Chapter 5: Creatures Of The Night

The first thing that registers is pain. Not the sharp pain from the explosion I remember, but something deeper that starts somewhere inside my chest and spreads through my body so quickly that I barely have time to realize I’m awake before I suck in a breath. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, completely confused about why I’m lying on the floor.

Then everything comes back. The fire. The smoke. The gas line. The explosion.

I sit up so quickly that the room spins, and I grab the wall to steady myself. My heart is hammering against my ribs as I look around the old science building. There is no fire. There isn’t even smoke. The walls are exactly as I remember them, right down to the cracked paint near the door and the water stain above the old storage room.

I stare at the door because my hand still remembers the heat. My nose remembers the smoke, and my lungs remember choking on it, but the door in front of me is completely intact. I walk toward it and touch the handle with the tips of my fingers. It is cold. Completely normal. I pull my hand away anyway and stare at my palm as if it might explain what the hell is happening to me.

“Billie,” Trojan whispers behind me.

I turn and find him watching me, his gaze filled with pity.

“You saw it,” I say, pointing toward the door. “You saw the fire, right?”

Trojan shakes his head slowly. “There was no fire.”

I laugh because I honestly don’t know what else to do. “Of course there wasn’t.”

I turn away from him and look around the room again. I spent years here. I know this place like the back of my hand, and better than anyone else too. I might just be as unhinged as Marcus said, because nothing has changed. It looks exactly as it always has.

But why don’t I remember anything about my life this past year? I don’t even know which of my older memories are true. Has Marcus even been tormenting me all these years?

I press my fingers against my temples and try to force my memories into some kind of order, but before I can make sense of anything, Momo stirs inside me.

At first, I think she is only restless. Then a low growl rolls through my chest, and I freeze because it doesn’t feel like a normal warning.

“Momo?” I whisper, but she answers with another growl that is louder and deeper than the first, something moves beneath my skin.

I grab my arms and squeeze them as Trojan takes a step toward me. “Billie, calm down.”

“I am calm,” I tell him, although my voice sounds anything but calm.

He touches my shoulder. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m allowed to shake. I just remembered being trapped inside a burning building that apparently never burned down.”

Momo growls again, and this time the sound vibrates through my entire chest. I bend forward as pain tears through my spine. My knees hit the floor, and I barely manage to catch myself before my forehead slams into the ground. It feels like I haven’t turned in years, or like it’s happening for the first time.

My first full turning was at sixteen. I should be used to this by now.

“Fuck,” I gasp as another wave of pain tears through me.

Trojan reaches for me, but I shove his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Billie, look at me,” he says, but I shake my head. “I can’t.”

My muscles tighten so violently that my fingers curl against the floor. I have never felt Momo fight me like this before. She isn’t trying to warn me or protect me. She wants out, and she is willing to tear through every part of me to get there.

“Momo, stop!” I scream, but she doesn’t listen.

My shoulder jerks, followed by another wave of pain that shoots through my body. I hear something crack and cry out as my vision blurs. Trojan grabs my shoulders, trying to hold me still, but there is nothing he can do.

“Billie, fight her. You need to control your wolf.”

“I’m trying!” I shout, although I know I’m losing the fight.

The pain becomes unbearable. My spine bends, my hands curl into claws, and every bone in my body seems to shift at once. I bite down hard enough to taste blood before Momo finally forces her way through.

The next thing I know, I’m on four legs. I don’t stop to figure out what just happened before I run.

Trojan shouts behind me, using my wolf’s name, but I keep going. I tear through the grass and into the trees, barely noticing the branches scraping against my fur or the stones cutting into my paws. Momo is in control now, and she pulls me deeper into the forest with a determination that makes no sense to me.

I know I should turn around. Trojan is probably following me, and after what just happened, he must be terrified that I’m going to hurt myself. I try to slow down, but Momo refuses to listen, not even for a second.

My paws dig into the ground as a scent hits my nostrils and I slow to a stop. The scent is faint, but I know it immediately. Milk. Warm skin. Something sweet underneath it that pulls painfully at the center of my chest.

The babies.

My head turns toward the trees, and suddenly I understand why Momo dragged me here. It is the same scent I smelled beside the bassinet that morning. The same scent that made my breasts ache before my brain could even process what I was seeing.

Momo starts moving again, following the scent deeper into the woods.

I let her.

The farther we go, the quieter the forest becomes. Even the sounds of the pack disappear behind us until all I can hear is my own breathing and the steady rhythm of my paws against the ground. Then voices reach me through the trees.

Momo slows. I stop behind a thick tree and listen. There are people somewhere ahead. I assume they are members of the pack. We are still inside our territory, after all. But then the wind shifts, carrying their scent toward me, and every instinct in my body changes.

Cold. Wrong. Dead.

Vampires.