob.

The room inside is dark, the curtains drawn over the broken window. A pair of legs, heavy workboots laced on the feet, stick out from under the bed. I don't see Zeke but I sense him, waiting, in the closet. I keep my face half-turned in that direction as I edge toward the body.

I know Mr. Whittemore is dead, but what I still can't understand is why Zeke would hide his body. And so I need to see it. Pulling him out nearly pulls out my stitches, but then I see.

"Oh, Zeke."

Mr. Whittemore's face is half-eaten, and it looks fresh, blood dripping, no flies yet. His nose and one cheek are entirely gone, leaving slick white bits of bone showing, his teeth forever in a bare grimace.

"I killed him." Zeke's voice is guttural, nearly unintelligible. "I couldn't help it." A choked bark.

"Zeke..."

What can I say to make him feel better, when I murdered my own father? When I killed and ate a toddler?

"I'm a monster!"

I look at the closed closet door. "Zeke, come out."

"Nooo..." But the knob turns, and my friend emerges.

His face belongs in a freak show, his nose black, his mouth stretched wider than is human, his teeth sharp. Pointy wolf ears poke out from under his mop of dirty blond hair. His hands are huge, the fingers ending in black claws.

(have I ever looked like this?)

"I didn't mean to kill him," Zeke yelps, and covers his face with his paws.