"Can you bloody turn that down? I have a beastly migraine," I roar, hoping Amparo can actually friggin' hear me over the racket of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor.

The noise doesn't subside.

Argh. 

I jump out of the bed, swearing, shielding my eyes from the bright light. 

"Stupid, stupid sunlight." I reach for the blinds, and even if I pull them down just the slightest, they fall off completely. 

"Shit, shit, shit." I stare at the remains of the shutters in my hands and...

My three inch long nails.

Amparo leans her head into the bedroom.

"Señorita Bea, ¿necesita ayuda?" 

"I damn right necesito ayuda! The blinds are destroyed, the sun is killing me, and I turned into Freddy Krueger over here." I sit on the bed which creaks threateningly under my muscle mass. 

"Here, let me," señora Amparo whispers kindly, pulling the dark curtains over the stained window glass and I let out a sigh of relief. She presses her cool hand against my forehead, but it does very little to alleviate my headache.

"Do we have any medicine?" I grunt, still not forgiving her the fact she knows something about me and my "condition," but refuses to tell me about it yet.

"Try the left cabinet, bottom shelf, señorita." She is already vigorously employing nail clippers on me. 

"Thanks," I murmur sulkily. 

When she's done and I can finally move my fucking fingers, I rummage around the indicated drawers. What I find is some generic shit like Advil, but I guess even that will work better than nothing. I swallow it down with a gulp of water and a biscuit from the pack on my nightstand.

"Bloody hell," I mutter through the mouthful of biscuit as I catch my reflection in the mirror. 

It's very akin to watching a train wreck in slow motion. 

Those unnatural golden brown, huge wide-set eyes.

Those predatory canines that tell me, all smeagol-like, "You better give us something raw and wriggling to sink ourselves in."

That hair—twice the length, all shaggy, smelly and dirty, filled with clumps of earth, tiny stones, and tree branches.

But the worst part are those cursed pointed ears jutting out of it, turning left and right at the smallest sound like a darned weathervane. 

Those two rose-shaped ruby earrings glimmering on them.

Mocking me.

I pull on them with all my might, not caring if I might remove my earlobes in the process as well. 

But they won't budge.

They won't budge, and I'm enslaved, just in a different way than my parents had planned for me.

And I can't even figure out what's blasted wrong with me!

I roar in anger and slam my fist against the mirror, hating who I see staring back reflected at me. 

It doesn't help at all, because now, apart from my ears, nose, and feet, my hands are also bleeding.

And the mirror image has multiplied into dozens of monstrous Bea's. 

My next move is to smash my Samsung flipped phone against the bedroom wall, and cower in the corner, tears streaming down my stupid beastly face. 

"Your parents..." señora Amparo whispers with care. "They prepared some more phones for you just in case." 

I snort.

Of course. They knew I might be prone to these rage fits. 

"All of them with no access to the Internet," I sniffle. "Right? And here I was hoping I'll get that hot pink Porsche with a vanity plate for my eighteenth. It turns out, I can't even get network coverage."

I can't even google how to fix this. Or to find out...

If I will... transform again.

"Would you like some more cookies?" she asks, answering my question with an irrelevant question of her own.

"Why?" I shake my head with a growl. "Are you afraid I'm suddenly going to eat you if I don't have a plentiful brunch?" 

"Nothing of the sorts, of course, señorita Bea." Amparo sits next to me on the floor and begins caressing my hair.

My first reaction is to stiffen.

I try to read her expression but her face is an impassive mask.

Then she speaks up.

"Señorita Bea, I'm..." She looks away and straightens the placemat in front of her, then mumbles something I can't quite make out.

It almost sounds like an apology, but that can't be right.

She clears her throat. Still not meeting my eyes.

"I said I'm sorry." Her voice drops to a whisper. "For all of it. So sorry. Lo siento mucho."

Oh fuck it. Now she's crying, too? 

I'm allergic to other people's tears. I just can't stand watching someone sob like that.

"You okay, Amparo?" I swallow, stand up and plop into a bedside easy chair. "Cuz I'm not. A creepy old hag entered my bedroom, and...  ... I don't know what else to tell you. I'm in over my head already. I don't understand any of this. The girl I used to know? She transformed into a blasted mountain lioness and blindly ran out of the mansion and ..." I choke on my own words.

"The shape changers are back." Señora Amparo crosses herself and mutters something into her chin.

"I don't know anything about them. You'd mentioned them to me before. Who are they, Amparo? Who are the shape changers?"

She shakes her head.

"You can't say? Or you won't? Did my parents know about this? When they sent me here?"

She shakes her head again. This time, more zealously.

Well, that is wildly unhelpful. 

On the other hand, perhaps it's better that Mom and Dad don't know. Lucky for me, they can't video call here.

I growl in frustration.

"I saw her, yesterday, there was a ..." I take a deep breath, feeling Amparo's eyes on me. "There was a mad glint in her eye. And then those rose-shaped ruby earrings. They just came out of nowhere and she slammed them onto my ears."

Ever so slightly, señora Amparo smiles, but she looks like she is about to burst into tears. "I saw it."

"But you know what?" I stare back at her in earnest. "The weirdest thing was, what she said. She was mumbling something about 'freedom,' how I shall have my freedom. She called me a different name, even."

I am grateful that Amparo just keeps sitting there, nodding, and patting my hand affectionately. The blasted woman had always been a good listener.

"And then, before she left, she added something like 'A month you have, before the final shift." 

"Tu cumpleaños es en un mes." Amparo starts preening my hair, removing stray mud and branches. 

I nod, swallowing hard. 

It seems there is no way around this... Thing, whatever this is. A prophecy? A curse? Dammit, I just wish I had access to the internet.

I have a month to the final shift. Final shift into what?

At least Amparo bears with me. She doesn't call me crazy. She knows. 

It feels good. For a few seconds, our eyes hold each other in mute understanding.  

Then the blissful peace of the shared secret is interrupted with an ear-grating, screeching voice: "Hello? Anybody home? I hope I'm not intruding! The front door was wide-open. Brought you a home-made chicken casserole!"

I sniff the air in anger, and burst into the hallway on all fours, surprisingly fit and nimble to be running like a common animal. 

There are dozens of cardboard boxes piled everywhere. This mansion still looks like one of those houses perpetually between one renter and another, constantly changing, doomed to never become quite a home for anyone.

I am way too familiar with the kind of look. Mom and Dad moved all across the USA ever since I was very little. 

"Hello?" That echoing voice said again. The smell of the chicken casserole reaches my nostrils, and I inhale deeply, my mouth watering, as I half stand-half crouch behind a column in the foyer. 

"I must say I can definitely appreciate the estate," the female voice, because it did belong to a woman, keeps chattering, contributing to my already mounting headache. 

The intruder's footsteps clang on the marble floor, as she now runs towards the fireplace. 

"Oh my gosh. Is that the famous 17th century fireplace of French origin that I read about so much? And ooh, the imported Greek origin stone flooring!"

Before I can descend the stairs further, and get a better look at the trespasser, señora Amparo hurries down the steps, wiping her hands on her apron. 

"Oh, good afternoon, Mrs..." 

"Mrs. Thorne. Mrs. Maureen Thorne," the woman says and I tilt my head to the side in disbelief.

Maureen Thorne? As in... The mother of Gus and Ross Thorne?

No frickin' way. 

"I saw this was the address where one of my hand-made clocks was supposed to be delivered, you see, so I thought I'd bring it myself since we are practically neighbors..." Maureen Thorne prattles on but  I'd long disconnected from what she had to say. 

It's as if someone had suddenly pressed a full-speed rewind button in my head and all the events from the last night come back to me in such haste I can barely process them. 

That irritating guy who was driving the car. Zaman? Z-man? My head hurts from just trying to remember his name.  His shirt was baggy, his pants were too short, and the colors clashed like he just picked clothes at random.

He was scared shitless of me. 

I grin at the memory. 

An almond-shaped eyed girl... Lucy? Yes. Lucy, Lu they called her. With pitch-black hair bonded up to the boys, her smile ebullient. Even dressed in distressed denim shorts and a cropped white T, she carried herself with the effortless grace and easy nonchalance. 

I recall how her dark eyes wandered over me ever so slowly as she patted my head in an effort to calm me.

She offered me some kind of food? A rice cake? 

I scrunch my nose, offended even now, hours after the incident. 

Who the hell eats rice cakes? 

And him. Ross Thorne. 

"I'm not going to hurt you! I want to help you!," he yelled, just as I was about to disappear into the woods again.

There was something in his voice, that note of desperation and honesty that made me trust him. 

And I wasn't wrong. 

I remember how his tender, warm palms had bandaged my ears, and stopped the bleeding from my nose. 

He watched over me the entire night. 

And in the morning...

My heart freezes over.

He saw me transform, I realize. 

Ross Thorne had recognised me in my... Well, human form.

I hate the words as soon as my mind expels them. 

I blush, recalling his thumb gently massaging the inside of my wrist. 

Our eyes met for a split second.

Why was he looking at me like that, as if I'd been both the journey and the goal?

He was going to bandage my wounded feet too. But it was all too much for me. That's why I fled.

Fled here.

And now, his mother comes to pay us a visit?

That can't be a coincidence. 

I burst from behind the column with a gasp, settling my attention on Maureen Thorne. Because, yes, yes, Ross bloody well recognised me and he must have told his mother.

"What are you doing here?" I roar, fangs bared. 

"Y-y-you..." She gasps, clasping her face with both hands. 

The chicken casserole whacks the marble and its contents spill everywhere.

At least Señora Amparo managed to take that home-made clock from the woman's hands.

I massage the bridge of my nose, trying to keep my feelings under control.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I can't even hide in the middle of nowhere. Why did I allow her to see me? 

Well, too late now. Might as well get some answers.

I grind out again: "What are you doing here?" 

She scrambles backwards towards the front door, and grabs onto its hinges, staring at me from between bangs plastered on her forehead. Her teeth chatter loudly. "I—I w-w-was just—... I'm sorry, I didn't know!"

Now that's hard to believe. Ross didn't snitch on what he saw?

"You were just... What?" I growl, staring her down. "Come to stare? Take a picture? Maybe share it on Instagram to your followers? Oh, you found the elusive super star Beatrice Laurent! Congrats! And she is nothing like you hoped she'd be." 

Her eyes widen. "What? N-n-no—"

"I know just the type. The bored, nosy housewife, aren't you now? Gonna go sell some photos to Just Jared now, are you? Try to get rich off my agony?"

"I would never." Her lips tighten in a determined fashion. "I w-was just going to... To come in and say hello. I got curious when my boy... Ross, talked about your wonderful home last night ... He... He was here at the party, wasn't he?" She speaks faster and faster until I can almost no longer discern individual words. "I swear I didn't know."

"Maybe she's telling the truth," Amparo says, caressing that darned home-made thingamajig. "And the clock she brought as a present is so nice, señorita Bea, if I may say so." 

"Silence!" I roar and both women still like mice. "Just... Let me think." 

"Hey, are you okay?" Maureen Thorne reaches out to touch my arm and I muster all my strength not to smack her against the wall in irritation. "I don't... I don't know what happened to you, honey, but listen... we can... We can get help. We can call the doctors, and then maybe they..."

"No! No doctors! Do. Not. Call. Anyone. You mustn't tell anybody about this, do you understand?"

"But are you sure..." One look from me silences her. "I... I u-u-nderstand. But if you ever need someone to talk... to talk to... Or... if you need help at school, my son... In case you can't or won't attend lessons in your current condition... He can..."

"Sod off—"

"—help you out," she finishes. 

"I said, get out!" 

She lets out a frightened yelp and speeds away from the mansion without sparing a single glance in my direction. 

As soon as she does, I kneel on the cold marble floor, the guilt finally sinking in.

The pressure of my last twenty four hours mounted inside me, not like a tangled knot but like a ticking bomb, and I needed to let it explode. 

But that was no excuse for how I behaved towards her. 

Like a beast.

A/N: Theme song: Manfred Mann "Blinded By The Light"