RILEY
The deer's dead eye reflects dawn like broken glass. Young female, two years old, split from throat to belly with the kind of precision that makes bile rise. Blood has gone thick in the January frost, and the taste coats my mouth—copper and grass and pure terror.
My knuckles throb, joints sitting wrong. The bones slide back into place with wet clicks that echo in the morning silence. Healing kicks in fast, skin sealing over torn flesh before I can catalog the damage.
"Jesus Christ. That's the biggest one yet."
Deputy Chen hovers ten feet back, hand dancing near his weapon. New to Rosewood, still thinks protocol matters when you find naked men covered in deer blood.
Wade's seen enough to skip the shock. "Morning, Riley. Your dad called it in."
"Lucky guess."
"Sure it was." Wade tosses an emergency blanket from the cruiser. Metallic fabric crinkles in the stillness. "You hurt?"
"No."
"All that blood from the deer?"
"Yeah."
Chen can't stop staring at the carcass. Ribs splayed like wings, organs arranged with disturbing care. "We need to take him in. This is evidence—"
"This is a medical issue." Wade's tone cuts sharp. "Dr. Stoker says he's got treatment lined up. Specialist down south."
Medical issue. The lie burns worse than acid. Like there's a prescription for whatever makes me hunt.
The cruiser reeks of drunk college kids and industrial disinfectant. Chen keeps checking the rearview, fear-sweat mixing with cheap cologne. I watch him connect dots—six animal attacks in two months, missing pets, that hiker who swore he saw something massive stalking through pines.
All me.
Our street looks suburban-perfect until we hit the driveway. The kitchen bay window is gone—frame, glass, part of the wall. Destruction radiates outward like something exploded from inside. Mom's herb garden glitters with deadly shards.
The front door flies open before Wade cuts the engine.
"Riley! Thank God."
Mom crashes into me, ignoring blood, stench, the blanket that barely covers essentials. Her hands map my face, checking for injuries already healed. Behind her, Dad emerges with a duffel bag, exhaustion carved deep.
"Officers. I appreciate you bringing him home."
Wade's jaw sets hard. "Dr. Stoker, this is escalating."
"Which is why we're leaving immediately. I've arranged treatment at a specialized facility in North Carolina."
"What kind of facility handles this?" Chen gestures at me, at the destroyed window, at the whole impossible morning.
Dad straightens, surgical steel in his voice. "The kind that deals with unique cases. Discreetly."
"Your son is tearing apart wildlife. That's not discreet."
"The facility has containment protocols. This won't happen again."
Wade steps forward, and I smell gunpowder on his uniform. Recent. "It better not. Next time we find him like this, I don't care whose son he is. We're done looking the other way. Clear?"
"Crystal."
They leave without backward glances. Mom guides me through the front door, giving the kitchen destruction a wide berth.
"Shower. Fast. Twenty minutes."
"Mom—"
"Please, Riley. Not now."
The bathroom mirror shows what she's trying not to see. Six-four of corded muscle painted in gore, eyes burning too bright, too green, too other. Hot water runs pink for ten minutes straight. I scrub until my skin feels raw, but the wildness clings like a second skin.
Dad has the Volvo running when I emerge. Mom stands in the doorway, arms wrapped tight around herself.
"I should come with you."
"The kids need you here." Dad kisses her forehead, lingering. "I'll call when we arrive."
She turns to me, hands framing my face with careful tenderness. "You're my son. Whatever happens, whatever you become. Remember that."
The words lodge in my chest like shrapnel.
First hour passes in NPR voices discussing market volatility and unnecessary tariffs. Then Dad switches off the radio, and the silence feels heavier than blood.
"We need to talk about what's happening to you."
"I turn into a monster and kill things. Pretty straightforward."
"You're not a monster." His knuckles blanch on the wheel. "You're evolving."
"Evolving." The word tastes like ash.
"Meta-humans. That's what researchers call them. Humans with genetic variations that manifest as abilities."
"Dad—"
"Werewolves. Vampires. Fae. All the stories we thought were myths." He merges onto I-79, pushing eighty. "Turns out they were early documentation of genetic anomalies."
"You're seriously telling me vampires are real?"
"I'm telling you that individuals with extreme photosensitivity, enhanced strength, and dietary requirements for blood proteins are real. What our ancestors called them matters less than understanding the science."
"And werewolves?"
His jaw works like he's chewing glass. "Lycanthropy. Transformation triggered by lunar cycles, emotional stress, or in your case, REM sleep. The military's been studying it for decades."
My stomach drops to my knees. "How long have you known?"
"Suspected since you were fifteen. That camping trip where you sleepwalked ten miles and woke up covered in rabbit guts." He glances over, and I see years of hidden knowledge in his eyes. "But I became certain six months ago."
"The dorm fire."
"Your roommate said your bed spontaneously combusted. No accelerant, no electrical cause. Just flames from nowhere."
The confession tears its way up my throat. "It's getting worse. Sometimes I wake up and things are burning. Sheets, curtains. Last week, an entire pine tree. Just... ash."
"Your body temperature spikes during episodes. We're talking hundred and ten, hundred and fiftee. Hot enough to boil your brain. I've been documenting everything, trying to find patterns."
"Jesus. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I kept hoping we could fix this before you turned twenty-one. Most meta-humans fully manifest between twenty and twenty-five. You're early, but within documented parameters."
We drive through West Virginia's mountains in loaded silence. I catalog scents through the cracked window—diesel exhaust, roadkill in various stages of decay, the sweet rot of autumn leaves. My fingers drum against my thigh, excess energy burning through my veins like fever.
"Tell me about Throckmorton."
"Brilliant geneticist. Published groundbreaking work on spontaneous mutation and chimerism before he went off the rails. Started claiming the supernatural was just undiscovered science."
"Academic suicide."
"Complete career immolation. Lost tenure, credibility, everything. But the military saw potential. Gave him unlimited funding, a facility, carte blanche to study what everyone else ignored."
"And he can help?"
"If anyone can figure out what's happening to you, it's him."
We exit near Raleigh, following increasingly narrow roads into true wilderness. Pine forest presses close, branches forming tunnels that block afternoon sun. A battered sign reads: RED ROCK - 10 MILES.
"Promise me something." Dad's voice drops low. "Whatever happens in there, remember who you are. Not what you're becoming, but who. The kid who builds robots with his brother, who reads astronomy books to Matty until he falls asleep. The hunting, the fire—that's not your identity."
"What if it is?"
He doesn't answer, and that silence says everything.
The road ends at a gate straight from a techno-thriller. Cameras track our approach while Dad punches in a code. Beyond the barrier, glass and steel rise from the forest like some architectural fever dream.
Dr. Throckmorton meets us at the entrance. Average height, neat beard, Duke University hoodie over faded jeans. Could be any professor at any college, except for how his nostrils flare when he sees me.
"Michael. And Riley." His pupils dilate, drinking me in. "Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent."
"Dr. Throckmorton—"
"Hamish, please. Come, let's get you situated."
The lobby screams tech startup—exposed beams, polished concrete, abstract art that probably costs more than med school tuition. But underneath designer touches, I smell things that make my skin crawl. Antiseptic failing to mask old fear. Blood ground so deep into walls that no amount of bleach can erase it. Something else, wilder, that makes my hindbrain scream competing territory.
"This facility houses multiple research projects." Hamish leads us down a corridor lined with reinforced glass. "We study various genetic expressions. Some subjects volunteer for observation. Others are... recuperating from incidents."
Behind the glass, shapes move in darkened rooms. A woman paces on all fours, spine bent at angles that shouldn't exist. A man sits statue-still in his corner, but his shadow writhes and twists independent of any light source. In another cell, something that might have been human once presses too many hands against the glass.
They all stop when I pass. Every single one.
The woman slams against her window, pupils blown black. The shadow-man goes rigid, trembling. From deeper in the facility, something howls—long and mournful and distinctly submissive. The sound raises every hair on my body.
"Fascinating." Hamish taps rapid notes into his tablet. "They recognize an Alpha Prime immediately. Haven't seen this reaction in years."
"Alpha Prime?"
"Apex predator. Top of the meta-human hierarchy. Your pheromone signature is remarkably commanding." He pauses to study my reflection in the glass. "Tell me, have you noticed others responding to your presence? Humans included?"
I think about how conversations stop when I enter rooms lately. How dogs whine and tuck their tails. How even Wade, thirty years on the force, kept his hand on his weapon.
"Yeah. It's getting worse."
"Not worse. Stronger. There's a difference."
"Are you saying I'm... what, a werewolf?"
"Lycanthrope. And yes, but that's merely one expression of something far more complex." He stops at a reinforced door requiring three forms of authentication. "This will be your suite."
High-tech prison dressed as a hotel room. Reinforced walls, cameras in every corner, a door designed to withstand military-grade explosives. The bed looks comfortable enough, but the restraint points built into the frame ruin the illusion.
"Baseline readings first. Blood work, genetic mapping, complete metabolic panels. Then we'll proceed to the sleep study."
"Sleep study?"
He guides us deeper into the facility, past laboratories that reek of ozone and copper. Other scientists scatter when they see us coming, pressing themselves against walls. In a circular room dominated by monitors, a pod sits like something ripped from science fiction. Seven feet of gleaming metal and glass, covered in tubes and sensors.
"This is our consciousness suspension chamber. Complete sensory deprivation combined with our proprietary pharmaceutical cocktail delivered intravenously. You'll remain unconscious for twenty-four hours while we observe."
I circle the pod, noting the scratches on its surface. Claw marks. Deep ones. "And if I transform?"
"The pod is reinforced titanium alloy with electromagnetic locks. It successfully contained a bear shifter having a psychotic break." He runs his hand along the smooth surface with obvious pride. "Though he wasn't an Alpha Prime."
"What if the drugs don't work? My dad's tried everything—"
"Your father used human medicine. This cocktail is specifically designed for meta-human physiology. I promise you'll stay under."
Dad clears his throat. "I should find the hotel, get settled—"
"No." The word comes out sharp enough to cut glass. "Please. Stay."
"Riley—"
"I need you here when I wake up. Please, Dad."
He nods, swallowing hard. Twenty-one years of being my father, and he still can't fix the one thing that's breaking me apart.
Hamish draws what feels like gallons of blood, runs tests that make hospital equipment look like stone tools. I bench press eight hundred pounds without breaking a sweat. React to stimuli faster than human nerves should fire. Register temperatures that would blister normal skin as pleasantly warm.
"Your cellular regeneration is extraordinary. No wonder sedatives fail—you metabolize them before they can properly bind to receptors."
"Is that why I heal so fast?"
"Part of it. The other part..." He shows me a screen filled with data that might as well be ancient runes. "Your DNA is actively rewriting itself. Has been for years, but the process is accelerating exponentially as you approach your twenty-first birthday."
"Rewriting into what?"
"That's what we're here to discover."
He leads me back to the pod room. Other scientists have gathered behind reinforced glass like I'm some exotic zoo exhibit. Their fear-scent makes my nose itch, makes something in my chest rumble with dark satisfaction.
"When you're ready, we'll begin. The initial injection might sting."
I strip to medical shorts, hyperaware of eyes cataloging every movement. The pod opens with a hydraulic hiss, revealing padding that smells like plastic and the nightmares of other monsters.
"One more thing." The words force themselves out like pulling teeth. "Sometimes when I'm deeply asleep... things burn. I set fires. Bad ones."
Hamish's stylus freezes mid-notation. "Pyrokinesis?"
"I don't know what to call it. I just wake up and things are ash. Sometimes still burning. The tree was still on fire when I came to."
"Your father didn't mention—"
"Couldn't believe it myself, at first." Dad steps forward, shoulders set for battle. "I've documented every incident. The fires correspond with his most violent transformations. The worse the hunt, the bigger the blaze."
"Remarkable. A dual expression—lycanthropy paired with elemental manipulation." Hamish practically vibrates with excitement. "This changes our approach significantly. An Alpha Prime with pyrokinetic capabilities... extraordinary. Possibly unique."
"Can you still help?"
"My dear boy, specimens like you are precisely why this facility exists." He gestures to the pod with barely contained glee. "Shall we begin?"
I climb in, the padding adjusting to support my frame. Sensors attach to my chest, temples, wrists—cold against too-hot skin. The lid hovers above, waiting to seal me in with whatever I become in the dark.
"Twenty-four hours." Dad grips my hand, his skin cool against my furnace heat. "I'll be here when you wake up. I promise. Everything will be okay."
"What if I get worse? What if--"
"Then we'll deal with that together. We always have."
The needle slides home, ice-cold cocktail flooding my veins. Different from Dad's sedatives—this feels like winter itself crawling through my blood, dousing the constant fire under my skin.
"Count backward from ten." Hamish's voice comes from somewhere far away, distorted and dreamlike.
"Ten... nine..."
The lid descends with mechanical precision. Darkness complete as a tomb. My heart hammers against my ribs, fighting the drugs already spreading through my system.
"Eight... seven..."
My limbs grow heavy, then numb. The thing that lives under my skin thrashes once, twice, then goes still. For the first time in months, the constant burn under my skin cools.
"Six... fi—"
The world tilts. Colors bleed at the edges of vision. Then she's there, behind my eyelids. Silver eyes like moonlight on water. Dark hair spilling across pale skin. A woman made of silence and shadow, reaching for me across impossible distance. Her mouth moves, shaping words I can't hear but somehow understand in my bones.
Find me.
The drugs pull harder, dragging me under. But I fight to hold her image, to burn it into memory. She feels more real than the pod, than the needles in my arms, than the father standing vigil.
She feels like home.
"Five... four..."
Her hand extends toward me, and I swear I feel fingertips brush my cheek. Cool as spring rain against my burning skin.
"Three..."
The image fractures. She's younger now, standing in a crowd. A city street. Watching me with those impossible eyes while two women pull her away. Recognition hits like lightning—I've seen her before. Six months ago. The day everything started falling apart.
"Two..."
Darkness creeps in from the edges, but I cling to her face. To the certainty that she's real. That she's waiting.
"One..."
The last thing I see before the black takes me: her lips forming a single word.
Soon.
Then nothing. Just the dark and the drums of my slowing heart, carrying me down into whatever waits in the space between man and monster.