Howl Beneath the Neon Lights

Fangs in the Hallway

POV: Ava

I should’ve stayed home. My whole body screamed it the moment I opened my eyes this morning. Fever burned under my skin like wildfire, every breath catching, every muscle aching as though my bones were splitting in two. The whispers of last night—the shadows, the fire, the bite—kept crawling into my head that I told myself it was just a nightmare, that maybe I’d fallen, hit my head, imagined the silver eyes. But the throbbing heat in my veins said otherwise.

Now, as I drag myself through Crescent High’s front doors, every sound claws at me. Lockers slamming feel like thunder. Footsteps on tile scrape like knives. Someone pops gum down the hall and it echoes like a gunshot. My hands clutch the lockers, my nails digging into cold metal, just to stay upright. The world is too sharp, too loud, too much to all my senses.

I keep my eyes down. If I don’t look at anyone, maybe they won’t notice the sweat dripping down my temples, the way my lips tremble, or the fact that I can hear heartbeats—actual heartbeats—pounding from across the hallway.

“Look who finally showed her face.”

Her voice. Of course. Helena.

I stiffen. My chest tightens, but I force myself not to turn. “Not again.” I muttered.

I just want to pass through, invisible. But Helena doesn’t allow that. She never has.

“Hey, freak.” She’s closer now, her heels clicking against the floor like a countdown to destruction. “Acting as though you didn’t hear my call.”

I pleaded, trying to ignore my fangs that had already started rising for an attack, “Please, Helen. Not today.”

“This is Ava telling me when to confront her and when not to.” Helen sneered.

“Helen please.” I begged, eyes locked to the ground. “Let’s not do this today.”

She closed the distance between us, raising my chin up, “What happened to you? Did your mirror break and cut you up? Or maybe you were up all night begging someone to touch you?”

Her body guards that calls themselves friends grinned mockingly. The sound isn’t just noise anymore—it’s needles under my skin. I grip the locker harder, my knuckles whitening. Normally, I’d keep quiet, let her spit her poison, pretend it doesn’t cut. But something inside me shifts, deep and primal. The rage isn’t just anger anymore—it’s fire licking through my blood, hot, alive.

“Helena you and your friends should leave me alone,” I whisper. “This is the last time I might beg you.” My voice shakes, but there’s something underneath it—something that doesn’t sound like me.

Helena chuckles. “Or what will happen? She even threatens me.”

The laughter gets louder making my stomach twists. Shame digs its claws into me. They’re watching. They’re always watching. And I’m always the joke.

Before it was the deep emotional turmoil this school caused, but this time, as though my blood turned boiling hot, my fangs raised and my furs raised.

But I couldn’t destroy this privilege of scholarship to such school all in the hands of an attack.

Then Helena steps closer, so close I can smell her blood choking my senses. Her smirk sharpens. She raises her hand and—smack. My head whips to the side, the sting of her palm burning my cheek.

Gasps. A hush falls for a second, but then the already get to used laughter breaks it apart again.

My eyes sting. Not from the slap. From the humiliation. I taste blood in my mouth where I bit my tongue. The heat in my veins surges, boiling higher, hotter.

She leans in, whispering cruelly, “Pathetic. You’ll never matter. Not here. Not anywhere.”

It was at that point when something inside me snaps.

I lift my head, and when I meet her eyes, I know she sees it—the glint, the shimmer. The monster clawing its way out of me.

“Don’t,” I growl. My voice isn’t mine anymore—it’s deeper, laced with something animal and feral.

The crowd hushes, uneasy laughter faltering. Helena’s smirk wavers, but she masks it with a scoff. “What was that? Did you growl at me?”

Then the pain hits—sharp, searing. My nails rip free, claws tearing from my fingertips with a sound I can’t unheard. I choke on a gasp as my teeth scrape sharp against my lip—fangs. Real. Cutting me open.

And then I see it. My reflection in the glass of the trophy case. Silver-lit eyes staring back at me. Not human. Not Ava. Something else entirely.

Gasps ripple through the hallway. A girl screams. Someone drops their books. The smell of fear floods the air, and somehow I can taste it, metallic and intoxicating. My chest heaves. I can’t breathe. They’re all staring at me.

“Freak!” someone shouts.

“No—monster!” another voice cracks.

Helena backs away, but not fast enough to hide the fear in her eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

This time she was the only one left. No friends, no partners.

“Why do you keep playing with death. I have warned you to avoid me but you keep wanting to prove yourself, Helena.”

Deep inside me I knew I wasn’t the one speaking. It wasn’t the shy and reserved Ava. The husky voice dropped in dominance and ferality.

“And I guess this might be the last time your friends ever see you alive.”

Without hesitation I lunged at her when halfway in the air another pushed me.

We both slammed at a lurker.

Instantly I could recognize the scent of the wolf. More like a male wolf when he spoke—this time not with his lips moving but through my mind.

“Ava, I now you’re in there. This is Jaxon. Ava, having your hands stained in blood all because of the ignorance of this humans.”

At first it was silence, only my breathe that ran in fast gasps, “I have taking enough of their insults, Jaxon. It’s time for me to show them what am made of.”

“And you think its best you place your stay in this school at the detriment of proving yourself.”

The last statement sent cold running through my spine. As though it was a reminder to something I had already forgotten.

I don’t know. I don’t know what I am. My hands shake, claws catching on the air, dripping with blood from my own palms where I’ve cut myself. My body trembles, caught between collapse and explosion.

“No, no, no…” I whisper. My chest tightens that I can hear my heartbeat like a drum, wild and violent. I want to run, to hide, but my legs won’t move. The rage rises, uncontrollable, and I feel it—an urge to lunge, to tear, to shred.

Then a hand grabs me. Strong. Unyielding.

Jaxon.

Out of nowhere, he yanks me from the circle of stares, shoving me into the shadows of the stairwell before I can do something unforgivable. My body crashes into his chest, my claws grazing his shirt.

“Let me go—” I choke, tears spilling hot down my cheeks. “I can’t—something’s wrong—I can’t—”

His grip tightens on my wrists, holding me like I might explode at any second. “Look at me, Ava.”

“I’m not—I’m not me anymore—”

“LOOK AT ME.”

His voice slices through the chaos in my head. My silver-lit eyes lift, locking onto his. He grips my chin, forcing me to hold his gaze.

“You’re not sick. You’re not broken,” he says, low, merciless. His breath fans against my skin, steady while mine spirals. “You’re not human anymore. You’re wolf.”

The words slam into me, final and terrifying. My chest heaves. My claws dig deeper into my palms.

Wolf.

The hallway echoes with distant screams, gasps, phones snapping pictures. My secret—if it ever was one—is gone. My humanity is gone.

And Jaxon is the only one who doesn’t look afraid.