Page 17 of Trick Me
Something is trying to claw its way out of my skin.
“Okay, universe,” I gasp, stumbling deeper into the woods behind the mansion, my heels long abandoned somewhere between the ballroom and here. “I get it. I shouldn’t have mocked that fortune teller last month. Or laughed at that tarot reading. Or called astrology ‘space racism.’ I’m sorry, okay? Please stop turning me inside out!”
My bones feel wrong. Not broken, but rearranging, like someone is playing games with my skeleton and forgot to read the rules. Each step sends waves of sharpness through my body, my joints bending in directions that shouldn’t exist, muscles pulling against anchor points that keep shifting. The beautifulblue dress I borrowed from Sera is already torn at the seams, and I hear more rips forming with every convulsion.
The trees around me aren’t helping my panic. They’re too tall, too twisted, shadows falling in directions that don’t match the moon overhead. The bark has patterns that might be natural whorls or might be faces, watching me stumble.
“This is fine,” I tell myself, then immediately laugh because it comes out as half groan, half hysteria. “Everything is fine. You’re just having a supernatural breakdown at a party full of creatures that could kill you. Except, nothing about this is standard. And I’m talking to myself in the spooky forest.”
My hands—claws, they’re fucking claws now—dig into a tree trunk for support. The bark splits like paper, leaving deep gouges that immediately start weeping sap that glows faintly green. Because of course it does. Can’t even have normal tree damage in this place.
“I’m sorry, tree,” I whisper, watching the luminous sap drip.
My spine ripples, and I cry out in agonizing pain. I drop to my knees, claws digging into the ground, and the heavy soil scent floods me. Earth and decay and growing things. Something died here days ago—a rabbit, my new senses inform me, taken by an owl. There’s water running underground, twenty feetdown, mineral-rich and cold. The moss on the north side of the trees is actually a slightly different species from the moss on the south side, and I know this because they smell different.
“Stop it,” I beg my own body. “Please stop knowing things I shouldn’t know.”
A branch snaps behind me.
Something is approaching. My head whips around so fast my neck protests, vertebrae cracking in complaint, and every muscle in my body locks into a tension I’ve never felt before.
My heartbeat is so loud it should be echoing off the trees. But from somewhere in my chest comes a growl.
Wait, I don’t growl… I make sarcastic comments and avoid confrontation and sometimes squeak when startled, but I definitely don’t produce sounds that belong to apex predators.
There’s a shadow between the trees way behind me. Human-shaped but moving wrong, too fluid, too purposeful. Not stumbling like someone lost, not hurrying like someone scared. Moving like something that knows exactly where its prey is and has all the time in the world to collect it.
“Nope,” I breathe, and the word comes out with a rumble that vibrates through my chest. “Nope, nope, nope.”
Fight or flight. My brain screams to run, butsomething in me battles to face the danger. Except this isn’t my land to protect. I don’t have property. I have a small place with a concerning amount of dead plants and a ghost cat that isn’t mine but won’t leave.
Flight wins.
I run.
Not normal running. Not even panicked human running. Something else takes over, my body dropping lower, using my claws for balance and propulsion. Muscles I didn’t know existed fire away, turning me into something built for speed and survival. The dress gives up entirely, shredding around me in confetti that catches on branches.
The woods blur past, but my vision is different too. Clearer in the darkness, noticing movement in peripheral spaces, processing information faster than my human brain can interpret. An owl takes flight thirty feet to my left. Something small scurries up a tree trunk to my right.
My chest burns with more than exertion, with fury that I’m being hunted, with terror of what’s going on with me. The growl that escapes me this time is mine, fully mine.
I check behind me and spot the shadow farther away but not giving up.
“Stop following me!” I shout over my shoulder, but it comes out garbled, half-human words mixed with sounds that belong to something with too many teeth.
I push harder, feet—paws—barely touching the ground. Wait… What the fuck? I stumble, nearly losing my momentum. White fur runs up my front legs, because I’m now an animal. A fucking wolf! My heart races as panic rises, clawing at my chest. I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know what’s happening to me.
My limbs are too fast, too wild, and every step moves with a strength that doesn’t feel like mine. The forest seems to open for me, or maybe I’m finally seeing the paths that were always there, concealed from normal eyes.
My left paw catches on a root, hidden under deceptive leaves. The world tilts, spins, and I’m rolling. I come up in a crouch, facing my pursuer, lips peeled back to show teeth eager to bite.
Ash bursts through the underbrush and is on me in seconds.
His weight slams into me, sending us both to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
I’m pinned beneath him, his body covering mine completely. We’re both breathing hard, and this close, I stare into the wildness behind his eyes. Pine needles stick in my hair, the earth cold against my back, and I’m hyperaware of every point where our bodies touch.
He lowers his head, lips near my ear. “Stand down.” His voice is low and firm.
