RHETT
The shift back is a slow-motion car crash, my bones grinding against each other as they shrink, my skin pulling taut over muscle that feels like it’s being stitched together with rusted wire, I’m lying on the cold stone of the terrace, the freezing night air biting at my bare, blood-slicked skin, and every breath I take is a wet, rattling struggle against the primal scream still lodged in my throat.
I can smell them the three husks of meat and fur cooling on my lawn and the wolf inside me is still pacing, still licking its metaphorical chops, but the man is back, and the man is terrified, not of the dead things in the grass, but of the girl behind the locked door of the study.
"Rhett! I heard... I heard something! Please open the door!"
Nola’s voice is higher now, frantic, the so
