The Better to Bite by Cynthia Eden

told me that I was being watched.
    No, not just watched,
hunted
.
    We burst from the trees. Brent’s house—more like a mansion with glass walls that overlooked the mountainside—seemed to light up the area. I could see people through the glass. Jenny, Troy…about thirty more kids. Dancing. Laughing. Paying no attention to us as I screamed, and we hurried forward.
    Then we were at the door. Rafe kicked it open, and we pushed inside.
    The laughter stopped. The music kept blaring, but all eyes turned to us.
    I didn’t even try to wipe away the blood that dripped down my cheek. What was the point? By now, I was covered in blood and dirt.
    “Call an ambulance!” Rafe barked.
    Troy grabbed the nearest phone.
    Guys rushed toward us and took Brent. They put him on the couch. Jenny stared at me, her eyes so big they nearly swallowed her face. “
OhmyGod!
What happened to you?”
    I glanced over my shoulder, back at the dark woods. No wolf howled now.
But you’re close, aren’t you?
    I could almost feel him.
    I looked down. I’d bled on Brent’s expensive white carpet. The drops littered the floor.
    “Come here.” Rafe took my arm. “You need to sit down before you fall.”
    Brent had been placed on the couch. All the football players were huddled around him, and they look scared.
    “Don’t worry about him.” Rafe guided me to a chair. He bent in front of me, blocking me from the others. “Trust me, Brent will be fine.” He licked his lips. “Look, you need to be careful what you say—”
    “Anna!” Jenny’s head popped next to Rafe’s. “Tell me what happened!”
    I swallowed to ease my dry throat. Desert dry. Probably from all that useless screaming. “W-wolf.”
    If possible, Jenny’s eyes got even bigger. “No way.”
    “A big, black wolf.” My voice came stronger now as I clenched my hands. Now I’d gone and bled on the chair, too. I was leaving my mark everywhere. “It charged at us. Brent swerved, and we crashed.”
Then the wolf came to take a bite out of me.
    Silence. The really, thick, uncomfortable kind.
    My gaze darted to Rafe. A muscle jerked in his jaw. “She hit her head,” he said into that silence. “She doesn’t know what happened. Just give her some space, okay?” His voice cracked harder than any whip.
    Jenny jumped back. 
    I frowned at Rafe. “I know exactly what I saw.” I wasn’t confused or hysterical. Scared, yeah, but in control.
    He leaned toward me and brushed back my hair. His mouth hovered over my ear and he whispered, “You need to be very careful what you say.”
    I blinked. But then other people were talking.
    “
Wolves…”
    “Man, you think it’s true?”
    “What about the story, did you—”
    The voices around me droned on and on.
    Rafe pulled back, and his eyes were flat and hard. He didn’t speak again. Not until the scream of sirens filled the night. He pulled me up, kept a good hold on my hand, and led me to the open door.
    “You never said…” His voice was pitched low, “how you got us to Brent’s house.”
    My dad jumped from his car and ran toward me. “Anna!”
    I pulled away from Rafe and rushed to my dad. Only when his arms closed around me—only then—did I finally feel safe.
    An ambulance roared onto the scene. The attendants loaded Brent up, and my dad forced me to get inside the vehicle, too. I tried to tell him that I was fine, but he gave me the look.
    “
You’re gettin’ checked out, baby.”
I could hear the worry in his voice. “Then you’re telling me what the hell happened out here tonight.”
    I found myself in the back of the ambulance. I looked up, and Rafe had two deputies standing on either side of him.
    I hadn’t told Rafe about my
difference.
I’d run to escape him and that truth. He’d ask again, I knew it. But he also hadn’t told me just how he’d wound up in those woods.
    I shivered as the ambulance doors slammed shut.

Chapter Six
    The nightmare came to me again. I was in the woods, running.