The ferry ride back that night had been quiet, the ocean a flat black sheet under a silvered sky. By the time I stepped off at the Nantucket dock, the wind had picked up, carrying the briny tang of low tide. The streets near my parents’ mansion were mostly empty — tourists long gone, locals behind closed doors.
I was halfway up the crushed-shell drive when a voice cut through the dark.
“Well, if it isn’t the freak from Indiana.”
I stopped.
On the edge of the driveway stood Ryan Locke — one of the neighbor kids from up the hill. Eighteen, maybe nineteen, all gelled hair and designer clothes, the kind of spoiled arrogance that clung like cologne. I’d seen him once or twice before, usually behind the wheel of some imported car his parents had bought to keep him occupied.
“Evening,” I said flatly, starting toward the door.
He stepped into my path. “You’ve been making quite the impression. My mom ran into your mom at a thing the other night… heard all about the little ‘behavioral vacation’ you took back in Indiana.” His smirk widened. “Guess they finally decided to let you out. Brave of them.”
I kept walking, close enough now to smell the expensive whiskey on his breath.
Ryan tilted his head, studying me like I was a science experiment. “What’s the matter? Don’t they let you talk much at the mental hospital?”
The wolf surged so fast it made my hands curl into fists before I realized it. My vision narrowed — him, just him, the pulse beating in his throat, the way his smirk twitched when I stepped in close enough for him to feel the heat rolling off me.
“You really want to keep talking?” I asked, voice low enough to make him lean back a fraction.
His laugh came out thinner now. “What, you gonna hit me?”
The growl slipped out before I could stop it — deep, guttural, carrying all the promise of violence in the world. It froze him in place. My muscles coiled, the shift pressing just under my skin, the urge to tear and break so sharp I could taste it.
For one heartbeat, I stood right on the edge. One more insult, one wrong move, and there wouldn’t be enough left of him to identify.
But I stepped back. Slowly.
Ryan swallowed hard. “You’re… crazy,” he muttered, but his voice shook.
“No,” I said, letting the last trace of the growl ride my words. “I’m worse.” He didn’t try to block my path again. By the time I reached the door, he was still standing in the driveway, pale in the moonlight, watching me like I was something he’d never seen before and never wanted to see again.