The Sandpiper Diner appeared to be a safe zone.

  Red vinyl booths, cracked in familiar patterns, air thick with the comforting smell of greasy burgers and burnt coffee, and the jukebox in the corner eternally stuck on the greatest hits of the eighties—this place belonged to them. A backdrop to a thousand insignificant memories, a monument to normalcy.

  And normalcy, Frankie desperately sought.

  It had been three days since the trip to the clinic. Three days of hiding in her dim, curtain-drawn room, pretending to be getting better. Three days of listening to her mother hover outside her door, her worried sighs like a constant, low-grade fever. Frankie had pretended to sip the broth her mom brought her, only to pour it down the sink when she wasn't looking. She had pretended to read, the words on the page blurring into meaningless squiggles in the dim light.

  She lived a lie, trapped in a body that had declared war on the world. But the worst part: the doubt. The cold, creeping voice in her head sounded an awful lot like Dr. Harris, telling her she’s crazy. It's just a panic attack, Frankie. Just stress.

  She needed to prove it wrong. She had to act normal, to be normal, even if just for an hour.

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Ted said, sliding into the booth opposite her. He kept his voice low, his eyes darting around the bustling diner. “You should be at home, resting.”

  “I’ve done enough resting,” Frankie said, trying to inject some of her old, carefree energy into her voice. It came out sounding brittle and thin. “If I spend one more minute in that room, the wallpaper is going to talk to me. Besides, I’m hungry.”

  Another lie. The thought of food made her stomach clench.

  Dee Dee slid in next to Frankie, bumping her with a hip. “I, for one, think this is a great idea. A little dose of greasy reality is just what the non-doctor ordered. A patty melt and a chocolate shake can cure anything. It’s science.”

  “That’s the opposite of science,” Ted muttered, grabbing a menu.

  A waitress, a middle-aged woman named Flo with a beehive hairdo and a perpetually tired smile, came over to their table. “The usual, kids?”

  “You know it, Flo,” Dee Dee chirped. “Three cheeseburger deluxe, and I’ll take a vanilla Coke.”

  “Make mine a root beer,” Ted said.

  Flo looked at Frankie, her pen hovering over her notepad. “And for you, hon?”

  Frankie’s stomach twisted. The thought of a cheeseburger, of the greasy meat and the thick, processed cheese, felt vile. She swallowed hard, forcing a smile. “Just a salad, please. And water.”

  The lie tasted like ash in her mouth.

  The diner became a sensory battlefield. Frankie’s curse—or her condition, as she forced herself to call it—turns up the volume on the entire world. The cheerful pop song blaring from the jukebox a tinny, painful screech. The chatter of the other patrons, the clattering of plates and silverware from the kitchen, the sizzle of burgers on the grill—a cacophony, a wall of noise that beat against her skull.

  She tried to follow her friends’ conversation. They were doing their best, talking about a stupid movie they’d all seen, a test they had coming up in chemistry. They were trying to build a little bubble of normalcy around her. But she couldn't focus. She busily fought a war on a dozen other fronts.

  The man in the booth behind her chewed with his mouth open, and the wet, sloppy sound was like an ice pick in her ear. A baby started crying a few tables over, and the high-pitched wail so sharp, so piercing, that Frankie had to physically restrain herself from clapping her hands over her ears.

  Then the food came.

  Flo set the plates down in front of them. The sight of Ted’s and Dee Dee’s burgers, glistening under the diner lights, sent a wave of revulsion through Frankie so powerful she gagged. The smell of hot grease and cooked meat was a physical presence, a foul entity that seemed to crawl down her throat.

  Her salad looked like a bowl of green worms. She stared at the limp lettuce, the pale, waxy slices of cucumber. She picked up her fork, the metal cold and heavy in her hand. Just one bite, she told herself. One bite and you can prove you’re okay.

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  She speared a piece of lettuce and brought it slowly to her mouth. Her hand trembled. She could feel Ted and Dee Dee watching her, their attempts at eating forgotten. She put the lettuce in her mouth.

  The texture felt wrong. Slimy. The taste… nothing. It resembled chewing on wet paper. She forced herself to swallow, a lump of cold, dead vegetation sliding down her throat. Her stomach heaved in protest.

  She dropped the fork. It clattered against the plate with a sound like a gunshot.

  “Frankie?” Dee Dee’s voice softened with concern.

  “I’m fine,” Frankie insisted, pushing the plate away. “Just… not as hungry as I thought.”

  The doubt crept back in, colder than ever. Dr. Harris was right. It’s in your head. You’re making this happen. You’re crazy.

  A tear of pure frustration pricked at the corner of her eye, angrily wiped away. She was losing. The battle for normalcy was a complete and total failure.

  And then, it happened.

  From the kitchen, just behind the counter, came a sharp yelp of pain, followed by a curse.

  “Aw, shoot! Darn it all.”

  The line cook, a lanky teenager. In the middle of a rush, his hand had slipped while chopping onions. He’d opened a deep, clean gash on the palm of his hand with the big kitchen knife.

  A few people at the counter glanced over. Flo rushed to his side with a first-aid kit. For Ted and Dee Dee, for everyone else in the diner, it comprised a minor, fleeting moment of drama.

  For Frankie, the world stopped.

  The injury’s odor, not its sight, caused the reaction.

  The immediate, coppery scent of fresh blood hit the air.

  Not a smell.

  Not a sound. A deafening siren song that blasted through her head, silencing the jukebox, the chatter, the crying baby. Everything. Gone. Only that one, pure, resonant note.

  No smell, but a taste. Rich and vital, it flooded her mouth from across the room. Intoxicating. Delicious.

  No discernible scent, only a palpable presence. It permeated the diner, a breathing entity that stirred a dormant part of her, a ravenous beast within.

  A sharp, piercing ache erupted in her gums. A deep, powerful pressure built behind her canine teeth, as if something sharp and hard tried to push its way out of the flesh. The pain remained exquisite.

  And then came the hunger.

  Not like the normal, mundane hunger for food. This a physical agony, a biological imperative that screamed through every cell in her body. A hollow, aching void that demanded to be filled. A primal, monstrous craving with only one name.

  Blood.

  The thought originated not from her, but from the dark, howling beast in her gut. A one-word prayer, a one-word command.

  Need.

  Horror and desire slammed into each other inside her, a war that threatened to tear her apart. A part of her, the Frankie who loved the sun and the sea, screamed in terror, repulsed by the monstrous urge. But another part, a new, strong, predatory part, rejoiced. This part needs to get up. This part involved crossing the room. This part longed to sink its teeth into the source of that beautiful, terrible scent and drink until the screaming void inside her fell silent.

  “Frankie? You’re white as a sheet.” Ted’s voice, a faint whisper from a distant world, barely reached her.

  She couldn't answer. She stared at the line cook, at the red dripping from his hand. Her vision narrowed, her focus zeroing in on him like a predator locking onto its prey.

  Her mouth watered.

  The shame and sheer horror of it finally broke the spell.

  With a choked gasp, she shoved herself away from the table. The movement, violent, caused the booth to screech against the floor.

  “Frankie, what’s wrong?” Dee Dee cried, her face a mask of shock.

  Frankie couldn’t speak. She couldn’t look at them. She couldn’t let them see the monster looking out through her eyes.

  She fled.

  She burst out of the diner and into the cool night air, running blindly down the street. She fled not the diner, but herself. The horrifying additional part of her craved, with every fiber of its being, to turn back and feast.

  She ran until her lungs burned, and the sounds of the diner were far behind her. She ducked into a dark, garbage-strewn alleyway between two buildings and finally collapsed, her back sliding down the rough brick wall until she huddled on the grimy pavement.

  She sat there, her body trembling uncontrollably, her arms wrapped around her knees. She pressed her forehead against the cold, rough denim of her jeans, fighting the monstrous urge. Fighting the hunger.

  Her gums still ached.. She cautiously ran her tongue over her canine teeth.

  And she felt it.

  A subtle difference. A change in the shape. They felt… longer. Sharper. The tips were like tiny, needle-fine points against her tongue.

  The last vestiges of her denial shattered into a million pieces.

  Dr. Harris erred. Her mother erred. Ted and Dee Dee erred.

  Not a panic attack. Not crazy.

  The creature from the chest existed. The bite felt real. The sickness spreads.

  And the monster… real, too.

  Within her, hunger stirred.