Bound By The Night. Megan Hart

it, that and the anxiety from overhearing what he knew they didn’t want him to know.

      He’d come down hoping to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake or some of his mom’s homemade tapioca pudding, but what his hands pulled from the fridge’s bottom shelf was the plastic-wrapped platter of uncooked burgers his mom had put together for tomorrow’s dinner. Without thinking, Jordan tore the plastic off. Handfuls of soft ground beef went in his mouth. He barely chewed, shoving the food past his lips and licking his fingers. He couldn’t get enough.

      The lights came on. His mother cried out. Jordan turned, as guilty and embarrassed as if she’d walked in on him in the shower or doing what he’d just discovered he could do under the tent of his sheets late at night. No, this was somehow worse, because somehow he knew it was related to what his parents had been saying.

      Something was wrong with him.

      “Put that down!” his mother cried, but she wasn’t angry, as she ought to have been. Fear had widened her eyes. He could hear it in her voice.

      He could smell it on her.

      “Jordan, give me that.” Dad was calmer, pushing past Mom, who clung to the doorway and burst into tears.

      No. Mine. The thoughts rose unbidden, and though Jordan would never have dreamed of disobeying his father, he backed up still clutching the platter. His mouth hurt. He tasted blood, and not from the meat but from his own gums. He ran his tongue along his teeth and felt the burn and sting of a wound opening—he’d cut it on something sharp.

      His own teeth.

      Mine.

      The thought rose again, but this time, he tossed the platter to the floor. Raw meat splatted on the linoleum, and he backed up with his hands in front of him. There was more pain. He clenched his fists. More cuts, fingernails long, sharp. There was blood.

      He would carry the scars on his palms for the rest of his life.

      “You’re going to be okay, son. It’s all going to be all right,” his father said, but the look on his face told Jordan that nothing was going to be all right.

      Not ever again.

      * * *

      Jordan woke with a startled gasp, hands in front of him. He’d clenched his fists and winced automatically at the expected sting of his nails pressing his flesh, but the years of self-discipline had worked. He wasn’t going to run off into the night and start making mayhem.

      Still, he got to his feet with the memory of those long-ago burgers coating the inside of his mouth. He spat, then again, but he could still taste them. He still wanted them. He would always want them, the way he’d always want to run and punch and break and devour.

      With a low groan, he closed his eyes and breathed deep. He focused. Not full-on meditation, which he did every day, but still a forced pattern of breaths that was supposed to relax him. A minute passed. He opened his eyes.

      At fourteen, everything had changed for him. His parents, recessive carriers of a set of genes that had combined in him to make him different, had never planned to have children. And if he’d been a girl, he’d never have ended up this way, since only males manifested the condition.

      Monica had said werewolves did not exist, but Jordan could’ve told her otherwise.