Page 98 of Such Sharp Teeth

I hand her the phone and hit play.

I watch her watch.

“What is this?” she asks, looking up at me. She’s horrified.

“I think there’s probably a while where I’m just standing there. Here, let me fast-forward.”

I take the phone and drag to the point where I fumble the chicken.

“This is so fucked, Rory. I don’t want to watch this.”

“Please.”

She returns her eyes to the screen at the sound.

The hideous sound of my new nails coming in.

She squints.

The screaming starts.

Her eyes go wide. She inhales sharply.

There’s the ripping, gasping, gurgling, fizzing. Bones snapping. The teeth. I can hear the teeth coming in.

Then the howling. Clear and sad and eerily beautiful.

She drops the phone. It bounces off the coffee table onto the floor.

“Oh, good. That’s my new phone.”

A few minutes pass with nothing but Scarlett’s quivering breath.

“Did you see it?” I ask.

She nods.

“Me in all my wolf-ness?”

“I can’t breathe,” she says. She tilts her head back. “I can’t breathe.”

“For real? Hey,” I say, taking her hands. “Hey. It’s okay.”

“No,” she says. “No!”

She scrambles forward and grabs my phone.

“Unlock it,” she says, throwing it at me.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to watch it again.”

“Rory!”

I unlock it and pull up the video.

She watches it over and over and over. Every time it ends, I watch her doubt reset. Then she rewinds, and I watch it vanish over my screams.

“How is this real?” she asks me.