Chapter 2: The Taste

Luan did not sleep that night either.

She lay in bed with her hands folded on her chest and stared at the ceiling. The apartment was dark. The blinds were drawn. Everything was in its place—the books on the shelf, the clothes in the closet, the single mug on the counter. She had spent years making this space into a cage she could control.

But the thing inside her was pacing.

She could feel it behind her ribs, a low thrum like a second heartbeat. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the gold eyes in the tree line. Every time she breathed, she smelled pine and smoke and the cold clean air before a storm.

At 3:00 AM, she gave up.

She went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Eggs. Yogurt. Leftover rice. Nothing looked like food. Nothing smelled like food.

She closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer.

A single steak sat on the top shelf. She had bought it three weeks ago, told herself she was meal-prepping, then forgotten about it. The meat was dark red, frozen solid, wrapped in plastic.

Her mouth watered.

She pulled it out. The plastic crinkled in her hands. She set the steak on the counter and stared at it.

She was not hungry. She was ravenous.

She unwrapped the meat. The cold smell hit her—iron, salt, something deep and animal. She pressed her thumb into the surface. It was still frozen, but her thumb left a dent.

She brought the steak to her nose and inhaled.

Her stomach lurched. Not with disgust. With want.

She bit into it.

The meat was hard and cold and tasteless at first. Then her teeth broke through the frozen surface, and the blood came. Cold, dark, thick. It filled her mouth. She swallowed. Then she swallowed again.

She ate the entire steak standing at the counter, her hands slick with red, her jaw aching from the effort. When she finished, she licked her fingers.

Then she washed her hands for ten minutes, scrubbing under her nails until the skin was raw, and she did not look at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She knew what she would see.

She arrived at the clinic at 7:00 AM, two hours before her shift started.

The dog was awake.

Luan stood in the doorway of the recovery room and watched the shepherd mix lift her head. One eye was still swollen, but the other was open—brown, alert, watching her with the careful assessment of an animal that had decided to live.

Hey, Luan said softly. You made it.

The dog's tail thumped once against the cage.

Luan opened the door and knelt. She let the dog smell her hand before she touched her. The nose was cool, dry, still recovering. But the dog's eyes never left her face.

You need a name, Luan said.

The dog tilted her head.

Luan thought about the man who had carried her in. His hands covered in old blood. His eyes the color of dying light. The way he had sat on the floor for four hours, watching her breathe.

Someone is coming to see you later, Luan said. I think he wants to know you're okay.

The dog's tail thumped again.

Luan sat on the floor of the recovery room with her back against the wall and let the dog rest her head on her knee. The warmth was solid. Real. It kept the pacing thing behind her ribs quiet.

For now.

She was at the front desk at 4:17 PM when the bell rang.

She looked up.

Cass Wilder stood in the doorway.

He was different in the daylight. The blood was gone. His jacket was gone. He wore a grey sweater that had been washed too many times and jeans that were worn thin at the knees. His hair was dry now, dark and falling across his forehead. He looked almost normal.

Almost.

His eyes found hers immediately. The gold was muted in the afternoon light, but it was there. Something behind the brown. Something watching.

You came back, she said.

You said visiting hours were four to six.

She nodded. She did not smile.

He walked to the counter. He was careful about it—the way he moved through the space, the way he kept his hands at his sides, the way he did not lean or touch or take up more room than he had to. A man who had learned to make himself small.

I wanted to see her, he said. The dog.

She's awake. She's going to be fine.

Something moved across his face. Relief, maybe. Or something deeper. Something that looked like it hurt.

Can I?

Yeah. Come on.

She led him to the recovery room. She stood in the doorway and watched him kneel beside the cage.

The dog recognized him. Her tail began to thump against the floor, a steady, joyful rhythm. Cass did not reach through the bars. He sat on the floor and let her smell his hands, the same way Luan had taught him without teaching him, and when the dog licked his fingers, he closed his eyes.

Luan watched his throat move as he swallowed.

Thank you, he said. He did not open his eyes.

You found her. You carried her three miles. You held her while I cut her open. She paused. You don't need to thank me.

He opened his eyes. The gold was brighter now, catching the fluorescent light in a way that made her think of things that burned.

I'm thanking you anyway.

She nodded. She did not know what to say to the way he was looking at her. She had spent her whole life learning to be invisible. No one had ever looked at her like she was something that mattered.

What are you going to name her? Luan asked.

He looked at the dog. The dog looked at him.

Lucky, he said.

Luan almost laughed. Original.

She is. He scratched behind the dog's ear. She was on that road for a while before I found her. Should have been dead. Wasn't.

Lucky, Luan said.

She needs a home.

You offering?

He looked at her again. The gold in his eyes flickered.

I can't, he said. I'm not—I'm not someone who should have something that depends on him.

Luan heard what he did not say. I am dangerous. I am broken. I will ruin anything I touch.

She had heard those words before. She had said them to herself, in the dark, in the mirror, in the silence after every relationship she ended before it could begin.

She needs a home, Luan said. If you can't give her one, I will.

Cass looked at the dog. The dog looked at him with her one good eye, her tail still moving, her trust absolute.

I'll figure it out, he said.

They sat on the floor of the recovery room, on opposite sides of the cage, and watched Lucky breathe.

The sun was setting when Cass finally stood to leave.

Luan walked him to the front door. The sky through the glass was orange and red and purple, the kind of sunset that happened in the Pacific Northwest when the rain finally stopped. It made the parking lot look like something from a different world.

I'll come back tomorrow, Cass said. To see her.

She'll be here.

He stopped at the door. His hand was on the handle, but he did not push it open.

Luan.

She waited.

Why did you tell me your name?

She should have lied. She should have said something simple, something that meant nothing. She should have let him leave and gone back to her life of schedules and silence and the careful, brutal work of wanting nothing.

You asked, she said.

He turned. The sunset was behind him, turning the edges of his hair to fire. His eyes were gold now—not brown pretending to be gold, but gold, true gold, the color of something that had been waiting.

Most people don't, he said. Tell me their names. They think I'm trouble.

Are you?

Yes.

She should have stepped back. She should have let him leave. Instead, she stood in the doorway of her empty clinic and looked at the man who had carried a dying dog three miles in the dark.

My name means moon, she said. And warrior.

He said nothing.

I don't know what your name means.

He smiled. It was not a happy smile. It was the smile of someone who had been hurt and had learned to wear the hurt like armor.

Cass means empty, he said. Or vain. Or hollow.

That's not true.

It's what it means.

He pushed the door open. The evening air rushed in, cold and wet and smelling of rain that had not yet fallen.

I'll see you tomorrow, Luan.

He left.

She stood in the doorway and watched him walk across the parking lot. He did not look back. She watched until he disappeared into the trees at the edge of the campus, and then she watched the place where he had disappeared, and she did not know why her chest was tight or why her hands were shaking or why she could still smell him—pine and smoke and the cold clean air before a storm.

She closed the door.

She walked to the front desk and looked at the counter where Cass had stood. The handprint was gone. She had scrubbed it clean that morning, telling herself it was nothing, telling herself she imagined the warmth, the glow, the way it had shifted under her finger.

But now there was something new.

A single word, etched into the laminate as if burned there.

WAKE UP.

Luan touched the letters. They were warm. Her fingertip came away clean, but the word remained.

She stared at it for a long time.

Then she heard it. A howl. Distant, coming from the woods behind campus. Not a dog. Not a coyote. Something larger. Something that made the hair on her arms stand up and the thing behind her ribs lift its head and answer.

She pressed her hand to her chest.

The howl came again. Closer.

She looked at the word on the counter. WAKE UP.

She looked at the door where Cass had disappeared.

She looked at her reflection in the glass. Her eyes were yellow. Not for a moment. Not for a second. They stayed yellow while she counted to ten. To twenty. To thirty.

She did not blink.

The yellow did not fade.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out. A text from the unknown number.

You felt it. The hunger. The steak. The blood.

She typed back: How do you know what I ate?

The three dots appeared.

Because I can smell it on you.

Luan looked at her hands. They were clean. She had scrubbed them raw. But she brought them to her nose anyway.

And smelled the blood.

Her own breath caught.

Another text arrived.

The moon is in seventeen days. You have less time than you think.

She typed: What happens in seventeen days?

The response came instantly.

You wake up. Or you run. But running won't save you. Nothing will.

She looked at the word on the counter. It was still there, still warm, still burning.

She looked at the door. The parking lot was empty. The trees were dark.

She typed: What are you?

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

I'm what you're going to become.

The lights flickered.

And in the darkness between one flicker and the next, Luan saw something in the reflection of the glass. Not herself. Something behind her. Two points of gold. A shape that was almost human, almost wolf, almost nothing at all.

She spun around.

The clinic was empty.

The lights came back on.

The word on the counter was gone.

Her phone buzzed one last time.

See you soon, little wolf.

Don't eat the steak rare next time. It makes the hunger worse.

Luan stood in the empty clinic with her heart slamming against her ribs and the thing inside her pacing, pacing, pacing.

She whispered her own name.

Luan.

The lights held.

She whispered it again.

Luan.

The dog in the back room began to howl.

And somewhere in the woods behind campus, something howled back.