She comes to with energy buzzing under her skin.
Her nose wrinkles before she recognizes the acrid stench in the air. It's blood.
She's laying on hard-packed dirt. She gets to her hands and knees, whimpering in pain. It's dark - the cloud cover completely blocks out the moonlight - but she can make out the shape of the car, flipped on its top, crumpled like some giant in the sky reached down and flicked it out of the way.
She's covered in blood. When she crawls to the wreck, she realizes most of it isn't her own.
She almost remembers what happened. She was fighting with her sister in the backseat and then their mom got fed up and yelled at them and then she felt this surge of intense rage like she'd never felt before and then -
She doesn't remember anything after that.
She can't see through her tears. She's not sure when she started crying, but it probably happened when she recognized her sister hanging limply from her seat. There's a pool of blood underneath her but it stopped dripping some time ago.
When she moves inside, the only sound is her ragged sobbing.
She's young but she's smart. Her teachers always told her that she was bright and quick and brilliant. She even got to go to special classes because she was ahead of most kids in her year.
So Malia knows with certainty that her mother and sister are dead and that it's her fault.
Grief and pain and guilt well up in her throat, choking her, rattling her bones, and it's then that she realizes the burning pain isn't just inside, that she's changing, shifting into - something -
she digs her snout into her sister's backpack and finds the thing that smells like her but not like death it's soft and warm and noisy between her teeth she needs to find a den to bring them to if she finds a safe place they can rest and heal she'll be back hold on i'll be right back
-
It takes a few days as the moon wanes but Malia comes back to herself, less driven by animal instinct and more aware of her humanity. She still feels very apart from her girl-form and she isn't sure how to change back but she also doesn't try very hard. Being an animal is - simpler. She has to fend for herself and that takes up most of her time.
She's found a den - or, well, she found a mostly unoccupied cave not too far from the wreck and cleared out the vermin that had been living there. But it's hers now, smelling of her things and her sister's things and her own scent. She's marked the outside thoroughly enough that most creatures should stay away.
In her more feral state, she'd tried to drag her mom and sister's bodies from the car but gave up before she could take them back to the den. She'd though, briefly, that they were still alive, when she first turned, but. Death has a distinct smell and taste. She knew, again, that she was alone.
She's discovered a taste for rabbits. There's a creek nearby that she drinks from and bathes in. Her den is warm with leaves and pine straw and clothes.
She doesn't think of her dad.
(She thinks he would be happier to lose all of them than to lose his wife and youngest child because of his freaky half-animal daughter. When the sirens come and find the wreck, she stays away.
She doesn't want to be found.)
-
She gets older. Living in the woods alone isn't easy but it's not hard either. Sometimes, she feels more like an animal than a person, but she doesn't fight it. It doesn't feel weird anymore, this half-state of human-animal.
Sometimes, she misses her old life. She misses her mom and sister and dad. She misses her friends. She even misses school. She misses books and tv and sports.
But she doesn't ever consider going back anymore. She doesn't even try. She likes who, what, she is now. It's comfortable. It's easier than being a person all the time.
She wishes she didn't have to be a person at all.
-
Sometimes, though, when the moon is full and bright in the sky, she does go home. Just for a little while. To check on her dad. When she can't ignore the pull of family home mine anymore.
She doesn't stay long.
(She still gets caught.)
-
There are unfamiliar scents around the wreck. It smells like predator, earthy and dangerous and - strangely - boy. People and not-people.
There are two boys talking in low voices. It takes her a moment to understand what they're saying. One of them picks up her sister's doll.
Fury rushes through her and she howls at them. Put that down you're not allowed to touch that!
They turn to face her. The other boy's eyes glow eerie red and it sends a terrified shiver down her spine. It means predator, it means stronger than her, and she's smart enough to know when to pick her battles.
She runs.
-
They take the doll. It wasn't theirs to take.
She goes to take it back.
It's not one of her better moments. The boy-predator comes and chases her away from the pretty girl. She retreats to the woods to find her den disturbed. She's torn between wanting to reclaim her property-territory and finding a new, safer place to live.
A new den is more immediately important, she decides. She'll go after the doll once she's settled again.
-
Her father's scent is everywhere in the woods. She follows it to the house and finds traps laid, some hidden, some not. She's not sure if they're because of her or the cougars.
But there's the backpack in the house, smelling faintly of her sister and more strongly of the boy (the not-predator-boy, the human boy). She tiptoes inside and steals it back.
She wrestles the doll out of the bag once she's outside. Noises from the house draw her attention. She looks up to see her dad and an officer coming out the door.
Her father raises the gun in his hands.
She takes off before she hears the shot.
-
The boy-predator is chasing her again. He's brought friends, this time.
Her dad is chasing her, too.
She probably didn't think things through enough.
-
She's nearly back to the wreck. She just has to drop the doll off and then she can try to lose her pursuers. She'll shake them off and go back to her new den and sleep for a week. She's bright and quick and brilliant - she can do this.
The boy-predator lands on the ground near the car. Because of course he does.
She tries to warn him off, to just let her put the doll back and let her go.
He roars, eyes burning red.
The sound rattles her bones. It feels like his eyes are burning through her.
She collapses to the ground and it hits her like deja vu.
She's changing, shifting -
She's cold and dirty and naked. The leaves and sticks are digging into her side, down her legs, and against her breasts. She didn't used to have breasts.
She feels tall and long and awkward and uncomfortable and she didn't want to be girl-shaped again. She doesn't want to be girl-shaped.
She feels angry enough to shift again.
She tries. She can't.
She turns her head to stare at the boy-predator with human eyes.
-
More people show up. Someone gives her clothes and she remembers how to put them on. They talk to her but she doesn't say anything. She remembers how to talk, now, but she's so angry and confused and she wants to go home.
They take her to her father. He seems so happy to see her and she - she can't -
She tries to be happy to be there.
The police officer - the sheriff - leaves with the boy-predator and the other boy. They smell accomplished.
She hates them a little.
Her dad takes her to her old room after he hugs her for longer than she's comfortable with. He leaves her to "settle in."
There's a buzzing under her skin and it takes all of her self-control to not vault out of the window.
She sits on her old bed and wants to go home.