(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 47; run

One more day. Twenty-four fleeting hours until the bad moon.

A day had come and passed, and from what Gunner had told him, his next shower was due.

They want you clean. Of lice, or ticks, or anything that could possibly carry your blood to another person, he'd said in one too many words. The showers burn, I know. It's their way of disinfecting you. They'll get hotter. Come soon, they'll shave you down, stick you in that wheelchair and roll you off to the exam room. You need to get out before that happens, kid. Once they have you sedated, that's it. They're going to start test after test. And you'll be trapped here. Like me.

So Jaylin laid low and he planned. He planned with a kind of vengeance in his tired, burning chest. All his life he'd been a victim to one person or another, be it Tyler or Eduardo or his own father. He took the short end of the stick all his life and he had grown too tired of disputing his mistreatments to even try anymore. It was as if all this time, he'd been telling himself, don't fight it; you don't have the muscles. And he was done with the insecurities and the helplessness and the short ends. He was done being a victim.

The moment he'd taped up the leak in the vents and the heavy bombinate of chemicals had stopped weighing on his brain, so did the helplessness. That pathetic, lifeless, forfeiting feeling. He hated that feeling. He wanted to know what it was like to be strong like Tisper. Fearless like his mother. Brilliant like Quentin. But all he had was himself and it was hard colluding with his own worst enemy.

At least Gunner stuck around in the evenings. And though he swore he wouldn't play a part in the escape, he still left things behind, tucked away in the inconspicuous darkness. An extra roll of toilet paper, a flathead screwdriver and enough meat to keep a flame burning in Jaylin.

He had three goals in mind. Get through that vent, find Olivia and the werewolves and get out.

In the darkness, Gunner couldn't present him with a map, but he described the blueprints by word. A straight line through the vent until he reached an intersecting pathway. Then he was to make a right, and his escape would be a fifteen-foot vertical climb.

After that, he'd cut the courtyard to the building straight across. The other wolves would be there. He'd find them, he'd find Olivia. They'd all escape together and everything would be fine. Everything would work out. He had to believe that.

But if there was one thing Jaylin didn't account for, it was the chrysalis. He woke that morning with his fingers locked in a fist. They were paralyzed, his hands. Stuck in a hard involuntary curl. And when he finally forced his fingers to straighten, one by one, there was a pain that came with it—slow and sharp like serrated blades had been ripped from the pads of his palm.

He didn't understand how it could happen. How his fingers could grow an inch in length, how his nails had turned to talons, claws so sharp they'd embedded themselves into the flesh all night without him knowing.

And his jaw—his jaw ached like every tooth had shifted, twisted position on their own accord. And he could feel it, his canines long and slender, his premolars sharp like edged pearl. So sharp, it pricked when he felt along them with his tongue.

For the first hour, Jaylin did nothing but writhe in the pain of it, twisting in his sheets, sobbing into his pillow and wringing his right arm like squeezing it off was his only resolve.

Eventually, Dr. Peterson pricked him with a needle—something that absolved his pain. At least enough that he could think properly, keep his head on straight and his thoughts aligned. The plan. The plan. Remember the plan.

Step one. Find a way to the shower vents.

He knew already that it was going to take time to unscrew the vents. And he knew that there was no chance that he'd get away with harboring his screwdriver to his next shower—not when the nurses were dressing him down and examining every inch of his body.