Rage puts me in motion: I claw at the walls with my hands, bury my arms in the meat. I rip the flesh from the walls, screaming and sobbing against the red.

AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, WE sit quietly until my father mentions it.

“Some animal got at the Meat Quarry last night,” he says. “Strange, because I know I locked it up.”

The bloody clothes are in the hamper. How long until someone finds me out? A strange calmness has entered my veins since the meat screaming. Nothing can shake me now.

“I wonder what kind of animal it was,” I say.

“No telling, but it might’ve been a wolf. That’s how much damage was done.”

I slide a piece of rock into my mouth to hide my smile.

“I have to say, the economy isn’t holding strong,” my father says. “Some troubling signs in the paper lately.”

“Like what?” my mother asks.

“Unstable dollar, more meat than usual available,” my father says. “Plus, people are eating more spinach these days, less meat. At least, that’s what the reports are saying.”

All day long, I hum it to myself:

I am the wolf, I am the wolf, I am the wolf.

“HAVE YOU EVER SHAVED?” I ASK SOPHIA.

We’re sitting in her bathroom after school. She has started wearing red lipstick.

“Of course,” Sophia says. “How else can you show yourself to men?”

“How did you learn to do it?”

Sophia looks at me with pity and disgust.

“You’re not shaving? Didn’t your mom show you?”

I shake my head.

Sophia pulls a razor from a drawer and presses it into my palm.

“Figure it out, Cassie. Jesus Christ.”

I CLIMB INTO THE WHITE PORCELAIN bathtub with Sophia’s razor. I lather myself up good in the hot water, white soap bubbling all around me.

I bring the razor to the softest skin there and guide it over me, specks of thick hair falling with the soap to the tub floor. I move slowly, carefully, delicately.

My knot shifts me and I slip, the razor slicing the skin between my legs, blood dripping from the mouth of the wound onto the porcelain.

MY MOTHER EYES ME AT BREAKFAST. Today, she is kind, friendly.

“I miss you,” she says. “It feels like we’re just not close anymore.”

“I know!” I say. “I’ve just been so busy with school and the Meat Quarry.”

“She’s getting really good,” my brother says.

“Look how beautiful you are now,” my mother says.

She reaches across the table to run a hand over my cheek.

“Look at your lips,” she whispers. “I wish I had lips.”

IT IS MY BROTHER’S BIRTHDAY. I MAKE the cake: I crack eggs, whip a perfect white frosting.

We crowd around the table and sing the song.

“You all sound terrible,” he says.

My mother hits his arm. He forks cake into his mouth.