Tisper hit a switch on the wall and a single golden bulb flashed on, the light so dim, it hardly competed with the single stream of moonlight, squeezing in through the basement window. At least now, she could see the bricks in the walls and the stains in the cement at her feet. She hated the thought of sticking him away here, but they had no other options. This place was built just for this—built for the Bad Moon.
A thick steel cage split the room down the center. They started from beams in the floor, where the cement foundation had been cut and replanted with the metal in place. And as the metal rose, it weaved into perpendicular bars, over and under, all the way to the ceiling. A dungeon—that was what came to mind the first time Tisper saw it. She supposed in a way it was everything the same. He was a prisoner to this place until the bad moon was over. Always a prisoner, poor Jaylin.
Nothing in this place made her stomach turn quite like the blue tarp that canvassed the basement floor. Quentin had done what he could to make it accommodating, topping the tarp with layers and layers of blankets tossed into a mound, four downy pillows at the head. He’d be comfortable at least, but Tisper still couldn’t shake the guilt—especially when she looked to the key in her hands, large and metal like the kind from the movies. She supposed it took an industrial-size key to turn an industrial-size lock, but it was never the less the object that would decide Jaylin’s freedom for the rest of the night.
Understandably, it took both hands to twist the lock on the cell door. It slid in place with a mechanical sound and the door, rusted from years of neglect, swung open with a dreadful whine.
She looked back to Quentin and instead found Jaylin’s unconscious face in the darkness.
“What did you give him?”
“It’s an herb we use sometimes for chrysalis moons. First time werewolves. It was the only thing that worked for Anna.”
She stepped aside as Quentin entered the cell and laid Jaylin down slowly onto the blanket pile, easing his head onto the pillows like a sleeping child.
“Couldn’t you just keep giving him that until the chrysalis is over?”
“If it was that easy, I would have given him the medicine ages ago. This stuff is derived from devil’s root. It’s fine for humans, but it’s almost like an opioid to us. Like heroine.”
“You just gave him were-heroine?” Tisper gaped. “Is that safe?”
“No,” Quentin said. “It’s effective. But too much and he…”
Tisper gave him the dryest look she could manage. “He’d overdose?”
He ignored her nagging and rose, leaving the cell with a reluctance in his steps. Sealing the door shut, Quentin tested its locks with a jerk.
They watched him from the outside for what felt like forever, before Tisper finally asked, “Why is he shaking?”
Even with the lights on, the basement was dark, she could hardly see Quentin’s eyes but she knew they were on Jaylin. On the way he turned on his side; ankles crossed, hands curled at his heart and shoulders shivering.
Quentin’s eyes glinted—the only part of them she could see in the shadows. “His body’s fighting off the curse like its a virus.”
She felt her breath heave, watching Jaylin tremor alone on the floor, his fingers twitching, his entire body protesting the curse the way a child trembles under the poison of a bad dream.
“Go upstairs,” Quentin told her, “Get some air. Make some coffee. I’ll stay with him.”
“But I want to be here when he—”
“It’s going tobe a while,” Quentin said. “It could take all night. You’re nervous, I can feel it.” His eyes finally found Tisper, too dark to see their intent. “Would wine help?”
Tisper nodded.
Quentin disappeared up the stairs the same way they’d come, and Tisper couldn’t help but think it wasn’t the wine at all that motivated him to go. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t stand to be here and see this anymore than she could. Maybe a drink would help them both.
But an hour later, neither of them had finished a glass. Tisper felt too sick to keep it down, and Quentin hadn’t taken his eyes off of the body beyond those bars—the shuddering, groaning, blackening body.
They sat on the cold cement of the basement floor, only a metal cage keeping them from Jaylin.
“You don’t know when he’ll turn, do you?” she asked when the silence felt almost too thick to crack.
“Could happen at any time,” Quentin said. “Could take days for all we know.”
Tisper shot a look at her cell phone screen. “It’s only seven-thirty. So why are we keeping away already?”
“Like I said. Any time.”
“Will he really be that dangerous?”
“Anna tried to kill her brother.”
Shock hit Tisper when he said it. Hit her like a hard punch. She found his face in the dark and for the first time in a long time, Quentin drank from his glass of wine.
“Alex?” Tisper whispered. She didn’t know why but she felt like such a thing could only be spoken about in whisper. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. It was like a car crash—you don’t know what’s happening until after it’s happened. After the adrenaline runs out. We didn’t think she would turn as quickly as she did, we had her shackled, ankles and wrists. That was what she wanted, but the binds broke when she turned. We were inside with her at the time and Alex was the first one she went for.”
“But, Jaylin…he’d never—”
“Do you think Anna wanted to hurt us?” Quentin’s brows dipped and his heavy gaze finally fell under the weight of it all, his thumb tracing the stem of his wine glass. “She loved Alex. She was so protective of him—even towards me. Anna never would have hurt a soul, but that wasn’t Anna. And Jaylin…In a few hours, that won’t be Jaylin”
Tisper folded her legs up to her chest and watched the shape of him, moving slightly in the shadows. It seemed like for every moment he spoke, Jaylin was stirring more, twisting onto his back and grunting out in a kind of slow-creeping agony. It hurt to watch him hurt. It hurt to do nothing for him—to sit back and just let it happen.
And over the next hour, the agony only grew. Every few seconds, as the devil’s root wore off, the sound of his pain swelled loud and labored. And the more Jaylin woke, the more he twisted and wormed, and shouted out when the torment was too much.
And when suddenly the shouts turned to screams, Quentin rose to his feet and Tisper launched up beside him.
They watched him beneath that single swinging bulb—the sound of thunder groaning an ample distance away. And Jaylin had turned over on his knees and reached over his shoulder with a long, frightening hand—the sharp curled talons that belonged only to the beast inside of him. They clutched the gown at his shoulder blades and ripped it from his body.
His hematite skin was moving in the darkness—rising and falling like knots of tangled snakes squirmed beneath. His spine had grown, sharp ridges beneath thin, stretched skin. And with another tremoring twinge of muscle, Jaylin turned onto his back again, pushed his heels to the ground with a hurt cry—one that begged of mercy. And when Tisper finally pulled herself from his shallow ribs and the sound of snapping bone, she found his eyes—open now and filled with so much pain, so many tears. And he was shaking so hard, his jaw set so tight, she could tell that he was trying his best to keep himself together. And she couldn’t understand how, because she was falling apart just watching him.
And Quentin was at the door of the cell, shaking the metal in his fists. When the locks held strong, he turned to Tisper. “Give me the key.”
She found it in her pocket, delivered it to his hand with trembling fingers. And Quentin threw the door open, moved inside and slammed it hard behind him. Then he passed the key back through the bars.
“What are you doing?” Tisper asked, clutching the object between her fingers. “Quentin!”
Quentin sat on the blankets beside Jaylin, reaching under his arms to pull him back against his chest, and Jaylin laid there between his legs, tears streaking his face. “Get out,” he struggled, and Tisper could see him grip at Quentin’s leg—squeeze from the pain of it. And Quentin only jumped a bit when he claws went through.
“Or what?” Quentin said, brushing the sweaty bangs from Jaylin’s forehead. “You’ll punch me again?”
The sudden caterwaul of thunder lit Tisper’s nerves. She jolted, watching the lights flicker above in that tiny naked bulb. She reached for the door and slotted the key into the lock. “I’m coming in too.”
“No!” Jaylin shouted and there was something in his voice that made Tisper stop. He didn’t sound like himself—not at all. She removed the key slowly and stepped back, watching as Quentin pulled Jaylin’s claws from his leg and forced his wrists to cross over his chest—to keep his razor-sharp talons locked down.
Jaylin calmed down after that. Tisper realized it was the movement—the pain came and Jaylin would retaliate by moving, by twisting and writhing and crying out. But when Quentin held him still, Jaylin quieted. He laid there, breath too deep, too crude. For hours he laid in Quentin’s arms.
The pain seemed to take enough of his energy that Jaylin fell asleep there. And after some time had passed, Quentin moved out from beneath him, painfully, painfully slow. He laid Jaylin’s head on the pillows and let him rest for the next wave, and as he stepped out of the cell, Tisper caught the blood on the leg of his jeans.
“He didn’t mean it,” she shook her head. “He’d never hurt you.”
Quentin looked down to the stain, wiped a hand over the fresh blood and examined his palm in the darkness. Quietly, he mumbled, “It’s normal.”
“How long do you think he’ll sleep for?”
“Maybe twenty minutes,” Quentin said. “Might have to bind his wrists. He’s cut himself up already.”
“Got anything he won’t break out of?”
“There may be some zip-ties in the shed.”
“You don’t think he’ll break those?”
“Probably, but it’ll buy us time. I’ll go look for them.”
He’d started to jog his way up the steps when Tisper felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Before she could even answer her with a hello, Sadie’s voice burst through.
“Tisper! Thank god. Alex, she answered.”
There was a storm of noise on the other end, and then Alex was speaking, “Tisper, I need to talk to Quentin.”
He must have heard his name because Quentin stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around.
“Um. Okay,” Tisper said. She pulled her phone from her face and hit the speaker button, and then Alex’s breath—shallow and shaken, crackled too loudly in the silence.
“What is it, Alex?” Quentin’s voice carried from the top steps.
“Quentin,” the speakers crinkled. “They’re here. She’s here. She’s looking for him.”
A look of shock passed briefly over Quentin’s face. He sprinted back down the steps and snatched the phone from Tisper’s hand. “Where are you?”
“With Sadie. We’re hiding in the attic. Mom’s trying to—she’s talking to them but they won’t leave. They want him.”
“Stay there, I’m coming.” He was nearly at the top before Tisperhad a chance to shout after him.
“Quentin, wait! What about Jaylin?”
He staggered on the top step and swung around to look at her—then to the cage where Jaylin was starting to stir again. Tisper had never seen a look so helpless as on the one that crossed his face. A man torn to pieces.
“Quentin.” Jaylin was curled on his side, trying with all he had to lift his head from the blankets. The black had nearly swallowed his face whole—one of his eyes pale and milky. Sharp like the eye of a cat and reflecting light from the dark corner of his cage. “My friends.”
Again, Quentin hesitated.
“Please go,” Jaylin said. A tear peeled down his face, and in his agony, Jaylin shouted, “Go!”
The sound sent Quentin back a step. He looked to Tisper, a hard lump moving down his throat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “I’ll send someone in my meantime. Just…don’t go in.”
The door shut and Tisper turned her eyes to Jaylin, his shoulders accented by the sharp cut of bone that wasn’t there before. His breath rising and falling like a dying thing.
Through the tiny basement window in the corner of the room, the Bad Moon poured in, rich and pink as good Rosé. Tisper swallowed down her wine with a trembling hand.
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