Chapter Four

That night, the wind howled like it remembered.

Aiden lay in bed, the ceiling above him swimming in shadow, his thoughts tangled and loud. The sheets were twisted around his legs, damp with sweat. He hadn’t turned on the fan even the faintest breeze against his skin made him ache.

Everything hurt in ways that didn’t make sense.

His bones pulsed. His hearing picked up every creak of the house, every whisper of leaves outside his window. The ticking clock sounded like thunder. His own heartbeat, a war drum.

Downstairs, the fridge hummed. A dog barked two streets away. A moth fluttered against his bedroom light.

He heard it all.

And worse he felt it. Like the world had pressed closer overnight, like every sound was crawling across his skin, dragging hunger behind it.

He sat up, dizzy and shaking.

It was happening again.

The thing inside him whatever had bitten him, whatever had changed him was waking.

He dragged himself to the mirror. Half afraid of what he’d see.

His reflection looked back at him with eyes that weren’t his.

Golden.

Sharp.

Wrong.

Aiden stumbled back. “No,” he whispered, but the boy in the glass bared his teeth.

They weren’t just longer now they looked made for tearing.

He snapped off the light. The room plunged into darkness.

He sat on the edge of his bed, gripping his knees like he could hold himself together by force alone.

What’s happening to me?

The door creaked open.

“Aiden?” a soft voice said. Not Cass.

It was his mom.

He panicked. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.” She stepped into the room. The hallway light outlined her in gold, worry etched across her face.

“Just a headache,” he lied. “Didn’t sleep well.”

She hesitated. “Do you want tea?”

“No,” he said too quickly. “Thanks. I just need sleep.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him, but she nodded and closed the door gently behind her.

When she was gone, he exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. His scalp was sore like something beneath it was shifting, rearranging.

He pressed his hands to his face and waited for the sunrise.

It was the only thing that still felt human.

At school the next day, everything felt wrong.

Too bright. Too loud. Too many people packed too close.

Aiden kept his head down, hoodie up, shoulders hunched.

Cass met him by the lockers, offering a crooked smile and a granola bar. “Breakfast?”

Aiden shook his head. “Not hungry.”

“That’s a first.”

They walked down the hall together. Cass talked about math class and how he might fake the flu to get out of it. Aiden didn’t say much. He couldn’t stop listening—to footsteps, to heartbeats, to the flutter of nerves whenever someone passed too close.

By third period, he was ready to scream.

He skipped lunch. Hid out behind the gym.

Cass found him anyway. “You need to eat something.”

“I can’t,” Aiden muttered. “It’s like… nothing tastes right.”

Cass sat beside him on the cold stone wall. “Still feeling weird?”

“I’m scared I’m not gonna feel anything but weird from now on.”

Cass looked at him carefully. “Is it the full moon?”

Aiden blinked. “What?”

“I was reading about it,” Cass said, digging into his bag and pulling out a crumpled notebook. “Wolves. Werewolves. Legends. It all points to the full moon being a trigger.”

“That’s just TV,” Aiden said, but his voice shook.

Cass looked up at the sky. “Full moon’s in two days.”

Something deep inside Aiden stirred at those words.

A low heat. A promise.

Like the moon had ears.

That night, he dreamed of running.

Of trees whipping past. Of soil under his claws.

He dreamed of hunger.

Of silver eyes in the dark.

Of howling.

When he woke,

the window was open and his feet were dirty.

Aiden scrubbed the dirt from his skin with shaking hands, standing under the too-bright stream of the shower. His body didn’t look different. But it felt different. Like his muscles were remembering something ancient. Like something was growing just under the surface, waiting for permission to take over.

He caught his reflection in the steamed-up mirror again.

His eyes were normal this time.

But he didn’t trust them.

By the time morning came, he had barely slept.

And worse he didn’t want to. The quiet scared him more than the noise now. At least in chaos, he could pretend he was still himself.

At school, he tried to keep to himself again. But the hallways felt smaller than before, more suffocating. People stared. Maybe not because they knew but because something about him had changed. They sensed it.

Cass noticed too.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice lower than usual. “You look like you haven’t slept in a year.”

Aiden tried to laugh. “Feels like it.”

Cass hesitated. Then: “Something happened to you in those woods, didn’t it?”

Aiden opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t know how to answer. Because yes something had happened. But how do you say: I was bitten by something not human. And now the moon sings to my blood.

“I think so,” he finally said. “But I don’t know what.”

Cass looked at him for a long moment. Then he did something Aiden didn’t expect he reached out and gently bumped their shoulders together.

“You’re still you,” he said. “Even if you’re different.”

The words hit Aiden harder than he wanted them to.

Still you.

Even if you’re different.

No one had ever said something like that to him before. Like being too much of anything didn’t scare them off.

Cass didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch.

Aiden let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

And for the first time in days, something inside him eased.

That night, Aiden stood at his window, staring at the silver slice of moon rising above the trees.

Two days until full.

And yet it already called to him.

He didn’t know what was coming. But part of him… wanted to meet it.