Page 23 of Marked By Moonlight

Her father glared at her, the tic that always warned of a dangerous mood jumping wildly at the corner of his left eye. Claire rubbed the edge of her eye as if she felt it herself, as if she could rub it away. Years had passed since she’d seen the tic, but some things remained permanently etched in memory.

“What did you say to me, girl?” He spoke slowly. Precisely.

Something dark and dangerous unfurled in her belly and this time she had no trouble finding her voice. She lifted her chin. “Don’t yell at her. I don’t like it.” Ignoring her mother’s swiftly shaking head, Claire continued. “I’ve never liked it. And I can’t imagine she does either.”

“You don’t like it!” His face turned a deep shade of red as he leaned forward in his chair, pushing his face close to hers. Too close. Her sensitive nose twitched, revolted by the stink of onions on his breath. “Since when does what you like matter in this house?”

A dull roaring started in her ears, increasing in volume as Claire reached for her sweating glass, needing something to hold, to grasp—to stop herself from hauling back and cracking that square jaw of his with her fist.

Only her father didn’t know when to quit. Never had.

His eyes raked her with disgust. “No man even wants you. You’re just a dried-up—”

“Mike!” His name flew from her mother’s mouth sharp with reproach. Her hands slapped over her mouth. But too late.

This time her father offered no warning. He lurched from his chair, hand poised high in the air to deliver a slap to her mother.

“No!” The word erupted from Claire’s mouth, an explosion of sound, freezing his hand midair.

His head snapped in her direction, then, for some reason, swiveled to the wall. He lowered his hand and dropped heavily back into his chair, still staring intently at the wall.

Claire followed his gaze, eyeing the large stain marring the burgundy wallpaper. Shards of glass, almost impossible to distinguish from the melting ice cubes, sparkled like diamonds on the floor.

Still, a long moment passed before understanding sank in—before she realized that she had flung her glass of iced tea against the wall. So quickly. So violently. So abruptly she had not even realized she had moved.

Slumped in his seat, her father fixed wide eyes on her like he had never seen her before, like a stranger sat before him and not his daughter. Varying emotions flitted across his face. Shock. Anger. And, she realized with mingled surprise and disgust, a tiny kernel of respect.

“Claire.” Her mother’s voice broke through the roaring in her head as though from far, far away. “Don’t do this.”

“No more,” Claire ground out, wildly shaking her head. “No more. Do you understand, Dad?”

She had hurled the glass instinctively, thoughtlessly, without strategy, but she wouldn’t back down. Something inside her wouldn’t allow that. Only one thing was definite: she wasn’t afraid. Not of him. Not for herself. Maybe for the first time in her life she was totally, finally, unafraid. And perhaps he recognized thatbecause, incredibly, he started to laugh. The noise sounded strange and fragmented.

“Guess I have to think up a new nickname for you.Mousewon’t fit anymore.” He smiled, or tried to, but something other than humor shaped the curve of his mouth.

Staring into his face, Claire recognized what lurked in his eyes. Could smell the stink of it on the air, taste the faintly coppery twang of it.Fear.Her father was nothing more than a bully. A scared little boy. Fitting, considering he had raised her to be a scared little girl. Today, however, that girl was nowhere to be found.

“Looks like you got a bit of the old man in you after all,” he declared.

His words filled her with rage, snapping the last of her control. Looking down, she noticed the slim, ebony-handled steak knife clutched in her white-knuckled hand. In one swift motion, she flung it into the table directly in front of him with a soft, vibrating thud. Over the shuddering knife, her eyes locked with the man who had cowed and intimidated her since birth.

“I’m nothing like you,” she hissed even though the words sounded foolish. Tossing a knife into the table only proved him right. She was no better than he. A bully.

Unclenching her fist, she let her arm drop to her side. Suddenly, she remembered the gun in her pocket, so available, so ready. Her loose fingers twitched at her side, and she knew she had to leave. Immediately. Before she went too far. She shoved back from the table and fled her father’s stunned expression and her mother’s muffled sobs.

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. Herfather 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!”

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