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“Man, I’m hungry.”
As soon as the words exit his mouth— paired with a serrated sigh that seems to drive a wedge between each of his ribs— Max isn’t sure why he spoke at all. Anything that diverts from the path of their current mission is a definite no-go. He knows this. He knows it with every mile of road that’s gnawed up under the tires of their car which isn’t technically their car.
The look on Laura’s face tells him this too, before she even opens her mouth to rebuke his not-so-subtle suggestion. Her features are carved out of pure steel and determination while she drives, hands steady on the wheel despite being down one eye. The past couple months have hardened them, but even without this shitfest of a summer, he wouldn’t be surprised by her behavior. Dedication is practically her middle name; this is the same girl who pulled an all-nighter crafting handwritten color-coded flashcards to study for the SAT, and then she actually used them. Max took the test twice and still didn’t match her score.
Laura frowns over at him like this is just another one of his algebra class stunts. But this isn’t algebra class, and Max didn’t just try to launch a love note folded into a paper airplane at her from across the room. She lets out an ironclad sigh which does little to splinter her firm composure. “Check the glove compartment. Maybe Sheriff Asshat likes to have a snack while he patrols for rabid family members.”
“Hey, watch it,” Max says, aiming a teasing index finger at her as he bends forward to rifle through the contents of the car’s storage. “I’m one of those rabid things now, remember?”
“Right, yeah, but... it’s not you. Not really.” Laura shakes her head, rubs her nose. She focuses on the road illuminated ahead of them by grimy tan headlights which, in this fog, have the same amount of strength as the ass end of a firefly. “Let’s just get through this, okay? End the curse. Then I’ll take you to the first all-you-can-eat buffet we come across on the way home,” she tells him.
Max can’t help grinning fondly at her when she’s not looking. “Okay, hon.”
He returns his attention to the glove compartment, but comes up empty-handed. There’s nothing but a mess of papers and pens and blank ticket stubs in here. Thanks for nothing, Sheriff Suck-ett. A small smirk is struck like a match on Max’s face as he praises himself for that nickname. His mirth quickly fades, however, when reality sets back in and reminds him that he will be going into this hungry.
Not just hungry. Starving.
Will that make this time worse? That is, if there is anything worse than performing accidental eye removal surgery on his girlfriend. The guilt pulls him apart like bread, reduces him to soggy pencil shavings. He can’t understand how Laura doesn’t hate him after that. She still loves him anyway. Call him a sap, but Max kinda-sorta really wants to marry her for it.
A tense silence festers in the car’s musty, shadow-lined interior. A shudder trembles down Max’s spine. The tang of damp asphalt sinks through the vehicle’s glass and cloth all the way into his bones. Even when he isn’t on the brink of transformation, smells seem so much more pronounced to him now. Visceral might be a good word to describe it. He scents fear, he scents pain. It’s been two months since he was first infected, and ever since then the world has been uncomfortable for Max. To him, the world smells like stale coffee breath and feels like tight clothes chafing sunburned skin. He detects everything and feels nothing.
But then, just for a moment, he’ll turn his head the right way and catch a faint whiff of Laura’s scent— sweet sweat, and a soft but heady taste similar to when he kisses her, something unable to be articulated even in his thoughts— and he feels a little more alright again. Her unmistakable essence lingers even under all the layers of that cheap shampoo they were provided at the police station. She’s warm sheets and towels fresh out of the dryer, and he would gladly spend the rest of his days tangled up in her.
Max has been smitten with Laura for a loooong time. She’s the girl who, when they were still only friends, charmed his parents into allowing him a later curfew— then she went on to actually bond and get along with his family. She’s the girl who bravely leaped off the high dive again and again during the swim unit in P.E. She’s the girl who gave Max a chance when he took a shot in the dark and asked her out. Several people around school couldn’t reconcile that Laura Kearney, as sharply attractive as she is sharp-witted, could possibly have the patience to date resident goof-off Max Brinly.
Their first date was mini golf and ice cream. Max still remembers the way she peeked at him from under the brim of her favorite pink cap while she tried to outsmart the giant lighthouse prop separating her from a hole-in-one. Her concentration was interrupted by a giggle at whatever dumb thing he’d said to knock her off her game just a little bit, because she was totally destroying him both score-wise and emotionally. And when Laura kissed him for the first time later that night, in his car right before he dropped her off, she tasted like strawberry ice cream and someone to be admired, and yeah, Max couldn’t believe his luck, either.
They can’t be too far from Hackett’s Quarry by now. It feels like they’ve been driving for forever. After being shut in for so long, the world seems unlimited. Boundless. If he was able, Max just might sprint off the face of the planet and not look back.
It’s getting dark. Outside is a mixing bowl of gray clouds and graphite trees and charcoal sky, all the same scenery being regenerated over and over at the edge of the road. Max peers out the window, rubs away some of the condensation. Something looms out of the darkness, a shadow, then a solid shape— a building! And a sign next to it, outlined in neon.
He perks up. “Whoa, honey, look! A diner! There’s a—”
The car soars past it like a meteor. Laura has always been what some might call an impatient driver, but now Max has to ponder if the lack of vision on her left side could possibly correlate with a stubbornly leaden foot on the gas pedal.
Max leans forward, watching the splash of light and color recede in the side mirror. He then shoots a wounded look at his girlfriend who, he must remind himself, is a very cherished companion who also, in theory, doesn’t taste as good as she smells—
Oh, shit.
“We don’t have much time,” Laura explains as if she’s reading his mind. She probably is. “And there’s one other issue, too.”
Max tips his head. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Um, that we don’t have any money? I don’t think they’d be too pleased to host a couple of dine-and-dashers. And if we’ve learned anything this summer, it’s that nobody around here is worth trusting. We have to keep to ourselves.”
“Well, you can trust me,” Max says, patting his chest, “when I say that I... am... starved.”
Laura glances over at him, her expression darkening. The worried dent in her brow deepens. “Your eyes,” she says, and Max’s heart freefalls. He feels like he just can’t stop stubbing his toe on this damn werewolf thing.
“They’re...”
“Yellow,” she affirms. Without skipping a beat, one of her hands darts away from the wheel to squeeze one of his. Seeking each other’s touch is close to instinct at this point after how long they’ve been together. When they’d been imprisoned, it hadn’t taken them long to figure out how to awkwardly angle their arms between the icy metal bars, around the edge of the wall that separated them, just so they could touch what they couldn’t see. Usually only their fingertips were able to meet, but it was something.
Now Laura’s fingers wrap around his, and he folds into her miniature embrace. It’s as near to an actual hug as they can get for now. He would give anything to go back to cuddling together under blankets in front of a glowing TV screen, back to their holding-hands-in-the-hallway days. Their shared existence was so stupidly simple a scant few months ago.
“Okay,” Max mumbles even though this is about as opposite of okay as things can get. “Okay. Great. Awesome.”
What if he turns while they’re still in the car? The full moon, like a giant watchful eye, will soon be climbing higher away from the horizon. The skeletal shadows alongside the road are already fading into the navy-dyed air. He can almost feel all that blood coating him like a second skin.
Laura stares at the road and says, “We’re going to fix this.” She nods like she’s trying to convince herself as much as him. “We just can’t trust anyone,” she repeats, voice slipping into a murmur. “Least of all ourselves.”
He can tell she’s making a conscious effort not to look at him now, and he understands why. What she really means is that, in these waning minutes before he reverts into the monster he doesn’t want to be, the last person on the planet Max can rely on is himself. The infection has a grip on his brain, though, and not his heart— but sometimes, one must win out over the other. Max has no choice but to maintain wavering trust in just one thing: his own self-control.
Another minute flies by, and another mile passes along with it, crunched like gravel under their tires. Max tries not to blink too much, because whenever he does, he starts seeing the bars of his jail cell again. That cold, divided cage Travis kept them in like zoo animals. Part of him wants to remember better, recall what exactly happened when he lashed out and snagged his claws on Laura’s face. The other part of him is relieved it’s a blur, while also ashamed that he can’t truly face what he did. He deserves to face himself, deserves to stare his monster directly in the eyes and confront it. But despite the events of that night, were-Max didn’t do anything to change Laura from his point of view— she’s still breath-stoppingly beautiful. And if breath-stoppingly isn’t a word, then he’s making it one now.
He just hopes she knows that. Not that his opinion is law or anything, but like, come on. Anybody who disagrees is a bigger dumbass than he is, because her being beautiful is simply a plain fact.
He should tell her. Even if she doesn’t care, even if she already knows, he wants to remind her.
In the distance, another building and sign pop up, this time more subdued in appearance. Max spies an opportunity to return the constant favors Laura has been juggling for him. She has gone and continues to go out of her way to protect him. He only wants to provide her comfort in any way he can.
“Okay, so here’s an idea— and just hear me out— but why don’t we stop up here?” Max nods at the rapidly approaching sign next to a squat, nondescript building.
The car doesn’t slow down. “... why?” Laura asks.
“I just think we should.”
“You told me to hear you out, but you’re not giving me anything to hear out, hon,” she points out.
“You bring up a very solid argument,” he says. “But.”
He watches her grubby fingers skim over the curve of the steering wheel in a vague drumming motion. “So let me get this straight,” Laura says. “You want me to pull over at this random sketchy drugstore, in this stolen police car, probably minutes before you turn, just so you can buy—?”
“— buy you an eye patch. Yeah.” Pause. “Wait, they do sell eye patches at CVS, right? Maybe we need to find, like, a, um... a pirate boutique.”
Laura tilts her head to the side. The half of her face that he can see is influenced by that specific brand of exasperated amusement she saves only for him. “I do hope you’re not calling me a pirate.”
Max shakes his head. His heart stirs. “No, ma’am.”
She scowls at him for his use of ma’am, and he scrunches his nose playfully at her in return. She rolls her eye, and Max swears he can feel her starting to tap the brakes. “Yes,” Laura eventually answers, “they should have medical eye patches. But what exactly makes you so sure that I’ll stop for this when I wouldn’t stop at that equally sketchy diner back there?”
Max considers. “Well, I...” His breath crackles through his lungs. He thinks about what she must’ve gone through, patching up that injury all by herself. The part of it that he can see, the gouges in her cheek, have healed remarkably well. But the corresponding gashes in his heart and nerves and self-worth are not faring as well. “I just think you deserve better than that bloody bandage, hon,” he admits.
Laura says nothing at first. Her jaw twitches, bone rippling under smooth but strained skin as she works out her response. Then— “Remember that whole not-having-any-money thing?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“You will?”
The incredulity in her tone would be insulting if he wasn’t similarly concerned about the outcome of tonight. Regardless, Max insists, “I have a plan. And hey, maybe we can score a bag of peanut butter butter pops or something while we’re at it.”
“Is your plan to turn into a werewolf in front of some innocent person?”
“No,” Max says. “Probably.”
Laura sighs. “When did you get so good at talking me into things?”
He beams at her. “I learned from the best.”
The car gradually loses speed until, by the grace of whatever weird, fucked-up gods are out there, Laura turns them into the parking lot of the crusty little store. She takes the turn jarringly fast, making sure to convey both her agitation and the ticking time bomb of their situation. Max reads her loud and clear.
“Come on,” he says, kicking open his door the moment they’re parked.
Laura stares at him and doesn’t move a muscle except to widen her one good eye. Max can see every stormy shade of blue in it. “We really don’t have a lot of time, Max,” she says.
In reply, all he tells her is, “Follow my lead.” For just a little while, it’s his turn to call the shots. And don’t get him wrong, he will eagerly pass the baton back to her when the time calls for it.
“Would you look at us. On our way to steal even more things,” Laura mutters as they tiptoe toward the entrance, both of them subconsciously scoping out the seemingly innocuous building. It’s a sixth sense they have unfortunately become accustomed to in recent times.
Max chuckles. “I doubt anybody would refer to us as model citizens anymore.”
She’s close behind him as he pushes open the door, and he feels her huff out a breath on the back of his neck. His own breath fogs up the door’s smudgy glass. “Remember, in and out,” she whispers, flicking his earlobe.
Max swats her away, but snorts softly. “In and out,” he echoes. Then he reaches down and finds her hand again to give it a supportive squeeze. Laura returns the gesture, as she always does.
They enter. The inside of the store is precisely as cramped and dingy as the weather-lashed exterior promised. Tinny decade-old pop music plays overhead, and the dull blue carpet underfoot is marked with mysterious stains and splatters. They pass a stereotypically bored cashier who looks one blink away from falling asleep. He’s too busy scrolling through his phone to take notice of the roughed-up couple disappearing down one of the meagerly stocked aisles.
Achingly aware of the ticking stopwatch inside him, Max tracks down the necessary item, which is thankfully in the second row they check. He then guides their battered two-person parade back to the front. Under the fluorescent lights, the seams holding together Laura’s mask of grim confidence are more visible. Max worries about what could probe those weak points.
When they reach the front of the store, Laura starts to veer away from him to make a break for the exit. When he doesn’t follow, she whirls around and gestures wordlessly. Max raises one hand in a signal to wait before inching towards the checkout counter. Laura desperately mouths something at him, but Max only takes notice of the cashier, who in return barely spares him a glance as he walks up.
“Good evening... um, sir,” Max pipes up after a hearty throat clear for good measure. In the edge of his vision, Laura waves wildly, but for the moment he ignores her.
The employee glares at him, apparently peeved to be ripped away from the TikToks flashing in quick succession across his phone screen.
“I just wanted to let you know... that...” Max trails off and jerks his head in Laura’s direction. “My girl here, she— she needs this.” He lifts the eye patch box in his hand, making sure the guy sees it. “So, uh, we’re gonna take it. And you can’t stop us.”
“Sure.”
“No, I mean, we’re— we’re going to take it,” Max repeats. “You read me? We are stealing this eye patch—”
“You think I care? Just take it and go, dude,” the cashier says, shooing him away like a gnat.
Max stands there for a second, dumbfounded. Is he really going to let them coast on out of here without paying? What sort of sorcery are people practicing around here?
“Max!” Laura hisses.
With a wobbly laugh, Max points his thumb over his shoulder. “Ha, well, that— that would be my cue. Pleasure doing business with you... dude.” He proceeds to turn on his heel and follow Laura back through the whiny doors.
“Yeah, except we didn’t,” the guy calls after them, admittedly correct in his statement. Max doesn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that, though.
As soon as they’re outside, Laura grabs his wrist like a claw machine fastening around a plush toy. She whirls around on him and demands, “What the fuck was that?”
“It was... I was... trying to have my moment. Tough guy moment,” Max mumbles.
“Your... tough guy moment? By letting him know we were actively robbing the store? He could be on the phone with the cops as we speak!”
“What cops?”
Laura drops her raised arms with a sigh. “Good point. But still...”
“Which is why,” Max steps in, gently steering her over to the car, “we should be burning rubber and getting the hell out of here ASAP, my dear.” He positions her so she’s leaning against the car’s hood, then breaks open the cheap little box which, as advertised, contains a single protective eye patch. Max falters for a moment as he gazes down at it in his hands. He wishes this small object could possibly be enough to protect Laura during whatever she will be enduring tonight. He imagines packing all of his love and loyalty and hope, all the fiercest parts of him, into this eye patch— just so she can wear it during tonight’s ordeal and remember how much he cares for her.
Laura has so much ahead of her. Such a huge, beaming future that Max is beginning to realize he might be an obstacle for, werewolf curse or not. At the very least, he’ll be a scar.
He doesn’t want her to die for him. But he knows she would.
Her voice slips softly into his ears. “Hon?”
Max avoids her eye for just a second longer and catches a glimpse of himself in the car’s side mirror behind her. He looks... less than well. Less than himself, which already isn’t a lot. A sheen of sweat gleams on his cheeks and forehead, and he seems to have shrugged on a zombie’s flaking, decayed skin over his own. His eyes already appear to be someone else’s, sickly gold and narrower. In hindsight, it’s no wonder the cashier wanted to get them out of his store so quickly.
“Y- yeah, it’s...” He rolls his shoulders and throws all of his attention back onto her. “It’s fine. We’re good. We’re solid.”
Laura offers him a supportive nod. “Let’s do this.”
With the softest fingers he can manage— how could they be sharpening into claws so soon?— Max begins to unwrap the bandage from her head. It’s like he’s watching an unboxing video that he dreads to see the contents of. But he has to see for himself what he did to her, no matter how many times she insists it wasn’t truly him who committed such an atrocity. At the end of the day, when the monster faded away, it was Max who was left shivering and naked on the floor in the dawn-lit aftermath.
The bandage is crusted with dried, brown blood, her blood, and his stomach turns. He thinks about Laura, alone in that police station bathroom, pulling every tidbit of veterinary knowledge from the recesses of her mind to stop herself from bleeding out of her eye socket. She’s familiar with all that is repulsive— she’s interned at a vet office, seen plenty of animal surgery videos and diagrams, and has even willingly popped a couple of Max’s back zits once or twice— but still. Holy bejeezus.
He peels the last of the bandage away, and a wave of her scent washes over him, briefly stunning him as he stares into the dark cave he carved into her face. Max coughs and tosses away the seen-better-days bandage. Brushing aside strands of her hair— now rendered a depressed, ashy blonde after this summer’s strife— he positions the eye patch around her head and fits it into place over that horrifying hollow. Thanks to the parking lot’s lone flickering light combined with nearby trees, shadows slash across her face like additional claw marks.
“You’re so beautiful,” Max murmurs, cradling her cheek and stroking his thumb along the hard-set line of her jaw. Laura’s throat bobs and she tries to duck her head, but he doesn’t let her. He needs to look at her for just a little longer, just in case it’s the last time they get to see each other like this. Once they leave here, they’ll only have the moonlight and maybe firelight, and after that, they could have nothing but eternal oblivion. Excuse him for being a bit melodramatic— other guys might blame it on the werewolfery, but Max proudly claims all this mushy emotion as his own. Laura isn’t just his girlfriend, she’s his best friend, and he loves her a lot. So sue him!
“Max...”
“I mean it,” he says, still holding her face. “And your eyes might be one of my most favorite parts of you, so I’m— I’m sorry I took one of them.”
Laura blinks at him once, twice. “It wasn’t you.”
Max bites his tongue and glances away. There’s no use in arguing with her. She will only ever see this vicious alter ego of his as an affliction, a temporary side effect of an illness, some momentary gunk in his soul. Shape-shifting and blood spurts also included for a limited-time low price of one bite plus lots of emotional pain! Max thinks with a stab of derision.
Laura retrieves his attention by mirroring his pose, reaching up a set of fingers that dance along the side of his face. He’s drenched in sweat with gray, pulpy skin and eyes like shards of amber, yet still here she is, pressing herself all up against him. She has experienced him at his actual worst— and still, here she remains.
Suddenly, an odd sense of primal desire pools low in his belly. Max attempts to shove it away, because if there is ever not a time to think about unbuttoning her shirt and kissing her neck in the mellow lamplight of her bedroom, now would not be that time. But god, does she smell good. He would bet piles of cash that he smells very not good right now in comparison.
Max risks leaning closer, and when she doesn’t shy away from his breath, he gives her a peck. He has only pulled back for a moment before Laura recaptures his lips. They hold the kiss for what feels like forever in waxing werewolf time. When she breaks it, she tells him, “Thank you.”
There’s nothing to thank me for, Max thinks. But out loud, he says, “For what, the eye patch? Listen, you can owe my super professional application of that eye patch to the many skills I learned during the two whole hours I spent in cub scouts.” As she crumbles into tentative laughter, he grimaces and adds, “... yeah. I did... not exactly thrive there.”
“Wow. You really were not meant to become a camp counselor, huh?”
“I guess that makes two of us.”
Laura twists her mouth. “Hmm, I don’t know if you wanna judge me so quickly, Smokey Bear,” she teases. “Remember how you mentioned being hungry?”
“Starving,” Max confirms. In a flash, Laura raises up a handful of granola bars that she must have stashed in a pocket on their way out of the store. His eyes light up.
“I took advantage of your manly moment and grabbed these while the two of you were occupied. They’re all yours,” she tells him, tossing the food at Max as she goes to open the driver’s side door. He scrambles to catch it all.
“Are you sure?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “I... don’t have much of an appetite.”
Max, who already has one granola bar shoved down his gullet and another hot on its tail, tips his head and says with his mouth full, “Understandable.”
They pull back onto the winding road. With the trip now resuming at full speed between ragged rows of phantom-like trees, the extreme lack of time before Max transforms becomes a sore spot rubbing between them. Right now the moment they just had feels like dangerously wasted time, though Max hopes that later it won’t seem that way. If there even is a later.
They might be two minutes away from their dreaded destination when Laura speaks up again. “So this is seriously happening.”
“Indeed it is, hon.”
“I just...” A sigh rattles her lungs. “Fuck. It’s my fault we’re in this mess. If I could just go back in time—”
“Whoa, whoa, hang on.” Max rests a hand on her arm. “That isn’t the anti-pep talk you need right now. How were we supposed to know any of this would happen? We didn’t. And anyway, you can’t go back, Laur.” He thinks for a moment. “Maybe this is— is weird of me to even say, but I sort of don’t want to take back these last couple months, because even though it was hell on earth, it was still time I got to spend with you.” He seeks out her gaze in the dim light of the car’s cabin, and she rewards him with a flash of eye contact before returning her stare to the road.
“Now that you mention it,” she whispers, “I feel the same way.” Her voice almost cracks, but she catches herself and bolsters the weak spot before she can trip over it.
“And for me, the most important outcome of tonight is that I...” A shuddery breath puffs through Max’s nose. “I just... don’t want to hurt you again.”
Laura’s hand flits over to pat his knee. “You won’t.”
They both can only hope that isn’t a lie.
The car ride closes with a minute of pinched silence. They go through one of the less-used entrances to the campground and snake along a seldom-used driveway scarred with a series of pockmarks and bumps. The sun dips low in the sky before being swallowed by the horizon, taking Hackett’s Quarry’s idyllic postcard view with it.
A few minutes later, the pair stand at the lapping shore on the far side of the lake and observe the scene that has been set. Their less-than-legally borrowed ride, which Laura left in neutral before leaping out, sinks slowly into the murky depths. Deeper and deeper until, with one last gleaming wink from its white roof, the police cruiser succumbs to its watery grave.
“Y’know, it would almost be beautiful,” Max remarks, taking note of the milky sky and glossy lake, “if it weren’t for the whole full moon thing.”
“Agreed,” Laura says. Then she frowns and takes a few steps forward, squinting toward the distant dock. “Holy shit,” she breathes.
Max follows her gaze. “What? Wh- what is it?”
“There’s people still at the camp. Oh my god, Max, they’re— don’t they know? Didn’t Chris Hackett tell them?” She points at a spot on the opposite shore where there’s a faint smear of movement. “They’re at the fire pit. What are those idiots doing?”
“I know, right? It’s like they’ve never seen a horror movie before.”
Laura throws him a really? look, but then she replies, “Or... they’re just like us, two months ago.”
“Yeah.” Max gulps. “We were those idiots.”
“I gotta get going. I need to warn them, or— or get rid of them, somehow. If they’re in their right minds, none of them will want to stick around for the grand finale tonight.” Laura spins away from the shore and makes her way over to the camp’s treehouse, which they determined will be Max’s home base for the night. But before she can get very far, Max steps in front of her and yanks her into a bear hug.
She hesitates, but then melts into the embrace. They have a mutual thought that remains unspoken: this could be the last time they’re linked together like this. This might really be marking their final goodbye.
Losing himself in the press of Laura’s forearms between his shoulder blades, impossibly firm and gentle at the same time, Max wonders, “How the hell are you so brave?”
He’s breathless, enamored, honored, and that’s all before Laura leans away and answers, “I don’t know. I guess...” There’s a simultaneous sigh, shrug, shake of her head. “I just know what I need to do, so... I’m going to do it.” Despite her jaw being set with concrete determination, her eye glitters with gooey affection. “And you’re going to be okay.”
“Or else—”
“No, no ‘or else.’ You will. We’ll get out of here and we’ll go home, a- and— we’ll figure everything out from there. College, all that stuff. There’s still a little time. Summer’s not... technically over yet, right?”
Max offers her a gloomy grin. “Right.”
They march up into the treehouse, where Laura helps him assemble his full moon shelter. Another granola bar is discovered in the shuffle, and Max devours it while Laura sets up their two duffle bags against the wall. “There are spare sets of clothes in here,” she informs him. The gun she nabbed from Travis— the one with the silver bullets— rests next to her on the raw wooden floorboards. She picks up the weapon gingerly at first, but she becomes more sure of her grip as she moves it from one hand to the other. Max has always admired his girlfriend’s preference for subtle shows of love, and her typically pacifist self wielding a gun on his behalf is certainly damning evidence of that. His heart stumbles.
Laura rises to her feet, regarding Max from where he’s sprawled on the floor, surrounded by a smattering of crumbs like granola confetti. He’s getting more animal by the minute. “Maybe we should lock you in here somehow,” she muses, surveying their dim surroundings. Her gaze lingers on a trapdoor overhead. “Away from our campfire, away from the water. Just in case.”
“I’m on an island,” Max replies. “I doubt I’d get that far.” He tries to weave in a teasing lilt, but it doesn’t really shine through his words. He’s too far gone to make jokes about the situation now.
“Yeah,” Laura mutters. “I guess we’re pretty sick of being cooped up.”
“I wish I could go with you,” Max tells her. He’s met with heavy silence and her endless stare. Man, of all the nights we could’ve escaped, it had to be this one. “Not that you need me or anything.”
Her grip noticeably tightens around the gun. “I just need you to be safe. And you’ll be safest here while you’re...” She trails off. They both know there’s no need to fill in that blank.
Max gets to his feet and cracks his knuckles. He’s eaten probably twenty and a half granola bars, yet his stomach still howls like it’s filled with nothing but air and acid. “More like you and all of them,” he says, indicating the campfire across the lake, “will be safe from me.” Another touch of quiet, then he adds, “And on that note—”
“— I should go.” Laura gives a paradoxical hum of disapproving agreement. She heads for the exit, but hesitates with her silhouette frozen in the doorway, highlighted by the looming moon.
“Hey,” Max says. She peers over her shoulder at him. “Stay alive out there.”
Like a geode, Laura’s face cracks into the tiniest of smiles. “You too.”
But in the next instant, the moment falls apart. The warnings that Max has been trying to ignore for the past hour, all these chemical pulses and spasms aiming to warp his DNA, overtake him at last. He will once again be a prisoner inside his own body, his conscience numbed and replaced by a terrible something else. Max can’t decide if it is better or worse that he’ll be unaware of it.
He stumbles, stomach heaving, and his head weighs a million pounds. The world goes sideways. He hears Laura speak his name, but his insides feel pickled, fermented, sour, like he’s had too much to drink. He staggers forward again. She winces away from him. His vision bleeds into crimson.
“Max,” she whispers.
“Feel like shit. Y- you better fuck off,” he groans, hands digging into his knees. “Soon.” He can’t look at her face.
All this time, he’s been running on a pure, potent, dizzying mix of luck and adrenaline. It only makes sense that the curse has decided it’s about time his luck ran out.
Max only wanted a little extra time to spend, together, with her. And it had to lead to this, to her rubbing elbows a little too closely with danger.
Words no longer form on his tongue. They only come out as strangled grunts, like he’s chewing through barbed wire. Get away, he thinks. Begs. You’re not safe here. I’ll hurt you. Go! Run!
His eyes bulge as he stares at her, willing her to read his mind, and then— splat. Baptized in blood that isn’t quite his own, he rears back and roars, and the last human thought slips among the coils of his brain as if through a sieve: I’m sorry.
He plunges forward, suffocating the hot air in the treehouse with his size and intensity. Laura says something he no longer understands: “No. It isn’t you. It isn’t him.” She doesn’t shoot him. She doesn’t even raise the gun. She just runs.
Fangs flash in the darkness and, tongue lolling, Max gives chase.