Derek woke to the TV still running in the living room. He’d fallen asleep with it on, some late-night talk show he hadn’t been paying attention to. Now it was tuned to Channel 6 news, the anchor’s voice cutting through the morning haze with another update about Talons.

  “Seventy-three confirmed dead. Authorities are still investigating what they’re calling the deadliest mass casualty event in Louisiana history since Hurricane Katrina...”

  Derek rubbed his face and walked to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and brushed his teeth. When he came back out, Sheryl was on the loveseat in her white robe, sipping water, eyes fixed on the screen. Her expression was blank, almost bored.

  “Hey, Mom,” Derek said. “We need to talk.”

  Sheryl didn’t look at him. “Talk about what?”

  “About how you’ve been acting since the explosion. You’re always gone. You leave at night and don’t come back until morning. You get on all fours and crawl around sniffing things like a dog. Mom, something’s wrong with you.”

  She rolled her eyes and set down the water bottle. When she stood, the movement was smooth, like a predator rising from rest. She crossed the room in one stride and had him by the collar before he could react.

  Derek’s feet left the floor. Her fingers dug into his throat, cutting off air. The loveseat scraped behind them.

  “Stay out of my business,” Sheryl said. Her voice was cold and flat. “Okay?”

  Derek clawed at her wrist. His lungs burned. Black spots swam at the edges of his vision.

  “I’ll kill you if I have to.”

  She squeezed harder. Derek felt the air to his head shut off. Then she released him and threw him backward across the couch in one effortless motion. He hit the cushions and slid to the floor, gasping.

  Sheryl took two hard breaths, her chest heaving, then turned and walked to her bedroom. The door slammed shut with enough force to rattle the picture frames on the wall.

  Across town, Karen sat in her living room watching the same news broadcast. The anchor was showing aerial footage of Talons, body bags lined up outside, and investigators in hazmat suits moving through the building. Karen’s eyes were fixed on the screen, unblinking, her hands resting on her thighs.

  Then the flashbacks started.

  The club. The transformation. The screaming. Her jaws closing around a man’s throat. The taste of blood filled her mouth. The feeling of power coursing through her limbs as she threw bodies across the room like they weighed nothing.

  Her breathing quickened. Shallow. Rapid. Her pupils dilated.

  A vision slammed into her mind, clear and vivid. Water. Black and still. Trees reflected on the surface. The Allen-Hill Swamp Refuge. She knew it. She could smell it, the mud and algae and decomposing vegetation mixing with the night air.

  Her eyes flared yellow.

  Karen stood, grabbed her keys from the coffee table, and walked out the door without bothering to turn off the TV.

  The drive to Allen-Hill took thirty-five minutes. Karen parked in the visitor lot near the boat launch and stepped out into the humid evening air. The sun had dropped below the tree line, painting everything in shades of orange and purple. She walked past the trailhead sign and followed a dirt path that wound through cypress trees draped with Spanish moss.

  Her senses had sharpened. She could hear everything—frogs croaking in the shallows. Fish breaking the surface. An owl calling from somewhere deep in the swamp. And underneath all of it, the steady rhythm of water lapping against the shore.

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  “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  Karen stopped. A park ranger was walking toward her, flashlight in hand, radio clipped to his belt. Mid-forties, gut hanging over his waistband, mustache that hadn’t been trimmed in weeks.

  “Park’s closing in fifteen minutes,” the ranger said. “You need any help finding your way back to the lot?”

  Karen barely looked at him. Her fingers curled, nails lengthening into claws. She took one step forward and drove her hand into his stomach.

  The ranger’s eyes went wide. He looked down at Karen’s arm, buried wrist-deep in his abdomen, then back up at her face. Blood poured from his mouth. Karen pulled her hand free, intestines sliding out with it, and the ranger collapsed.

  She stepped over his body and continued down the path until she reached an open area of swamp where the water was deep and dark. Karen stripped off her shirt, her pants, her underwear, and stood naked at the water’s edge. Her breath came out in short bursts. Her muscles twitched beneath her skin.

  She dove.

  The transformation started the moment she hit the water. Karen surfaced as something else entirely.

  Larry and Bob were two miles deeper into the swamp, racing their airboat across the black water at speeds that would’ve gotten them arrested anywhere else. But out here, there were no cops. No rules. Just the swamp and the night and the roar of the fan behind them.

  “Let’s open her up!” Bob shouted over the engine noise. He grinned and slammed the throttle forward. The boat surged to a hundred and twenty miles per hour, skimming across the surface like a missile.

  The air whipped against their faces. For a moment, it felt like freedom.

  Then something massive erupted from the water directly in front of them.

  The impact sent both men flying in opposite directions. Larry hit the water to the left. Bob went right, landing fifteen feet away with a splash that echoed across the swamp.

  Bob surfaced first, gasping, his flashlight still somehow clutched in his hand. He swept the beam across the water, searching for Larry, and froze.

  An enormous figure rose from the swamp. Eight feet tall. Covered in black fur that glistened with mud and water, eyes glowing yellow. The creature grabbed the airboat with both hands and lifted it clear out of the water. The fan was still spinning, screaming at full speed. The beast roared and twisted its shoulders. The boat cracked down the middle with a sound like thunder. The creature tore it in half and hurled both pieces into the swamp.

  “Oh my God,” Bob whispered. “I’m gonna die.”

  “Bob! Bob, help me!” Larry’s voice came from somewhere behind, panicked and raw.

  Bob tried to swim toward the voice. Tried to move. But the water beneath him exploded upward. The creature grabbed his legs and yanked him under. He had time to take half a breath before jaws closed around his torso and bit down. Ribs shattered. Organs ruptured. Blood clouded the water in thick black plumes.

  Larry thrashed toward a patch of reeds twenty yards away. His arms cut through the water, feet kicking frantically. He was almost there when something grabbed his ankle and pulled him backward. He screamed and went under. Claws raked across his back, peeling skin and muscle away from bone. Larry surfaced once, coughing blood, then was dragged under again. This time, he didn’t come back up.

  The swamp went quiet. Even the frogs had stopped calling.

  Karen surfaced in the middle of the carnage, chest heaving, blood covering her muzzle and claws. She floated there for a moment, looking up at the full moon overhead.

  Soon, she was Karen again, treading water, naked and breathing hard.

  She swam back to shore, pulled on her clothes over wet skin, and walked to her car.

  The sun was setting when Derek pulled up in front of Karen’s house. Her text had been short and strange. Hey Derek. Need you to come over real quick. No explanation. No warmth. Just those words.

  He knocked once. The door opened immediately.

  “Come in,” Karen said. Her voice was flat.

  Derek stepped inside. Karen was dressed in black, barefoot, hair tied back.

  “Everything okay?” Derek asked.

  “Sit down.”

  He sat at the dining table. Karen remained standing, arms crossed, staring at him with eyes that looked more amber than brown.

  “Look at me when I talk to you,” she said.

  He did.

  “Your mother warned you. Now I’m warning you too. Stay out of our business.”

  “Karen, what are you talking about?”

  “Whatever you think you know, drop it. Forget it. Go back to your life before it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean by our business?”

  She tilted her head slightly. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You ask the wrong questions, and one day you won’t wake up.”

  “You sound crazy.”

  She leaned forward. “Stay out of it. Or we’ll kill you if it comes to that.”

  The words hit like a punch. No anger. No hesitation.

  Certainty.

  “You can go now.”

  Derek stood and walked to the door. He glanced back once. Karen stood motionless at the table, staring at him with hollow calm.

  Outside, Derek sat in his truck, pulse hammering.

  He didn’t know what they were anymore. But they weren’t family. Not anymore