All Chapters of Beneath the Wolf Moon: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

My feet finally remembered what to do.I ran.Down the stairs, tears blurring everything. Someone stuck their leg out as I passed—whether on purpose or not, I didn’t know—and I went down hard.The crash of bottles breaking beneath me was deafening. Pain shot up my arms as shards bit into my skin.The whole house was now quiet, all eyes turned to me as I became the most gossip-worthy subject in the house. “Are you kidding me, Avery?” Ethan’s voice, sharp and disgusted, cut through the noise. He tried to keep his voice as low as possible.“What the fuck are you even doing here? We don’t talk to each other at school, you know that. How dare you crash my party? You know better than to embarrass me!”Suddenly I’m too emotionally exhausted to lift a finger. A sharp pain shivered through my back. There must be tiny shards of glass still stuck in there. The blood dripping on the floor, making a small puddle.Ethan shivered a bit at the sight. But he didn’t stop pushing me around. “Go home, yo

By Monday morning, I’d had enough.Enough of Savannah’s sharp whispers slicing through every hallway I walked down. Enough of girls bumping their shoulders into mine like I was something they could just scrape off. Enough of finding dead cockroaches in my locker and enough of Ethan’s cool, careless glances that always seemed to say, You’re embarrassing me. If they wanted a villain, I’d give them one.The plan came to me late Sunday night while I lay awake staring at the ceiling. My body still ached from where I’d fallen on the bottles at Jaxon’s party, and my lips still tingled from the way he’d kissed me in the quiet of his room. I hated that I could still feel him. I hated even more that a part of me wanted to feel it again.But that wasn’t the point. The point was that everyone kept treating me like a joke. And it was time they saw just how sharp the punchline could be. By the time the big football game rolled around Friday night, everything was ready. Savannah and her minions strut

Savannah stepped out of the shadow as if she’d been cut out from the night itself, effortless and deliberate, an image designed to make people look twice and feel intimidated. The streetlamp circled her hair, the gold catching like a crown, and her smile spread slow and poisonous. She was exactly the kind of person who made me feel small without even trying.Lucas and I paused, the three of us forming a triangle of tense air in the middle of the sidewalk. He was close enough that our shoulders brushed; the contact was a quiet anchor I didn’t know I needed until it was gone. He shifted his weight, jaw tight. He looked ready, protective in the way he always was, but not searching for leadership. He gave me space to own whatever happened next.“Nice party trick,” Savannah said, voice butter-smooth. “Really, Avery, you should’ve known better than to humiliate people publicly. It leaves a mark.”I gripped the note in my pocket until the paper bent. “You sent the note. So say what you wanted

By the time I got home that night, the whispers of school still clung to me like smoke. No matter how many doors I closed or how many lights I turned on, I couldn’t scrub them from my ears. Avery hears voices. Avery’s obsessed with Jaxon Carter. Avery’s gone crazy.The Quinn household wasn’t any kinder.Mom barely looked up from her phone as I walked through the door. She was perched on the couch in her usual spot, legs curled under her like some elegant ornament. “You’re late,” she said, eyes never leaving the glowing screen.“I stayed to finish homework.” The lie slipped easily now.She hummed, not even pretending to care. “Dinner’s in the fridge.”Dad sat in his armchair, already half-asleep, the TV casting a dull light across his face. When I passed, he mumbled something about Ethan’s big game Friday, about how proud he was. Not a word for me.And Ethan—well, Ethan didn’t miss his chance. He leaned against the kitchen counter, hair damp from practice, a smug grin on his face. “Hear

The classroom smelled faintly of dust and old chalk. For once, it was empty, and I clutched my textbooks like a shield. Every nerve in my body was still on edge from the events of the past few days—the football game humiliation, Savannah’s whispers, the notes, and the relentless gossip. I had come here for a brief reprieve, a stolen moment of peace.I wasn’t alone.A shadow moved at the back of the room. My heart jumped, and I froze.“Hello?” My voice trembled more than I cared to admit.He stepped out of the shadows.Jaxon Carter. Calm. Deliberate. Dangerous in a way that made my chest tighten and my stomach flip. His eyes, that impossible ocean blue, caught mine immediately, holding me in place like gravity itself had shifted.“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to sound confident.He arched a brow. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”“Studying,” I said quickly. “Away from… everything.” I waved vaguely, meaning the hallway, the gossip, Savannah, and all the whisper