?Kim crawled back into bed next to Macy, who was waking up.

  ?"What... why are you cold?" she moaned, pushing away from her. Luckily the bed, like the room, was massive.

  ?"Sorry," Kim whispered.

  ?"What the fu..." Macy sat bolt upright when she felt someone sitting at the base of the bed.

  ?"What the hell! You brought Mini-Me? No offense-she's cute and all, and I'm not saying we can't keep her. But it's..." She grabbed her phone and looked at it. "Five o'clock! This is, like, against my religion!" she shrieked.

  ?"I like her," Sarah said with a smile. "She's funny."

  ?Macy fell back onto the pillow and moaned. "Okay, girls. Macy needs sunlight and coffee before she can be her normal delightful self. So please get your cold selves out of my bed." She rolled over, cursing and muttering about the time. But curiosity won the day. "Why are you cold? And where did Sarah come from?" she said, mostly into her pillow.

  ?"How about I go make coffee?" Kim offered.

  ?"Take Mini-Kim with you!" she groaned loudly. "If I can't get back to sleep, I'll be down in like twenty."

  ?Kim smiled and they went to the kitchen.

  ?"She's brave too," Sarah said as they went down the stairs.

  ?"Too brave sometimes. If I'm honest."

  ?"Are you gonna tell her?" Sarah was a bit shy with the question.

  ?"I mean, probably. Like, how do you bring something like that up? But I feel like I need to know more before I tell anyone else." Kim had eaten another bag of Sarah's jerky on the roof and was feeling better than she had since the hospital.

  ?"I'm not the best at explaining things. I'm sorry. I'm usually not... well, like this." She held her hands out as if that should explain it.

  ?"Wearing leather at 5 a.m.?" Kim asked.

  ?Sarah laughed. "No, human. Most of my life I spend as a wolf."

  ?Kim had a sudden image of herself having puppies and looked at Sarah in alarm. "Am I going to do that?"

  ?"Well, no one is going to make you. If you were a boy, Mom might not have let you come back. But not a girl."

  ?Kim took a moment to try to compose herself before asking. Sarah was always scattered. "Sarah, I have so many questions. Maybe food first. You said meat, right?"

  ?They entered the kitchen and rifled through the fridge. Sarah sniffed the lunch meats and other things there. "Ewww, no. That's not meat."

  ?Sarah opened the freezer drawer in the fancy oversized fridge. There she saw steaks, chicken, and more.

  ?"Not one for cold cuts?" Kim asked.

  ?"Oh, I don't mind cold meat," she said as she took a frozen steak out and took a bite.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  ?Kim just shook her head, remembering how literally Sarah took everything. "Werewolves don't cook meat."

  ?Sarah made a noise as she ate, as if to say I don't know. "Some do sometimes. Mom does. Me and Dad mostly eat what we hunt."

  ?"Okay..."

  ?Sarah tore open another frozen steak. "Don't knock it till you try it."

  ?Kim caught the unwrapped frozen steak Sarah tossed her. Even through the ice, the smell was divine. Kim devoured it in seconds.

  ?"More?!" Sarah asked. Kim looked at her conspiratorially. The steak was gone before Kim remembered to brew the coffee.

  ?Kim sat at a stool by the kitchen counter while the coffee brewed. Sarah joined her with the frozen chicken. A part of her felt gross for eating the frozen meat. But it was eclipsed by how good she felt after.

  ?"Okay, so... can you try to tell me what's happening to me in smaller chunks?"

  ?"Well, after what happened... well, you see, my kind don't usually attack humans. Not unless deceived or provoked. We don't know what happened at the camp. But something made me crazy." Her voice started to trail off. "It's okay, sweetie, it's a hard part for me to talk about too. No, I'm asking about what happens now. I mean, I know-bitten by a werewolf, become one. I watched Buffy and The Vampire Diaries."

  ?"But that's the thing, Kim. Very few people who get bit by a werewolf ever survive." Sarah was shaken by the statement. "If you hadn't... something bad could've happened to me."

  ?Kim struggled to be patient. This was how talking to Sarah normally went. The details came out all over the place. "Okay, so let's bookmark that and come back to it."

  ?"Sarah, I don't want to sound selfish. But you're safe, I think I'm safe. I want to know what's happening to my body. Then... we can go down all these other rabbit holes."

  ?Sarah nodded. "Well, your body is changing into a werewolf. Werewolf saliva is poisonous. To demons and monsters and anything like that. People who survive-well, Mom says they already had a wolf in them."

  ?Kim decided to hold her questions. She had her going in the right direction at least.

  ?"So you become a werewolf. I was born one. Mom and Dad were both made."

  ?"I only know that it takes three full moons. When you're done, you are like me."

  ?Kim had met Sarah's mom many times over her years at camp. She was scary. But she was nice. And relatively normal. "How about we talk to Thomas after?"

  ?"Um... I wasn't supposed to tell you," Sarah admitted shyly. "I said I wouldn't. But I mean... I wanted to say sorry. So I don't think it's the same thing."

  Macy strode into the kitchen at that point. She looked at Sarah eating the frozen chicken. "So I take it the weird part of my day isn't over?"

  Kim had warned her about Sarah: loyal, protective, but prone to violence and extremely weird behavior. Although this was something else entirely.

  Sarah didn't even pause-just tore off another chunk.?"Holy crap, kid-no. No no no. That's food poisoning waiting to happen. Or bird flu. Or... whatever hillbilly monster hunter chickens carry." She waved her hands like she could erase the image. "I'm not awake enough to provide the level of parenting that this biohazard requires!"

  ?Sarah blinked at her, mid-bite. "It's good."

  ?"You're adorable and terrifying and I'm officially worried about your parenting, but we are not doing salmonella breakfast in my presence. Kim, you have to back me up!"

  ?Kim laughed. "It's a part of her culture."

  ?"What the hell culture is that!??"

  ?"Canadian..." she offered half-heartedly.

  ?Macy shook her head. "You know what? I'm just gonna take it. Welcome to civilization, little Canadian. Now where's the coffee?"

  ?She rummaged through the fridge energetically. "Cream, tell me there's cream!"

  ?"Jill got more yesterday."

  ?"Good, we can keep her," Macy said as she made her way to the cupboard for stevia. "I love rich people cupboards," she said, retrieving her prize.

  ?"What is that smell!?" Sarah asked, her face crinkling with disgust.

  ?"I haven't showered. You're eating raw meat!" Macy responded as she made her coffee. "One of us has more explaining to do than the other!"

  ?"No, not you!" Sarah walked over to the cupboard and pulled down a bottle of wine. "What is this?"

  ?"It's what keeps mommies from going on killing sprees," Macy answered.

  ?"I've smelled wine before," Sarah said. "I have a mother."

  ?Macy smiled at the joke. "Was that a joke or an insult?" Macy asked in a mock warning tone. "For your sake, little Kim, I'm going to guess joke. And not a bad one. I give it an 8 overall. But given it triggers my mommy issues at this hour in the morning, I'm docking you for delivery."

  ?"No, smell it." She put it to Kim's nose. "Smells rotten. Can wine go rotten?"

  ?Kim and Macy smelled it. "Smells like middle-aged women juice to me," Macy said.

  ?Kim could smell something off about it. But she couldn't place it.