“My name’s Antonia. And the reason I’m here is to tell you the fall won’t kill you. In fact, it’ll break your neck and you’ll be a quad in a monkey hospital for the rest of your life. It’ll wreck your mom—her insurance company won’t cover you because you’ve been out of the house too long, and your insurance sucks. She’ll spend the rest of her life in debt and visiting you, and you think you’ll be able to get a date from a Shriner’s bed? Bottom line, you think your life is in the shitter now? Go ahead and jump. You’ll see the shit fly.”

“But how do you know?” Not, “that isn’t true” or “you’re on drugs.” Antonia had the creepy ring of truth in everything she said. Even weirder, Bev had never met someone as obnoxious as she was beautiful. She was like the swimsuit ad model from the ninth gate of hell. “How did you know to come here?”

“I just did.”

“And why do you keep saying ‘monkey’?”

“Because,” Antonia sniffed, “you’re descended from apes.”

“Well, you are, too!”

“No, I’m descended from canis lupus. A much more impressive mammal to have in your family tree, in case you didn’t know. Which none of you seem to.”

“But you’re not here to save me?” Bev was having a little trouble following the conversation. She tried to give herself some credit; it had been a surreal five minutes.

“Shit, no! What do I care if another monkey offs herself? There’s too many of you anyway. Go ahead and jump, ruin your mother’s life, I don’t give a shit.”

“Then why were you running across rooftops to stop me?”

“None of your damned business,” she snapped.

“There has to be a reason.”

“Look, are you going to jump or not?”

“That depends. Are you going to tell me why you came?”

The brunette rubbed her temples. “Okay, okay. Anything to shorten this conversation. I see the future, all right?”

“Like a psychic?” Bev gasped.

“Nothing that lame. I see what’s going to happen. And, file this away, I’m never wrong. But the thing is, when people don’t do what I tell them, when they ignore my advice and sort of plunge ahead on their own, I get the worst migraines.”

“So you’re here…to stop yourself from getting a headache.”

“Hey,” Antonia said defensively. “They’re really bad headaches.”

“And you’re descended from canis—from wolves?”

“Duh, yes! Do we have to have this talk all over again?”

“So you’re, like—” It was stupid, but Bev made herself say it anyway. “A werewolf?”

“You’ve heard this before, right? ‘Duh, yes.’”

“But—but you just sort of blurted it out! You can’t go around just telling monk—people that you’re a werewolf.”

“Why not?”