An Excerpt of Bitten: Chapters 1-4

By Maggie Montgomery

We are back with a sneak peek you wouldn’t BELIEVE. Sink your teeth into the first four chapters of Bitten—you’re welcome.

1

There is a full moon tonight. It hangs in the blackened sky like a mermaid’s scale, glowing bright as candlelight against the darkness. I stare up at it, wiping the sweat from my brow with an already sticky forearm. The early September heat of St. Augustine is killer. Enough to make you feel as if you’re drowning on dry land. Humidity fills my lungs with each breath, and even the spectral moon can’t make me forget that I’m slowly boiling alive.

I’m going to kill Celeste.

My butt aches under the knife-sharp edge of her front porch step while she runs behind her house to retrieve some sort of surprise. I have no idea what it is, or why we she’d need it when we’re supposed to be driving to the movies already. Dad dropped me off on his way to work, giving us barely enough time to order popcorn before the trailers.

“Can I at least help you?” I call after her in frustration, but I’m left with only the sound of her parents’ television blaring a sitcom laugh track through half-open windows. “I’m getting eaten alive,” I say, swatting at a pair of overeager mosquitoes.

They drift away in the warm breeze, and I hunch, wrapping my arms around my knees while I wait. Crickets chirp. A distant car horn blares. Though I pull out my phone to scroll for a moment, I put it away just as quickly with an impatient sigh. Whatever surprise she has planned, it’s taking forever, and we’re definitely going to be late to—

A branch snaps beside me.

Frowning, I turn toward the sound, but only a solitary lemon tree stands in that part of the yard. The moon casts long shadows behind it. “Hello?” I whisper, eyes narrowing on those shadows. No one answers me. Of course they don’t. Squirrels can’t talk.

Shaking my head, I ignore the prickling feeling at my nape. “Celeste, we really need to get—”

She returns in a rush, hiding the surprise beneath an old beach towel. Her cobalt-blue curls blow like ribbons in the breeze. “I know you have the whole control-freak thing going on, but try to be patient. I’m almost done.” She charges up the steps past me and into her house. Her parents yell at her for slamming the door, but she doesn’t bother apologizing. Once Celeste Ward puts her mind to something, she becomes unstoppable.

I should know. That’s how our friendship started, after all—she marched up to me in first grade, tugged on the messy braids my father had clumsily thrown together that morning, and told me we were going to be sisters whether I liked it or not.

I don’t know why she picked me, but before that day I hadn’t known what true friendship meant. Celeste’s love is unconditional-and-allconsuming. And it’s worth sitting alone under a full moon while she does whatever it is she’s doing.

“Almost done!” she shouts through the door.

I bite back my retort. Because Celeste never cares that my father considers dinner to be a plate of hastily microwaved nachos served with a very loud side of police reports screaming through his radio, and I never care that she went through a minor shoplifting phase in middle school. She brings me her mom’s leftovers for lunch, and I make sure she steers clear of every Target within a thirty-mile radius of us. She sits front row at all my volleyball games wearing my number in bright red on her cheek, and I put on black lipstick and ripped tights for her favorite concerts.

So—while I’d like to whip around, kick down the door, and pull her to the car by her electric-colored hair—I force myself to sweetly and not at all aggressively say, “I already ordered our movie tickets.”

She doesn’t answer, and silence falls around me again. Weird. The crickets have stopped chirping. I resist the urge to glance back at the lemon tree. It’s a squirrel. Only a squirrel. But my nape still prickles as if I’m being watched.

Just as I’ve worked up the nerve to go investigate, however, Celeste finally returns. She helps me to my feet with a giant grin on her lips, giving me an up-close view of the massive purple hickey on her neck and banishing all thoughts of vicious, man-eating squirrels.

“Here.” She lifts a tiny porcelain plate, pretty and pink with bows trimming the edge and the most hideous, quickly made mud pie slopped atop it. A single lit candle sticks out from the pile of dirt, grass, and acorns. “Happy birthday, Vanessa.”

I stare at it with furrowed brows. Surprisingly, it’s not the earthly mess that confuses me. It’s the date. “My birthday isn’t until Tuesday. You’re early.”

“I know,” she sings. “But we have to celebrate now! It’s Friday, and there just so happens to be a big beach party tonight. What are the chances?” Her long lashes flutter in an elaborate show of innocence, as if this hasn’t been planned since she called me and begged to hang out tonight. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d peel off the tank top she let me borrow and strangle her with it.

“No.”

She lowers the plate a little and pouts her lip. “Vanessa Hart—”

“No.”

“—you only turn seventeen once. You have to celebrate it. What better way than drinking warm booze on the beach with sixty of your closest friends?”

My lips twitch. “I don’t even have five friends.”

“All the more reason!” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “But we were invited, Vanessa, and what is an invitation if not a promise for the best night of your goddamned life?”

The candle burns longer, brighter, between us. Purple wax drips onto a halo of dandelions. The same color purple as the streaks in my hair. She really makes it impossible to hate her. “Last time we went out, you drank almost an entire bottle of tequila yourself and came home missing your underwear.”

“That was years ago!” she says with a laugh. The sound is feather soft with a sharp bite at the core, and so inherently Celeste—so familiar—that I think I could trace it in the stars.

“That was two nights ago,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m not being wrenched into any more of your salacious affairs.”

“You sound a lot like Brenda right now, Vanessa.” Her manicured nail points to her front door, midnight blue and threatening. “As in my mother, whose favorite hobby is church followed by shopping at Costco. This is your seventeenth birthday. Don’t you want to live a little?”

I take the plate from her, but she won’t let me blow out my candle. Instead, she covers it with her hand.

“I know you hated the last party we went to, and socializing basically turns you into an extreme-risk analyst, albeit one with a nice ass, but listen to me.” She grabs my chin with her free hand and angles it down until she has my full attention. “One day, you’re going to work in a beautiful office overlooking the ocean and you’re going to have the world’s hottest husband and two adorable kids. You’ll spend your weekends taking cooking classes and critiquing the latest movies in between his shifts at the hospital—”

“Just to be clear,” I say, “my future husband is a doctor?” “A heart surgeon, and part-time male model,” she explains, before continuing. “You’ll have the life of your dreams, and it’ll be a goddamned nightmare for me to lose you to suburbia. For now, however—for tonight— you are young and hot and basically seventeen. We are not wasting this Friday on extra-buttered popcorn. We are going to Max Cayden’s party, and you are going to ram your tongue down his throat.”

Oh god. A shiver runs through me, and I bite my lip. “You didn’t say it was Max’s party.”

She grins wickedly. “Got your attention now, huh, bitch?”

I blush, remembering the time he’d helped me up off the floor in the middle of a volleyball game. I’d slipped on the hardwood after a bad serve—the other team’s fault—and he’d been on the sidelines. It was divine destiny that he’d offered me a hand, and traitorous hormones that made me not score a single point for the rest of the stupid game. It wasn’t fair that his eyes were so blue. In fact, it was supremely distracting.

I pull the plate away from Celeste and back up until I hit her car. Leaning against it for support, I shut my eyes and sigh. There’s no way I can go to a party hosted by Max. I’ll make a complete ass out of myself. Even if I’m confident in front of Celeste—particular, stubborn, often controlling, and wholly myself—I can’t be that way in front of a boy I hardly know. I can’t be that way in front of Max.

Celeste rests against the yellow hood of her ancient Volkswagen Beetle. “I can’t live with another year of you being too afraid to chase after what you really want. You are so… full of life, Vanessa. If only you’d let anyone aside from me and the girls on your volleyball team see it.” Then, less gentle, she says, “You’re getting laid if it’s the last thing I do, and if your wish is for that to be with Max, so be it.”

I turn toward her with a scowl. “Grant—”

“Grant Austin does not count, and I don’t need to remind you why. Or maybe I do, and it starts with, just the ti—”

“Okay!” I blurt, lifting the plate of mud to my face to hide my everreddening cheeks. “Okay, I will go to Max’s stupid party if you promise to never say those words again.”

“Ha! I win.” She beams at me and flicks the purple in my hair. “Make your wish so we can get this show on the road. I heard Max’s big sister is home from college and she’s supplying the liquor.”

My stomach flips anxiously. Liquor. Max. A party. Three things at which I’ve never been adept. I swallow roughly and wish I could wipe my clammy palms on my skirt. “Are you sure this isn’t a stupid idea?”

“Would I ever lead you down a bad path?” she says.

I raise my brows and say, “Missing underwear and a whole bottle of tequila? Your mom almost locking you out?”

She laughs as if she doesn’t have a single care in the world. “And wasn’t that the best time we’ve had recently? Come on. No take backs. I promise not to lose my panties.”

Her brown eyes meet mine, and they’re so full of hope that I can’t bring myself to say no. Even though I want to. Even though I’m not sure I should want to. In the end, it doesn’t matter anyway. Celeste is like my North Star. Or maybe we’re more like the Gemini constellation—twins. Where she goes, I go, and where I go, she goes. Always.

I glance at the burning candle. The flame has nearly run halfway down the wax, purple speckling the dirt cake and painting a much nicer picture than before. Every year since first grade—when my father was called into his station on my birthday and there were no cake and presents, just a very annoyed babysitter who immediately sent me to bed—Celeste has made me a birthday cake of mud and sticks and twigs and whatever else she can find in her backyard. She used to walk it to my house after school.

This year is different, though, and all of a sudden, with the candle casting shadows between us, I feel different. Older, maybe. Taller. As if I can almost see over the fence of childhood and into the future. Celeste might not want the same, but normalcy—two parents and a house with a white picket fence and a schedule that’s reliable and unchanging—it’s all I want. My mom left when I was so little, I can’t remember a time when I had more than just my father. My father and Celeste. The other officers at his precinct. A few girls on my volleyball team. Grant Austin last summer for a month.

That’s it. That’s been my whole circle my entire life.

A car barrels down the street, flooding the lemon tree with light. Nothing is there. Of course nothing is there. This tight, jittery feeling in my stomach is for another reason entirely, and perhaps Celeste is right. Perhaps I’m ready for something else now. Something new.

Celeste grabs my hand and squeezes. “Make a wish, Vanessa.”

When I close my eyes and blow out the candle, I do.

I wish for more.

2

Celeste drives us to the party in her car. The yellow paint is mostly rusted on the outside, making us a bronze blur in the night as we race over the Bridge of Lions, toward Anastasia Island.

St. Augustine is made up of two parts, each as historical and haunted as the other. There’s downtown, on the mainland, with closely huddled cobbled streets hosting ghost tours, pirate museums, and a castle abandoned long ago. In sunshine, it looks like the perfect vacation spot. Pastel flowers peek over the edges of pink walls, and Spanish-style tiled roofs shade most of the square. At night, however, that’s when you can feel its age. It’s the oldest occupied European settlement in the United States—of course, that doesn’t count for much when all the land in the US was already settled by the people who lived here first—but I do think it explains the magnitude of hauntings. Before Plymouth, before Jamestown, the Spanish colonized this coast. This city.

St. Augustine is a land of bloodshed like any other, and there are more than enough ghost-tour companies waiting to snatch your money and tell you all about it.

Anastasia Island is across the bridge, and it’s less well known. Sure, tourists will visit, and the ghost tours won’t exclude it from their stops. But when you think St. Augustine, you don’t think about the island or the red-tipped lighthouse, or the refurbished mansions that pop up after every hurricane, standing proud and modern on an ancient beach, almost as if challenging the next storm to come and do its worst.

Celeste and I never visit the island. It’s where the rich kids live—the ones who drive luxury cars paid for by their parents and go to school in fancy universities along the coast. They don’t really waste time talking to us townies.

Celeste knocks on her steering wheel three times as we cross the river and make it onto the island. A superstition that she’ll no doubt take to her grave. “Five minutes,” she says, popping in a different CD without even bothering to glance at the stereo system. The music blares, too loud and far too bass heavy for the heart already thumping painfully between my ribs. “You ready?”

“To pee my pants? Sure thing.” I lean my head against the half-open window, wishing her air-conditioning did more than just blow warm air at us through dusty old vents.

“It’s just a party, Ness.”

“To you,” I say. “You excel at parties. You’re funny and charming, and everybody loves you. I just… I always end up standing there and babbling until people leave.”

She slams on the car’s feeble brakes as we run into a red light. Whipping her head around, smacking me in the face with her hair in the process, she glares at me. “You do not make people leave.”

“I wasn’t saying—”

“I don’t care what you were saying. I have a very close relationship with your subconscious, and she can be a mega bitch sometimes. You do not make people leave.” The light turns green, but she doesn’t hit the gas pedal. Even when the car behind us honks, she continues staring at me. Her brow crinkles, and a droplet of sweat slides over her nose, down to her petal-pink lips. “I love you, Vanessa.”

“I love you too,” I say easily. Because it is. Easy. The easiest thing I’ve ever said in the world. I love Celeste as if she’s my own flesh and blood, or maybe even more than that.

“Good. Promise me you’ll try to have a good time. Let loose. Be fun.”

“Saying be fun implies that I am not already fun.”

“Well, if the gigantic shoe fits.” She throws her head back with one of her tinkling laughs as I smack her in the arm. Finally, she presses down on the gas pedal.

“A size ten is not gigantic. You’re just a pixie.”

“I’d rather be a pixie than Bigfoot.”

I yank my purse onto my lap and stick out my tongue. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

I do. But it’s not necessary to say it again, and even if I did, she wouldn’t hear me. She cranks up the music until we’re in definite risk of noise pollution, screaming along to lyrics that don’t match the ribbons in her hair or the glitter on her cheeks. That’s Celeste, though. She contains multitudes. And I contain—“Two lip glosses, a pack of gum, a can of mace, and one sterling silver Swiss Army knife courtesy of one very worried father,” I yell, listing out the contents of my purse until she lowers the music. “Oh, and a granola bar. Do you think we need anything else?” I hold up the snack by the edge of its crinkled packaging. Celeste glances at it as she takes the wrong turn.

“I think we sound prepared for the apocalypse rather than a casual chill hang.”

“Hey, watch the road. The public beach is way farther down.”

She flashes me a devious grin. “Who said anything about a public beach?” We continue down a skinny road shaded by tall oak trees and turn into the unlit parking lot of a black-and-white-striped lighthouse.

“Celeste,” I warn, a bad feeling rotting in my gut.

She turns off the engine. “You wouldn’t have said yes if I’d told you.”

“What happened to ‘casual chill hang’? We can’t party at the lighthouse! There will be alarms and cops, and we’ll be thrown in jail before our top schools can even reject us.”

“Says the girl fondling the knife.”

I throw the knife in my purse and sit up straight, refusing to undo my seat belt even as Celeste opens her door. I thought last Wednesday when we went to Brooklyn Davies’s house—a boy Celeste swears she’s in no way into—was as wild as we’d ever get. She drank, she smoked, she went missing for an hour in a sea of people. . . . That was supposed to be the apex.

“I’m pretty sure this is a felony.”

“First of all,” Celeste begins, “we aren’t partying in the lighthouse, just out back on the boat ramp. Brooklyn’s dad works here. It’s totally legal.”

“Oh, and there’s that name again. Are we stalking Brooklyn now? I thought Max was throwing the party.”

“He is. With Brooklyn.”

“They don’t even share a class.”

“So you’ve memorized Max’s schedule already? I knew you could use your powers for evil. Think of everything we might accomplish if you grew a pair.” She steals my purse and leaps out of the car with a yelp. Slamming the door shut, her pale frame fades out of view as soon as she takes a few steps. I clamber after her.

“This is not what I consider a good birthday!”

“I want to live, Vanessa. I want to be free!” She twirls in a circle, arms thrown wide. “Are you going to join me or what?”

I hesitate. One foot planted ahead of me and the other behind me. It’d be so easy to turn around and sit in the car until the cops come. She’d be busted, but it wouldn’t be for anything she doesn’t deserve. On the other hand… I think of Max and blowing out my candle.

I wanted more. I wished for more.

“Live,” she demands. “You’re only seventeen once.” “Fine.” I step forward. “But I’m blaming you if any bad shit goes down.” With a squeal of delight, she pulls me past the lighthouse, down the block, and through a tangle of bramble before we find the ramp on the shore. Our arms intertwined, she shoves my purse into my chest, and I take it greedily with my free hand. Cling to it like a life raft as we step over uneasy terrain.

Being here reminds me of falling asleep. That space between nothing and dreams, when you go from deep silence to an explosion of imagination, thoughts, and feelings without ever realizing it’s happening.

The creaky wooden bridge is abandoned, hidden beneath overarching trees whose swaying limbs and rattling branches disguise the sound of the Atlantic. And then, the bridge ends.

The party begins, and that bad feeling in my gut stays.

–

Sweaty bodies fill every crevice of the open space. Sand shuffles between our toes, invading our shoes and grating against our skin. The salty air feels heavier at night, like a blanket drawing closer. Tempting under the moonlight with rays of gold glittering atop an endless ocean of black. Phones illuminate what the moon can’t, set up on coolers and kegs and rainbow beach chairs that all look more like a kaleidoscope of shadows.

I don’t know where to go at first, so I continue clinging to Celeste as she parts the crowd of our classmates and heads straight for the coolers near the shore. She doesn’t stare at the ground when she walks, doesn’t falter as we hit a dip in the sand. Just marches with her back straight and her chin tipped up, her face bathing in moonlight. I wish I could say the same for me.

I’ve been to parties before—bonfires on the beach and house parties— but nothing like this. Not at a party this large and loud that it’s as if I’m drowning in noise and scent and flickering bright lights. They illuminate the faces of my classmates, my teammates, and some kids I don’t recognize. Beautiful kids. Rich kids, with designer brands dripping from perfectly broad shoulders and muscled arms. Their heads turn in our direction, as if… as if they’re watching us.

Doing a double take, I nearly step on Celeste’s sandal and send us both sprawling to the ground. A redhead in a black leather skirt laughs as I straighten, and my stomach pitches as I realize she saw—they all did. I can feel their eyes continue to follow us as Celeste sneers, flipping them her middle finger, before leading me away. And I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what to do. My limbs feel foreign, heavier than usual. Do I smile, or is that weird? If I frown, will my classmates think I’m a bitch? If I start to move to the booming beat of EDM, will I look like a goddamned idiot? Or will I look like Celeste—a tiny pixie swaying gracefully to the music?

My brain might explode before we get arrested, and honestly that feels preferable right now. Celeste squeezes my hand as if she can read my thoughts, her heated skin burning through most of my nerves. Most, but not all of them. “It’s just like your games,” she shouts so I can hear. “With eleven other girls on the court, you’re always the one in control. And do you know why?”

“No,” I try to shout back, but it comes out a half squeak.

“Because on the court, you don’t think. You just are.” She pushes a lock of my brown hair behind my ear, smoothing out the purple tangled within it. “Your body knows what to do. Stop letting your mind derail it and listen to your bones.”

She’s right. I don’t overthink on the court. But out there, it’s just me and a ball. Obstacles in the shape of girls and a single net. Here, it’s… well, there are the girls on my team who I desperately need to impress to win captain next year. Max Cayden is supposedly here somewhere, and that makes me want to throw up a little—or a lot. And everyone else … I don’t know. They just matter. I care what they think of me, and how I’m perceived.

It’s that they haven’t decided yet; they haven’t chosen whether to swipe left or right, and that means there’s a chance they could like me, or, more realistically, I could screw it all up. Show them the worst parts of myself that I reserve solely for Celeste, and make them run away screaming.

“Not thinking might be easier said than done,” I tell Celeste.

“Yeah, sober.” She throws open a cooler, exposing a row of pink-colored liquor bottles. Smirnoff Ice Strawberry, Pink Whitney, and Crema de Tequila. They sound equally toxic. Celeste drags her finger across the labels, choosing our poison at random. “This one.” She plucks up the Pink Whitney, finds a stack of plastic cups, and tops us off. “Drink.”

“But the police—”

“I promise, you’re not going to see your father tonight.” She presses the cup to my lips, and I know I look like a baby being fed a bottle. Know that others are probably thinking we’re a couple. I try so, so hard not to care. “No more thinking,” she warns. “Drink or dance. That’s it.”

I take the drink because I doubt I’ll be dancing without it. One swig, and it tastes like arsenic. Two swigs, and it tastes almost sweet. By three, I’m enjoying it enough to smile. Maybe I should’ve tried drinking on Wednesday—but then I remember I wouldn’t have been able to drive Celeste home.

So who’s going to drive us home today?

“That’s my girl.” Celeste throws her entire cup back, swallowing it down like a pro. When she’s done with her second cup, I’m halfway through my first, and she tugs me into the dancing throng. I find Sara Wu from volleyball, who sidles up real close.

“Sick party,” she screams. Her breath smells as if it could strip paint from the lighthouse.

Celeste pulls my hands up, twisting her hips in a way that forces mine into motion also. “The best!” she agrees. Sara and Celeste—who have only ever spoken briefly after my games—laugh like the oldest of friends, and Celeste grabs Sara and drags her into what National Geographic would probably report as some kind of ancient mating ritual. I try my best to keep up, forcing my hips and shoulders and feet to copy theirs. Eventually Sara and Celeste both grab my waist and coax me into a more natural rhythm.

Liquor coats my belly. Hot compared to the icy water spilling at our feet. It shoots through my veins, straight to my heart, and then spirals out toward my muscles, until I’m warm and loose and lithe all over.

Suddenly, I feel good. As if the only problems I’ve ever had are damp sandals and wet toes. There is Celeste in front of me, cackling like a hyena as she shakes her ass, and Sara behind me, screaming about our last win. I hardly notice the rich kids still staring at us.

Let them watch. I think I love parties. I laugh and pull Celeste’s hair. Tugging the velvet cerulean strands until they twine around my fingers, soft as ever.

“I love you,” I scream, because my mind and body tell me I have no choice.

She stands on her tiptoes and plants a wet kiss on my cheek. “Forever, bitch!”

We laugh more, and every reservation I had about tonight fades away. Wave after wave of warm liquor swallows the bad feelings in my gut, until I genuinely believe that there is no possibility of cops. No worries of being on the nightly news.

There’s just me and my friends. All sixty of them. Celeste was right. This is the best night ever.

Suddenly, Celeste screeches, and I turn. Brooklyn Davies appears in a halo of golden phone light in front of us. Tall, with jet-black braids and smooth, dark brown skin. Easily the nicest boy in school. She cries his name as if she’s never said it before, and I smile as big and bright as I ever have. I knew she liked him.

“There you are!” she says, throwing her arms around his neck.

He laughs and sweeps her off her feet, pressing the sweetest kiss to her forehead. Brooklyn has been following Celeste around for the last year, carrying her books to class, sharing his lunch, offering to change the oil in her mom’s car for free. She couldn’t keep him at a distance forever, not with the way she always stares at him, her eyes a little wide as if she can’t quite believe he’s real. As if she keeps waiting for him to vanish, or maybe for the facade to wear off and expose the rotten core beneath. He doesn’t have one, though. And I think she’s starting to realize that.

She gapes at him now, but only for a second before she hugs him tight. Doesn’t let go.

He chuckles. “If I’d known you’d be this happy to see me, I’d have found you earlier. Still need a ride tonight?”

“Yes, please,” she shouts. The music has become a goddess, blessing every square inch of the beach with thundering reverberations. I can’t stop moving to it. Don’t want to stop. “I missed you!”

He sets her down, moving his lips near her ear. I don’t hear what he whispers, but I don’t need to in order to understand that they’re basically in love. I spin in the most dramatically gleeful circle, really feeling myself, and then—there he is. Standing right before me is Max Cayden.

Oh god. I can’t swallow anymore. I can’t even breathe. He’s less than a foot away. Blond hair, blue eyes. Skin like moonlight. I want to touch that hair. His skin. What do I do? The liquor drains from my system in an instant, icy water snapping at my toes like a crab. Waking me up from my beautiful daydream and throttling me back into my vicious reality.

I am at an illegal party, and the boy I’m obsessed with is right there.

Celeste pushes me into him with the force of a Category Five hurricane. I might actually hate her now.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I hurry to say, words rushing together and almost incomprehensible as he catches me with two lean arms.

He laughs under his breath, and the sound travels all the way to my bones. “Don’t worry about it. My parties are known to be pretty crowded.”

“Yeah,” I say, dumbstruck. He helps me stand, but his touch remains firm on my skin. I stare at where his finger strokes my inner elbow and shiver.

His sapphire eyes crinkle as if he’s laughing inside. “Someone’s enjoying my sister’s stash.”

Stash. Stash? Oh, the liquor Celeste said she was bringing. I nod once in answer, wishing that I could explain how I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him and will be unable to talk for the next seven to ten business days. But I don’t need to, because Celeste still exists. And she’s clearly out for blood.

“This is Vanessa,” she says to Max for me, yanking Brooklyn up beside her. “Don’t you guys have math together?”

Max inches closer to me, and I swear I can taste my own heartbeat. “Hell, do we? Mr. Peters in fourth period?”

“Yes. I—um, I sit in the back.” I stare at him. He stares at me. It feels as if neither of us blinks, but finally he breaks the silence. I’m so glad, I could cry.

“Well, cool. I guess.”

Oh.

I tuck my hair behind my ears. Untuck it before he thinks my doublehelix piercing is try-hard. I thought this conversation would be going differently. Maybe it’s not realistic for him to scoop me up and kiss me here and now, but shouldn’t there be more to say?

“You sit in the front,” I add. Celeste winces, and Brooklyn seems to be choking down laughter. Even Max isn’t making eye contact with me anymore. He waves to a blonde girl on my right, and then a redhead on my left. Shit. I am clearly ruining this.

Celeste told me to stop thinking. Told me to drink or dance. If I don’t want this night to be marked as the worst ever, I need to get it together. What would Celeste say? What would she do?

“Do you want to dance?” I blurt, the only thought left in my head: please please please please.

Max’s brows lift in surprise. He glances at the other girls and then shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”

But before we can dance—before he can wrap an arm around my waist and pull me into the romantic embrace of my dreams—someone shoves me, and I hit the ground. Hard.

This has officially become the worst night ever.

3

“Yo, what the hell? If someone calls an ambulance, we’re all screwed!” Max yells from across the sand.

Whoever pushed me is gone, and sadly so is Max. My chest deflates as my knees burn. Something warm and sticky trickles down my leg.

Of course this is how my night would go. I’m bleeding on the ground, and I think Max might be … well, I don’t think he’s into me. The music quiets to a low hum and everyone turns to stare. Goddamn it.

I stagger to my feet and search around for Celeste, but she’s gone too. I’ve been left with Sara, who gives me a pitying glance and says, “We should go find you a Band-Aid. I might have some in my car.” I nod, eyes filling with tears, but then I spot Brooklyn, inches away, his gaze snagging on something in the distance. And I hear it—her. Screaming.

I move from Sara’s side, sliding into the cooing crowd. They reach out, ask if I’m okay, but deep inside the circle, Celeste is shouting. It must be for help. I need to find her. Maybe she was hurt too. Maybe—

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Celeste pokes a finger into one of the stranger’s chests. The boy is taller than Brooklyn, paler, with long black hair and almost scarlet eyes. He, like the rest of them, is gorgeous. Breathtakingly so. Unnaturally so, with a smug smile on his lips made for calculated insults and silver spoons. He glances at her finger with a scoff, as if he can’t even be bothered to react further to her audacity.

“Hey, dick,” she says, louder still, “you just pushed my friend to the ground. Do you want to try an apology, or are those pretty lips too busy still sucking on Mommy and Daddy’s teats?”

Not good.

I rush forward and loop my arm through hers, tugging. She doesn’t budge. Weighted down like a brick, she stays rooted to the sand.

The strange boy’s gaze falls on me, then my knee. His nose scrunches as though he’s disgusted. “We were dancing. Perhaps she should have watched where she stood.”

A girl at his side steps forward, silky, black hair falling to her waist. Her scarlet-brown eyes match his exactly. They share the same straight nose and pointed chin, but her lips pull into a deeper frown, her eyes narrowing further. She looks like a wasp seconds from striking, and the sight sends a ripple of goose bumps up my arms.

Her voice comes out ice cold. “Maybe your friend was too busy drooling over that fuckboy to notice, but this is a party. People dance at parties.” She turns to grimace at me. “Even the ones who aren’t good at it.”

I stiffen. Embarrassment paints me red from cheeks to chest. I try to hide it by shifting away, but I’ve got too firm a hold on Celeste, and she’s making it so that I can’t move either.

“Celeste, it’s not worth it,” I say, wishing the music would restart and everyone would go back to dancing. But they’re all watching, waiting.

Behind the first two rich kids stands a row of about six more beautiful, rich assholes. They all chest up with disapproving glares. I want to hide, now more than ever, but not Celeste.

Especially not when the girl says, “Why don’t you fuck off?” She cracks her knuckles, and the muscles in her forearms tense. The other rich kids follow suit behind her. “Or you can settle this like the badass you think you are.”

My classmates seem to inhale collectively, sharply. For a few seconds, there is only the sound of waves lapping at the beach. There is only the promise of violence before us.

Alarm bells peal in my brain.

Danger danger danger.

These kids have enough money to pay off the cops, buy a new lighthouse, and fund a new wing of the hospital all in the same day. They also look as if they’ve been trained to go five rounds in the Octagon with an MMA champion. If we mess with them, we’ll lose.

I pull and pull, but Celeste still won’t move. She swipes at the sweat on her forehead. It drips faster now, as though anger is raising her internal temperature. “I’m not scared of you.”

“No?” The girl tilts her head, hair cascading over her shoulder and obscuring the gilded crest that hangs from her neck. “You should be. Do you think a skinned knee is the worst we can do?”

“I think you can apologize,” Max says from beside me. I feel his warmth like an anchor—until he says, “You want the cops to come and ruin my party?”

The girl laughs when she notices my face fall, and my goose bumps return, as prickly as knives. Dread burrows into my spine. I manage to shuffle Celeste and me farther away, but it’s still not enough to get her out of their line of sight. I just want to stop being perceived. I want to go home.

The girl isn’t finished with me, though. She’s found a weak spot, and she’s attacking. “Did you really think he would like you? He may be a fuckboy, but at least he’s hot. Look at you. …” She waves to my knee with a flippant hand. “You’re pathetic.”

At that, Celeste lunges, ripping out of my grasp and tackling the girl to the ground. The crowd parts. Gives them space to wrestle in the sand. I can barely catch what’s happening. I see fists and nails like claws scratching across cheeks and hear a howl in the distance that might as well be a shotgun beginning their fight. Celeste screams with all her might, ripping at the girl’s hair. Brooklyn hurries over, picking her up by the waist to carry her away.

The girl isn’t done with Celeste either, however. She slaps Celeste across the cheek before Brooklyn can rescue her, leaving a puckering, red welt in her wake. The scar is jagged and unnaturally large for the size of the girl’s perfectly manicured nails, and deep enough that blood trickles over Celeste’s cheek. The other kids’ gazes snap to the wound. Their eyes seem to darken. Maybe they’re waiting for Celeste to surrender, but the injury only makes her kick harder. Scratch more.

“Celeste, stop—”

“Fuck you,” Celeste cries out. Not to me, but to the girl. Her voice is rougher than usual. Brooklyn has her hoisted in the air, using his chest as a backboard for her weight, but it’s almost not enough to stop her. “You stupid, deranged, arrogant assholes!”

“There’s no use,” says the first boy with an apathetic shrug, though his red-brown gaze remains on Celeste’s cheek. “It’s hardly even a fight.”

The girl pulls delicate fingers through her hair, adjusting the silk of her blouse as though she’s merely sandy from a quick run on the beach instead of a literal brawl. Meanwhile, Brooklyn sets Celeste on the ground with a glance at me—a plea for help—and I join him in holding my best friend back as she bucks violently in our grasp.

I don’t understand why she’s still going. Celeste never fights. Not once has she ever gotten into a physical altercation. This shouldn’t be happening. Something is wrong.

“Celeste,” I say, mustering as much strength as I can to speak up once more.

Her gaze finds mine, and for a split second, I’m looking at a stranger. I don’t recognize the girl behind her eyes. The slurred words on her tongue. “You are hurt,” she says, as though it’s as simple as that—she demands retribution for my pain, and they must pay it. Her chest heaves. The handprint on her face remains, stretching from the corner of her eye all the way down to her chin, with blood congealing in the crevice of her collarbone. Her hair sticks up in almost every direction, caked with sand and sweat and seawater. There is an inhuman hunger for revenge in her eyes.

While the other girl—she stands calmly, examining her bloodstained nails with an easy grin. As if she’s pleased.

I could kill her for it. Rage boils in my veins, slowly but no less deadly than Celeste’s, and I hate it. I hate even more that I can’t stop it. “Who do you think you are?” I ask, untangling from Celeste before inching forward. “You don’t go to our school. You don’t know anyone here. Leave.”

“Who do I think I am?” the girl purrs. “Your worst fucking nightmare.” She flicks me off, and most of her friends howl with laughter. Hatred scorches through me until I, myself, contemplate physical violence.

But then Celeste tugs away from Brooklyn’s grasp, and I spin to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. At least nothing as stupid as I was contemplating.

She doesn’t move forward again, however. She yanks at her shirt, pulling the collar from her neck. I see the splotches of sweat there too. On her reddened chest. Soaking through her armpits. Her other hand goes to her stomach, her cheeks flushing so scarlet, it’s as if her head could explode. Even her hickey looks irritated and raw, bigger than before, dipping below her shirt and spreading farther than I can see. Like a web of purple ink and black pain. Like a rash made of bruises.

“I. . . I have to go.” She sprints away, through the crowd and toward the lighthouse. The rich kids sneer and cackle behind her back, but our classmates form a wall between her and them. Protecting her. Thank god. Brooklyn and Max stand at the front of the pack, arms crossed and chins raised. The rich kids are all taller. Wider. More muscular and graceful. In every single way, they appear better than us.

The mean girl closest to me, with the long black hair and thick lashes, trails her tongue across her teeth. “Be a good little bitch and go chase after your Alpha.”

A different boy—a blond one—reaches out and taps her on the arm. “Enough,” he says. Immediately she falls in step behind him. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something else too, but I don’t care to listen anymore. I don’t care about any of them.

Only Celeste.

Max and Brooklyn—the rest of our school—can handle themselves. I chase after my best friend, following the brutal sounds of her retching until I’ve tracked her down.

–

Celeste bends over, head shoved into a bush across the street from the lighthouse. Her Beetle is yards away in the parking lot, amongst the other partygoers’ cars, looking more like the shadow of a boulder in the darkness. We can’t hear the music from here. We can’t see any lights except the streetlamps above us. I rub Celeste’s back in soothing circles as she vomits the rest of her stomach’s contents onto a very unlucky shrub and wipe the blood from her cheek and chest, taking care to avoid the growing rash.

When I’m done and she’s clean, I rifle through my purse. Pull out my granola bar, followed by my mace. “What do you think? Snack to absorb the alcohol, or mace to burn our eyeballs and make us forget this night ever happened?”

Her voice croaks out, normal once more. “I think the mace might have the opposite effect.”

“Fair enough.” I replace it with my pocketknife. “What about a free lobotomy?”

She groans and straightens, teetering on her feet and grabbing me for balance. I drop my purse on the ground to catch her. “Did everyone in school see?” she asks, burying her face in my shoulder. It sounds like a plea for mercy.

“Hardly everyone. The teachers weren’t there,” I point out with a half smile.

She groans louder, throwing her head in her hands. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Sure, sure.” I run a shaky hand through her hair. Tears trail down my cheeks, but I don’t let her see them. I’m just glad she’s okay. I’m glad the fight wasn’t worse. But I can’t say any of that without upsetting her. In this moment, my only instinct is to fix this. Get her home safely.

“I mean it,” she whines. “I—I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve never fought before. And that bitch—her nails were sharp as hell.” Her fingers ghost the marks on her cheek, and she hisses. I feel the burn as if it’s my own pain, my heart pounding in my ears. This night could’ve ended so much worse.

“You were trying to protect me,” I say, forcing myself to sound normal. Forcing myself to ignore the sweat drenching her skin. The blood crusted near her ear. “You were also very drunk. And abrasive.”

“I’m sorry, Ness.” Sobs rack her small frame. “I feel… my chest hurts so badly. It’s like I can’t breathe. I’m so hot—”

“It’s adrenaline. Your body is in shock. As soon as that fight started, it’s like … it’s like you disappeared.” I swallow hard. She trembles, and her skin still feels feverish. Maybe it’s not just from the heat. Maybe something is wrong. Really wrong, and—

No. I can’t think like that. Not right now. If I can’t keep my head, she won’t keep hers either.

“They deserved it.” Celeste pulls back and tugs the bottom of her shirt up to wipe her eyes before sitting on the curb. Her whole body deflates. “Your knee is still bleeding.”

I sit beside her, throwing an arm over her shoulder because I can’t bear to not touch her. To not comfort her. “It’s okay. I don’t even feel it.”

We sit in silence for a while. Eventually, her breathing evens out. Her cheeks grow pale as the red flush drains away. It’s Celeste again—just Celeste. Big brown eyes find mine in the darkness. “I wanted to protect you.”

“I know.” I press my head to hers, knife heavy and cold in my hand. “I thought about killing her. When she slapped you, I thought about fighting her myself.”

“That’s because you’re stubborn and loyal and… and we’re sisters,” Celeste says. “You know that, right? You’re the only family I’ll ever need. You’re it for me, Vanessa Hart.”

“You’re it for me too, Celeste Ward. Forever.”

She locks her pinky with mine, and the smile on her face takes me back eleven years, to when we first met. She laughs, and the pressure on my chest eases. I can breathe again. Everything . . . everything is going to be okay.

“I can’t believe you almost danced with Max Cayden,” she says, knocking into my side.

I hide my blush behind my hair. “I don’t think he was into me.”

“Don’t listen to those assholes. He would’ve been into you if you’d danced with him.”

Though I know her words are a lie, I still force myself to feel hopeful. “You think so?”

She nudges me with her elbow. “Absolutely. There’s still a chance for you and Max. So long as we can figure out a way for you to communicate actual words instead of just drooling.”

I clamp a hand over her mouth, unable to stop myself from giggling. “Like you’re any better? I missed you, Brooklyn! I love you, Brooklyn! I want to have your babies, Brooklyn!”

She licks my hand, and I yank it away with a squeal. She’s laughing, though. I am too. “I do think I like him. Maybe even a lot.”

“I know you do.”

“Of course. Vanessa Hart always knows everything.” She sticks out her tongue, giggling, before her gaze drops to the ground. “Do you… do you think . . .”

“Yes,” I say, without her needing to finish the thought. “He’s good, Celeste. Even better, he’s good for you.”

She exhales. “I guess we should think about leaving, then. Before the cops come and arrest us, and the boys refuse to ask for our hands in marriage.”

For some reason, I’m not as worried anymore. About the cops or the boys or even the events that happened tonight. My body feels lighter, more relaxed, my muscles no longer tensed in anxious anticipation. As long as I’m with Celeste, I know I’ll be fine.

I take my time standing, dusting the sand off her body and untangling her hair.

“If Mom catches me like this, she’ll send me to Bible camp again,” Celeste mutters.

“You’ll move in with me if it comes to that,” I say. “I refuse to let you go somewhere for an entire month without me.”

“Thank god,” she says. “Let’s sit in the Beetle until we’re sober enough to drive home. I can’t bear to walk back into that party now and ask Brooklyn for a ride.”

“Agreed.” We start to walk toward her car, our hands joined and swinging. Waiting a couple of hours sounds like the easiest thing in the world now. We look both ways when we cross the street—and suddenly Celeste’s grip on my hand tightens. She yanks my arm to her side. I think it’s affectionate, at first, and wait for her usual squeeze of assurance. But it doesn’t come.

Her lips clamp down on a whimper, her head twisted fully to my left.

“What—”

“Look.” Her gaze fixes on the street behind me. I turn to follow it, and my heart sinks to the floor.

There is a shadow in the street, a strong silhouette as tall and wide as one of the kids on the beach. They look at us, but they don’t move. At least, not forward or backward. Their arms hang limp at their sides for a moment before one snaps. Then the other.

Their bones break and twist. Their legs contort.

Each body part seemingly splits into two, three, four before our eyes.

“Shit.” The word cracks into two syllables on my tongue. Just like their bones.

“D-do you see that?” Celeste whispers.

I nod. Or maybe I don’t. I grab her tighter, hold her harder. “It’s just… some kind of stunt. Someone trying to go viral. It’s not real. It’s not—”

The shadow’s back splits open at their spine, flesh parting, bones protruding. They seem to turn inside out, molding into something else.

All the liquor I drank, every meal I ate, comes rushing out of my stomach and onto the ground. Splatters loudly enough that the shadow’s head snaps up—snaps back. Breaks viciously before reforming. Ears tightening into points. Teeth growing into fangs. And fur… fur everywhere.

“Wolf,” Celeste breathes.

The shadow has become a wolf.

4

The wolf—the beast—is huge. Twice the size of us, large enough to block out the light of the moon. The full moon. No. No. This is a sick joke. This isn’t. .. It’s not. . .

Celeste finds the knife in my hand, loosely dangling from my grasp, and tightens my fist around it. “Run,” she commands.

“What?” I can’t think, breathe, even feel. I am petrified.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It can’t be real.

“We need to run.” Celeste begins walking us quickly down the street, past a closed strip mall and flickering streetlights.

“We’re drunk,” I say. “We—we had too much, and now we—”

“It’s real,” she hisses.

I turn because she’s wrong. I want her to be wrong—even when, buried deep in my gut, I know that she’s right. The wolf remains. It lowers its front legs to the ground, almost as if—as if it’s going to pounce. But it wouldn’t, right? Why would it want to pounce on us?

“We need to run.” Celeste clutches my shoulders, her nails digging brutally into my skin. Horror fills her gaze.

The wolf leaps and lands hard in the gravel of the road. Chunks of rock break off, scatter in the breeze like marbles thrown in the wind. It snarls, its sharpened fangs flashing in the darkness. Its eyes glow so red, they’re almost black.

Shit.

We really need to run.

Just then, my brain catches up to reality. My legs begin working. I pull Celeste forward, and we stumble after each other, our minds racing faster than our limbs.

“Split up,” Celeste says in a rush. “If we go in different directions, that—that thing will be less likely to catch—”

“No! I’m not leaving you. We run together.” It doesn’t matter that I’ve always been faster. That she might slow me down. I can’t leave her.

I don’t understand what’s happening or why, but vicious growls pierce the night, and we throw ourselves down the sidewalk, our sandals slapping the concrete. Someone will find us. Or this is a dream. Or… My thoughts come in quick bursts of hope and fear as I pump my legs faster, haul Celeste after me. Nearly drag her body. We can make it out of this. We can find help and survive.

She loses a sandal, almost trips and falls as it flies off behind us. “Fuck,” she whispers. Her hand grows clammy in mine and slips from my grip, but I grab her wrist instead and heave her back to her feet.

“Keep running,” I say between breaths. “Don’t stop running. Someone will come. Someone will help us.”

Her bare foot slows our pace even more, but I keep us moving as quickly as possible. I think of volleyball practice. Every morning for two hours before school. The laps I run around the court until my lungs ache and I consider quitting and joining the school’s book club instead. This is just like that. We run, and we run. There is no stopping. Past the strip mall and a gas station and—

Oh, shit. Shit shit shit.

There is a second wolf, slightly smaller than the one behind us, prowling behind the gas station. Eyes bloodred. It bares its teeth from a darkened alleyway and springs into action.

No. God, no.

“Move,” I command. There is no thinking anymore; there is only doing. Celeste huffs, sobs breaking between each of her breaths. I know she’s crying. I’m crying. But we can’t stop moving.

This is a goddamned nightmare.

The second wolf begins to run alongside us, and I flick open my Swiss Army knife. Hold it as if it’s our only lifeline.

Celeste starts to limp, but she doesn’t give up. I don’t give up. We dodge the first wolf, swerving into the road. I pray someone drives down the street. Anyone. We scream. For help, for mercy. For everything. No one answers our prayers.

The streets remain empty, almost too silent. Too abandoned. This is some sick joke. It has to be.

And then Celeste trips, and my heart stops.

She collapses with a howl of pain, and I try not to glance back as I drag her to her feet. But she isn’t stable. She can’t stand up.

“Vanessa,” Celeste cries from the road. “Vanessa, I can’t—”

“You can,” I say, tasting salt on my lips. Tears. Mine.

“I can’t.” A piece of jagged glass protrudes from her bare foot. Blood trickles around the wound, dripping onto the ground. Behind us—far too close—there is a heated exhale and a growl. She can’t run. Not anymore. Not at all.

“You have to go.” She rips my hand off hers. Blue hair sticks to her cheeks, her eyes. She looks wild, crazed, as she shoves me. Once, twice. “Go, you stupid idiot! Get out of here.”

“I’m not—”

She throws me forward this time, pushing with so much might that she collapses onto her knees with another shrill cry. I stumble backward, landing on my ass as the wolf behind us makes one more jump.

It hits the earth right in front of Celeste.

The last time I see her face, she is screaming for me to get up and run. Her mouth is parted. Her eyes are wide. And I—I can’t move. In this moment, space swallows time, and I am trapped in an endless loop of hell on Earth. Before I can breathe, the wolf tears into her neck. Blood spurts. Then gushes.

Celeste’s blood.

My fingers twitch around cold metal. No. No no no.

I said I wouldn’t leave her. I promised.

Thoughts escape me, reason and reality fleeing my mind. I promised.

“Get off!” I lunge with my knife out and stab the wolf between its ribs, gripping its fur for leverage. It yelps. A sad, pathetic sound. Good. I relish it. Look to see if Celeste celebrates too.

But she’s limp, and she’s drowning in her own blood. Crumpled like a rag doll in a pool of scarlet. The sight of her—it makes me pause. It makes me whimper.

The wolf shakes, jostling me back and forth as if I’m in the midst of a tornado. Its rippling muscles bruise my skin with each hard throttle, but I can’t—I can’t let go. The knife almost falls from my hand, but I grasp it tighter. Regain control. For Celeste.

I stab the wolf again, deeper this time. Twisting the blade so that it hurts. So that it maims. “Get. Off. Her!” I tear my knife down its side, and the wolf snarls. But I am not afraid. I’m someone else now. Someone terrifying. Someone in control.

I want to kill it. I need to kill it. And that will fix everything.

It has to fix everything. Before I get the chance, the second wolf rushes out from the shadows, snaps me up in its jaws, and. . . and bites.

I scream from the immediate explosion of pain.

My ribs fracture between its teeth, its fangs shredding the flesh of my waist. It feels like melting. Like being thrown onto an open flame and blistering to death. I scramble, try to scratch at its eye with my nails. Try to unclamp its jaw from my skin. It hurts. It hurts, and I’m going to die. I scream again. Louder. Until my throat aches and my lungs give out. The bite feels like needles, like razors, like a dagger sharp enough to peel flesh like an orange.

The wolf seems pleased. Slowly, it opens its mouth and drops me on the ground. Right beside what used to be Celeste. A sob splinters my chest. The pain of the bite dims to the faint throbbing of a heartbreak.

A barely connected pile of skin and bone and hair lies limp on the ground in a sea of blood, in the broken shape of my best friend.

My North Star. Imploded.

My constellation. Snuffed out.

All that remains is blue hair. Blue and red and red and red.

Suddenly, I can’t bring myself to care about wolves anymore. It doesn’t matter that they stalk out of sight. That I can hear their bones cracking and reforming in the distance. I curl my fingers into the earth, slowly wrenching myself toward her, inch by bloody inch, until I’m holding her in my lap.

I promised I wouldn’t leave, and so I won’t.