Part 7 (2/2)

Scrambled eggs go flying. The plate shatters against the ground. It bears Tyler down onto the tiled kitchen floor, Its yellow eyes dilated. Drool trickles onto Tyler's face as he struggles, sobbing and gagging. The rancid smell of musk envelops him.

”Dad!” he screams. ”Dad, Dad, Dad-!”

It grabs his right arm. The short sleeve of Tyler's T-s.h.i.+rt slides to his shoulder. It sinks its sharp, crooked teeth into the soft flesh of his inner arm. Tyler cries out in pain.

Brown flecks appear in the yellow eyes.

Tyler tries to hold himself rigid through the Change, but he's sobbing convulsively now, and he can't stop. The crooked teeth embedded in his skin recede. Blood trickles down Tyler's arm. Color floods back into his father's face.

His father throws himself backward, hitting the kitchen table. Lands, shaking and breathing hard. Puts one hand to his mouth and stares at the blood that comes off his lips, onto his fingers. He looks up, his face whitening.

”Tyler,” he whispers. ”Oh my G.o.d. I'm so sorry. Tyler-”

He starts forward, holding out his b.l.o.o.d.y hand.

”Don't touch me!” Tyler scrambles to his feet and runs upstairs. Blood dribbles down his arm, stains his T-s.h.i.+rt. He locks the door behind him and throws himself onto his bed.

Through the floorboards, he hears his father crying racking, choking sobs.

Tyler lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

Grown-ups aren't supposed to cry.

He doesn't look at his dad on his way out to school. His dad tries to say something, but Tyler drowns out the words by humming.

He sits alone in English cla.s.s. Paul and Steve are hanging out together at the back of the cla.s.sroom, snorting with laughter as they play with the gross toys they found at the back of Spencer Gifts in the mall.

Tyler's arm throbs underneath his clean, long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt.

At the end of cla.s.s, Mrs. Jankovic holds Tyler back. She waits while the other kids file out of the room. When they're finally alone, she looks at him steadily across her desk.

”Tyler,” she says. ”Do you need help?”

Tyler blinks. She's looking at him calmly, her hands folded on the desk.

”I can help you,” she says, ”but I need to know what's wrong. It's okay for you to ask for help.”

Tyler opens his mouth. He tries to speak, but he can't. He puts his left hand on the cuff of his right sleeve. All he has to do is pull it up, to show her.

”Tyler?” she says.

Tyler, his father said, his voice anguished, that morning. Blood still on his lips. I'm so sorry. Tyler- Tyler looks into Mrs. Jankovic's hazel eyes. He can barely breathe. He sees again the blood on his father's mouth.

The blood. He thinks about the blood.

Tears burn behind his eyes as knowledge s.h.i.+fts inside him.

Maybe he does know, after all, why his mother didn't take him with her when she left.

He steps back, letting go of his sleeve. ”No, thank you,” his voice says, with eerie politeness. ”Not now.”

”Are you sure? We could-”

Tyler's head shakes itself stiffly, and his legs turn him around and walk him out of the room, down the long hallway, and out of the school building.

His father is still sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a cup of coffee with both hands. He doesn't seem surprised to see Tyler back home at ten o'clock in the morning on a school day. He raises his haggard face to look at Tyler, but he doesn't speak.

”It's getting worse,” Tyler tells him.

”Yes,” his dad says. Just: Yes.

Tyler takes a deep, painful breath. ”Is it going to happen to me?”

His father pa.s.ses a hand over his eyes, wiping away a vision, or a nightmare. ”I don't . . . Dear G.o.d, Tyler. I don't know.”

”But Mom thought it would.”

”Thought it might,” his father says, his voice strained. ”Only that it might.”

”Whatever.” Tyler's chest tightens around the knowledge.

The phone call he's been waiting for is never going to come.

He starts to turn away, but his father's voice stops him.

”Tyler,” he says. ”I'm so sorry. It won't happen again that way, I promise. We'll figure out some safeguard. We'll make sure you're protected. We'll-”

”I know,” Tyler says. ”It's all right, Dad.”

The words feel funny in his mouth. False and jagged. Hurtful. Necessary.

He's never lied to his father before.

Experiments, his mother's voice reminds him. Labs . . .

Antidotes, Tyler tells her. Cures.

The phone book is upstairs, underneath his bed.

WERELOVE.

LAURA ANNE GILMAN.

Katya sat on her porch, and watched the street. The neighborhood had been built in the 50s, when sprawl was something you did on the sofa, and everyone had two cars and a lawn. Her house was the third in the pretty little cul-de-sac, five houses set in landscaped lots, with backyards perfect for games of touch football or Frisbee or general roughhousing-safe places for wild-tempered kids with too much energy, or teenagers counting down the days of the month, or adults who just liked to laze about in hammocks, and watch the night sky, a gla.s.s of sangria in their hands and the remains of dinner on the patio table.

Katya had raised children herself. Two boys, who had gone off and done things in the world. Max was an immigration lawyer. Leon taught grade school math and coached the local track team. Neither of them had children of their own, at least not that they told her, and she never asked why. She had no interest in being grandmotherly.

<script>