Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

8; {Jaylin}: messed up

He'd wanted to drive home. All the way home. But Jaylin didn't know the way and he was an awful driver.

He thought once or twice about finding a bar. Getting drunk out of his mind and hoping the didn't crush Quentin's rental car on the way back to the hotel. That was stupid. He could drink all he wanted, but he wasn't the kind of asshole to drunk-drive and he knew it. Someone could die because of him.

God, someone had died because of him.

Olivia was fucked up. Twice the mess he was and that was saying something. But Jaylin had cared about her. He'd considered her a friend and she'd confided in him enough to know the thought was mutual.

She had never been a bad person. She wasn't a good one either, but Olivia wasn't a bad person. She was just messed up, like him.

He grit his teeth to keep the tears in, choking the steering wheel in his fingers. Why did it have to be him? Why did Quentin have to show up? Why did he have to send him off to college? If he'd been home, maybe he would have been with his mother in those final moments. Maybe he would have been able to say goodbye. It wouldn't have changed what he was though, and Jaylin knew that. It wouldn't have made him any less of a monster.

For twenty minutes, he drove around a neighborhood he didn't know, watching all the white picket-fence houses. Admiring the under-ground pools and the polished lawns. And then a pain began to prick his spine. He couldn't take his hands from the steering wheel. Jaylin waited until he'd reached a stop sign, then he detached his grip, examining the long, claw-like points that had grown from his fingernails. They were more like talons than nails—too large, too thick. So sharp, it pricked his palm when he curled his fingers into a fist.

He found a park with a large beautiful pond in the middle, and Jaylin parked, slanted along the grass. That sharp pain had moved up his shoulders now, stiffened his neck. It wasn't until he'd reached the water that saw the black on his flesh, felt it rise up his arms like cold snakes. He dropped to the ground—in the grass, feet from the pond and let out a pained sound. And with his hands gripping grass, he watched his own bones change.

This wasn't right—it wasn't the bad moon. It wasn't even a full moon, but that familiar urge pulsed through him and a paralyzing pain struck him down into the earth.

The sound that came from him next was of fear and thunder.