Chapter 3: The Radio

Luan called in sick for the first time in three years. The clinic owner asked if she was dying. Luan said she didn't know. The owner said take the week.

Luan sat on her kitchen floor for three hours, listening to the blood move through her own veins.

At noon she stood up. She dressed in jeans and a grey sweater. She walked across campus. Students moved around her like water around a stone. No one looked at her. No one said her name.

She found herself behind the arts building. A door with a handwritten sign: KUCB Campus Radio All Welcome.

She pushed it open.

The station was one narrow room. Posters faded to sepia. A mixing board. A microphone with a chewed foam windscreen. And Cass.

He sat in a swivel chair with his back to the door, feet up on the mixing board, a book in his lap.

You found me, he said.

You knew I was coming?

I heard you three blocks away.

He turned. His eyes were brown in the bad light. Almost brown.

You walk heavy, he said. Like you're trying not to be heard.

He held up the book. The Woman Who Married the Wolf.

You want to hear something? he asked.

I didn't come here to listen to your radio show.

Everyone comes here to listen. They just don't know it yet.

He flipped a switch. Pulled on headphones. Leaned into the microphone.

Midnight. This is KUCB. I'm Cass. You're listening.

It was 11:14 AM.

The show is called Midnight, he said with a wink. The time doesn't matter.

He opened the book. His voice changed when he read. Lower. Slower. It filled the room like smoke.

The wolf does not apologize for its hunger. The wolf does not make itself small to be loved. The wolf loves with teeth and territory and the bone-deep knowledge that to be alone is to be nothing. To be alone is to be prey.

He stopped reading.

What do you think? he asked.

I think you're trying to tell me something.

I'm telling you a story.

You're telling me my grandmother disappeared in the woods. You're telling me my eyes changed color. You're telling me I'm not human.

He set the book down.

Are you?

The thing in her chest was awake. She could feel it breathing.

I don't know what I am, she said.

Cass stood. He moved around the mixing board, slow and deliberate. When he was close enough to touch, he stopped.

The full moon is in seventeen days, he said.

She felt it then. A pull. A hunger. Something in her blood that recognized something in his.

How do you know?

Because I feel it too. Look at my eyes.

His eyes were not brown now. They were gold. True gold. The color of something that had been burning for a very long time.

What are you? she whispered.

Something that should stay away from you. Something that won't.

He walked back to the mixing board and sat down.

You should go, he said.

I heard you on the radio. You said my name.

He turned a page.

I say a lot of things.

Why did you say it?

He finally looked up.

Because I wanted to see if you were listening.

She was listening. She had been listening her whole life for something she could not name.

What happens in seventeen days? she asked.

He closed the book.

The wolf wakes up.

The thing in her chest lunged against her ribs.

What wolf?

He stood again. He walked to her. His fingers hovered an inch from her sternum.

This wolf, he said.

She stopped breathing. He did not touch her, but she felt him anyway. A heat that spread through her skin, through her ribs, into the thing that had been sleeping.

You've been feeding it, he said. The steak. The blood. You didn't know what you were doing, but you were waking it up.

How do you know about the steak?

I can smell it on you.

He dropped his hand and stepped back.

The first time you shift, your body will unmake itself, he said. Bones break. Skin peels. You will die. Then the wolf opens its eyes. After that, you have about a year. Every time you shift, you burn through your own life. The wolf is a fire. It eats everything.

He pulled up his shirt. His torso was a map of scars. But that was not what made her gasp. It was the grey in his hair. A wide white streak at his temple.

How old are you? she whispered.

Twenty-three. I have maybe eight months left. I stopped counting.

She reached for him. He stepped back.

Don't, he said. His voice cracked. Don't touch me. If you touch me, I won't be able to stop.

Stop what?

He looked at her. His eyes were pure gold. Tears ran down his cheeks. They were not clear. They were red.

Stop wanting to taste you, he said.

The lights went out. Complete darkness. She could not see her hand in front of her face. But she could smell him. Pine. Smoke. Storm. And she could hear his heartbeat.

She stepped forward.

Cass. Don't.

She stepped again. Her hand found his chest. His heart slammed against her palm.

Luan.

She pressed her other hand to his face. His skin was hot. His tears were warm and smelled like iron.

I'm not afraid of you, she said.

You should be. I'm what you're going to become.

He kissed her. Not gentle. Not romantic. Teeth and hunger and desperate starving need. The thing in her chest roared.

Then he pushed her away. She hit the mixing board. The microphone clattered to the floor.

No, he said. I won't do this to you. I won't kill you faster.

The lights flickered back on. Cass was across the room, his back against the wall, his hands pressed flat against the posters.

You need to go, he said.

Why?

Because I can feel you dying. Every second I'm near you, I can feel your body burning. And I can't stop wanting you anyway.

She looked at him. This broken, dangerous, beautiful man. He was looking at her like she was something worth burning for.

How long do I have? she asked.

Three hundred and sixty-five days. Give or take.

She walked to the door.

I'm sorry I found you, he said.

She turned back.

I'm not.

She walked out of the station and across campus to the tree line. She stepped off the path. She walked until the campus disappeared. Until she was alone in a clearing.

She closed her eyes. She listened with her blood. And she heard it. Something waiting. Something that had been there her whole life. Patient. Hungry. Hers.

She opened her eyes. Her nails had begun to curve. Her vision was sharp enough to count the veins in the leaves.

Footsteps behind her.

She spun.

A man stood at the edge of the clearing. Tall. Broad. Grey eyes like winter stone.

Luan Hale, he said. I've been looking for you.

Wolves emerged from the trees behind him. Six of them. They circled the clearing.

You have a choice, the man said. Take the suppressant. Stay human. Live a long, empty life. Or refuse, transform, and die within the year. What's it going to be?

Luan looked at the wolves. She looked at the sky. She looked at her curved nails.

Then she looked at the man.

I choose to burn.

His smile vanished.

So be it.

The wolves lunged.