With a numb heart, she strode through the hallway lined with studio-perfect pictures of a model family, pausing when she came abreast of one photograph. She turned and looked at a younger version of herself. She was maybe six. Outfitted in the customary Christmas sweater with her parents on either side of her. Her father gripped her shoulder, his sun-darkened hand twice as large as the pale smudge of her face. Her smile looked fragile, brittle as glass. That scared little girl seemed a lifetime ago.

Shaking her head, Claire removed it from the wall and walked out the front door into the deepening night, not breaking stride when her mother called her name. She paused at the curb where the garbage waited for tomorrow’s pickup, the fetid odor seeming to taint the air in streaks of yellow.

Without hesitating, she dropped the picture into one of the cans, stealing a glance at the charcoal sky as she did so. The moon stared down at her, a small slice of white against the starless night. Gideon March’s voice floated from memory. On the next full moon, you will shift.

Claire shivered in the warm air and slid inside her car, ridiculously relieved to escape the pale orb’s watchful gaze. Sighing, she forced herself not to estimate how many days remained until the full moon.

Her gaze drifted to her reflection in the rearview mirror. The silver eyes glowed back at her, mocking, challenging. There was no hiding from them. Or the stranger she had become. She swallowed the lump in her throat. At least she knew the little girl in the photograph. This woman—she didn’t know her at all.

Claire stared out at the sea of familiar faces, doing a quick roll check. The students chatted, the drone of conversation comforting in its normalcy, helping her forget that only days ago she had stabbed a knife into her parents’ table, mere inches from her father’s nose. Here, in the bright fluorescent glare of her classroom, her world felt familiar again.

“Hey, Miss Morgan!”

Claire looked up from her attendance folder and smiled warmly at Nina, a pretty, bright-eyed girl who had transferred early second semester. “ ’Morning, Nina.”

Nina neared the podium and whispered conspiratorially, “Still looking hot, Miss Morgan. You gotta tell me who does your hair.”

Claire smiled, the girl’s syrupy sweet breath making her stomach growl. “I’ve got the business card in my purse. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” The peal of the first period bell shook the air.

“Okay.” Nina hesitated before taking her seat, her perfect white teeth gnawing her bottom lip. “Have you heard from Lenny?”

The question caught Claire off guard. She had convinced herself she was the only one who cared, the only one hoping to glance up and find him sitting in his seat like any other day.

“No, I haven’t.”

“He didn’t show up for his SAT.”