Something was happening.

She was always on edge, lately, and she was always chasing some kind of adrenaline high. She’d found it all of once, when she’d punched someone so hard she’d sworn she’d broken her hand. The only other thing that came close was the runner’s high. This was really more of her sister’s thing; Leah had never been one for team sports or voluntary recreation, but if she pushed herself hard enough, if she ran far and fast enough, if her muscles began to ache and her vision clouded with sweat, she’d feel that high, too. And it was better than any drug she’d ever tried.

(So maybe Sabrina was right. But Leah wasn’t going to tell her that.)

It was probably partly because she was trying to maintain that image that she was running along a forest path instead of in the neighborhood. It was also because it was quiet out here, and that meant there was less of a chance of running into someone. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t run into something. 

She’d bent down to tie up a loose shoelace when she saw it. At first, she thought it was just a stray dog that’d leaped into her way, but it was way too big for that. And its teeth were sharper, paws larger, eyes weirdly colored. “What the fuck,” she whispered, more to herself than to the animal. It wasn’t going to talk back, obviously.