My leg screamed. It was the only thing in the universe. A white-hot, incoherent roar that drowned out everything else.

  I came back to consciousness in pieces. First, the dust. A thick, gritty blanket of it coating my tongue, my throat, the inside of my lungs. Every breath was a cough, every cough a fresh explosion of agony in my ribs.

  Then, the darkness. A heavy, suffocating blackness that was absolute. And finally, the weight. An impossible, crushing pressure on the lower half of my body.

  My mind was thick with shock, a slow crawl through sludge. The tunnel. Ravage. The roar. The concrete... the snap.

  I tried to move, and the scream in my leg became a full-blown supernova of pain. I choked on it, a ragged gasp tearing from my throat. Pinned. Trapped. A massive slab of concrete laid on my left leg, the angle of it sickeningly, unnaturally wrong. I didn’t need to see it to know. Broken. Not just broken. Crushed.

  “Well,” I rasped to the darkness, my voice a stranger’s croak. “This is a fun new development.” My mouth, as always, never gets the memo when my life is actively ending.

  Panic, cold and slick, creeped around the edges of the pain. I was buried alive. Alone. My brilliant, half-baked plan had ended with me literally entombed in my failure.

  “Handy?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “You still there?”

  Silence. I tapped the wristband.

  Nothing. The little blue light was gone. The cheeky, wisecracking AI who had become my only ally was dead. The silence that answered was heavier, more final, than any slab of concrete.

  The real loneliness, the kind that has teeth, sank into me. I was utterly alone. A broken monster in a broken tomb.

  I don’t know how long I lay there, drifting in and out of a hazy, pain-filled twilight. Time had no meaning in the dark. My world was the grinding of my teeth, the taste of dust, and the rhythmic, screaming throb of my own shattered bone. My enhanced healing, the one silver lining to this whole monstrous curse, was trying to work. I could feel it, a low, itching, pulling sensation deep in my leg, but the sheer scale of the damage was too much. It was like trying to patch a dam with a roll of tape.

  And then, I heard something.

  At first, I thought it was just the ringing in my ears, or the shifting of the rubble. But it came again. A faint sound, filtering through tons of rock and concrete.

  Voices.

  The sound was a jolt, a current of electricity through my deadened nerves. My head snapped up.

  Rescuers. The thought was a gasp, a frantic scrabble for life. I was going to be saved.

  I opened my mouth to shout, to scream, to make any noise that would guide them to me. But then my hearing, my curse, my terrible, wonderful new ears, focused on the sound. And I could make out the words.

  “…the signal is coming from right down here. It’s got to be.”

  That voice. Laid-back. Worried. A voice that I had heard every single day for the last five years. Cody.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” A second voice, higher, laced with anxiety. Tessa.

  The hope in my chest curdled, turning into a new and exquisite kind of terror.

  No. Oh, God, no. Not them. Anyone but them.

  “—the app says she’s here,” Cody’s voice was closer now. “Nikki! Can you hear me?”

  The app. A stupid, pre-bite “find my friends” app I hadn’t even thought to disable. An electronic breadcrumb trail leading them right to the monster’s den.

  Panic, hotter and sharper than any I had felt before, seized me. They couldn't be here. They couldn’t see me like this. Battered, broken, covered in the filth of my failure. And the monster… the thing inside me, agitated by the pain and the fear, was stirring. A low, dangerous growl was building in my chest. What if I lost control? What if, in my wounded, terrified state, I lashed out at them?

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The image of my claws, inches from Cody’s face in the nightclub, flashed in my mind. The look on their faces. I couldn’t let that happen again. I had to protect them.

  I had to protect them from me.

  A beam of light cut through the darkness, the glow of a comm screen’s flashlight. It swept across the rubble, getting closer.

  “Nikki!” Tessa’s voice was a frantic cry. “Are you in here?”

  They appeared at the edge of the collapse, two familiar silhouettes against the faint light from the tunnel entrance. They looked so out of place, so clean and normal in this world of darkness and decay.

  “Over here,” I rasped, my voice cracking.

  Their flashlight beams found me. I flinched, turning my head away from the sudden, blinding light.

  “Oh my God,” Tessa’s voice was a breath of sound.

  I could feel their flashlight beams on me, tracing the edges of my prison.

  A girl half-buried in concrete. Clothes in tatters. Face a mask of blood and grime.

  They didn't recognize me.

  Of course they didn't.

  I barely recognized myself.

  “Are you okay?” Cody’s voice was cautious as he stepped onto the rubble. “We got a distress signal from our friend’s comm. Is she here?”

  My heart shattered into a million tiny, sharp pieces. They thought I was a stranger. A victim. And for one insane, selfish second, I wanted to let them. I wanted to let them rescue the stranger, to feel their kindness, their concern, one last time.

  But I couldn't. It was too dangerous. The low growl in my chest was getting louder, the wild, animal part of me screaming that these two intruders were a threat.

  I had to make them leave.

  I made a choice. A terrible, soul-destroying choice. I would protect them, even if it meant destroying the last pieces of the friendship we once shared. I would become the monster they already thought I was.

  “Nikki’s not here,” I said, and the voice that came out of my mouth was not my own. It was a low, guttural, gravelly sound, the sound of the creature in the dark.

  Cody and Tessa froze. The flashlight beams wavered.

  “Who… who are you?” Tessa’s voice was a stammer.

  I pushed myself up on my elbows, a surge of adrenaline momentarily overriding the pain. I let the change happen. Just a little. A partial transformation, fueled by pure, desperate self-loathing.

  The familiar, fiery burn behind my eyes as they shifted, the pupils dilating, the irises igniting with that stark, unnatural, yellow glow. A snarl ripped from my chest, low and rattling.

  I lifted my head and looked at them, letting them see my burning, inhuman eyes. I let them see the monster.

  “Get out,” I said, the words scraping their way out of my throat.

  They recoiled as if something physically struck them. The confusion on their faces morphed into dawning, horrified comprehension. And then, pure terror.

  “Nikki?” Cody’s voice trembled. It wasn't a question. It was a prayer. A denial.

  I answered him with another snarl, and this time, I let my claws extend, just for a second, the sharp, black talons scraping against the concrete slab that pinned me.

  That was what broke them.

  Their looks would burn into my memory for the rest of my miserable, monstrous life. It wasn't just fear. It was a deep, soul-shattering betrayal. The girl they saved, their friend, their cheer member, was the thing from their nightmares. The monster from the nightclub wasn’t a random attacker.

  It was me.

  Tessa let out a small, choked sob. Cody grabbed her arm, his face pale, his eyes wide with a terror so absolute it made my heart stop. He started pulling her back, away from me, away from the freak in the rubble.

  He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. The look in his eyes said everything. You’re a monster.

  And in that moment, my deepest, darkest fear was confirmed. I had tried so hard to keep the two parts of my life separate, to protect them from the ugliness I had become. But I had failed. I hadn’t just failed. I had become the very thing I was trying to protect them from.

  They stumbled back, their flashlight beams dancing wildly across the rubble, and then they turned and ran. The sound of their footsteps, frantic and terrified, echoed in the silence, fading away until there was nothing left but the ringing in my ears and the slow, steady drip of my blood onto the dust.

  I collapsed back against the rubble, a single, dry sob tearing from my lungs. The yellow glow in my eyes faded, leaving only the darkness. The monster retreated, leaving only the broken girl.

  I had protected them. I had saved them from the monster in the dark.

  But in doing so, I had shattered my most important friendships. I had driven away the last two people who anchored me to my humanity.

  The pain in my leg was a distant throb now, a forgotten signal from a world away. Nothing compared to the vast, space where my heart used to be. They were right. The look on their faces... it was the truth.

  I am a monster.