So there I was, trying to catch my breath, blocking out the dismal droning of the lawyers and agents and counselors that still haunt my sleep. The crash, the scream, the pure redness of the whole memory, layers and layers of it, blossoming in behind my eyelids and staining my brain every time.
“It’s over,” I snarl at myself, digging my nails into my palms to stop my hands from shaking. “It’s been over for months.”
Time doesn’t exist in my mind; it loops itself into a hurricane that never ends, real life flinging more debris around my skull. The eye of the storm is the crash…
“Mom, slow down! You realize it’s raining, right?” I was scared but trying not to be; the rain and night contorted everything into mutilated, crooked shapes and shadows.
“Of course they chose today,” she muttered, flicking her wrist to the right and sending the sudan careening around the corner, water arcing behind us in three parallel, iridescent chains.
“What’s wrong?” I finally asked, and it took a while for her to pry the words from her throat.
“Olivia, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you were younger.”
I wait.
“I...I did something bad when I was young. My actions really...angered some...people. They’ve been...trying to find me ever since. You may have seen them when you were younger; I remember you told me about it once but I told you that it was your imagination. That was a mistake.
“They’re getting really close now, and I need to get home because there’s something there that I can use to protect us from them. I’m sorry, V.”
Bits and pieces shoot through me, and the memories rise again.
The car, cleaved in half by lightening and then decimated by wolves, taking my mother with them, dragging her carcass to the foot of my hospital bed. The body at the funeral was made of lies and plastic- her corpse stayed in my room, rotting, and followed me to my bedroom at home, where it watched me curl up on the floor and beat the ground with my fists, gloating. 
When they let me out of the sterile jaws of the hospital, I returned to school, thinking I would be free. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The painting of the wolf pack had eyes followed me down the hall of the art wing before the beasts tore themselves out of the canvas, took off after me and lunged, hot breath and snapping teeth and tearing cloth- my heart is in the base of my throat and I’m choking- a week later with the wolf that climbed out of the gray cement wall that separated the dining room and the kitchen- I’m clawing at my neck- bloody pawprints circling my ceiling fan in my room that had gradually formed a scarlet eye with the fan as the iris and pupil throughout the next few days and now watched me sleep.
Deeper memories surface, woven with the recent ones- a wolf stalking me at the playground in elementary school, the wolf I drew during art class snapping at my fingers and dotting the paper with brilliant red, the man I saw in the candy shop whose face morphed into a wolf’s when he looked at me-
“It’s not real,” I hiss, dim pain splitting the freshly scarred skin on my palms. Air rattles my lungs as it leaves, my hands tremble in my lap, my legs twitch, and my mind paralyzes in terror of itself.
Pills, pills, where are they?
A shadow rises over the windowsill, an inky silhouette blotting out the luminous night sky, the stars morphing into eyes, watching, always watching. I know what it’ll be before it leaps into my room, padding towards me, jaws open and smiling.
Wolf.
“You’re. Not. Real,” I scream at it, but my legs carry me out of the room and down the stairs and out the door. The wolf’s saliva coats my ankles and bloodlust radiates from its maw. The cold night air slaps me across the face as I stumble into its arms. Paws tear through wood and plaster behind me and I drive my fist through the driver’s window of my father’s prized truck-red red red-covering my mouth and eyes with shaking fingers, crawling into the niche where the gas and brake pedals are. My breath comes in ragged, heaving gasps, but I can’t stop.
The truck shudders, groans, and then tips over, sending my head cracking against hard plastic. Sparks flash along the edges of my vision, and there’s a wet pinprick of heat traveling down my cheek, dripping into my eyes and tainting everything red.
The wolf’s jaws burst through the shattered window, locks around the door, and rips the sheet of metal and plastic off the way one take a single post-it off of its corresponding pack. My throat is raw and I’m screaming and why isn’t anyone hearing me and the wolf has its teeth around my ankles and it’s dragging me out of the car, its malice seeping into my brain. I can almost hear its voice.
Your mother killed our king.
I thrash my head back and forth, trying to kill the words that aren’t mine.
He was feeding on her dog, feeding on live flesh for the first time in centuries because all those years of kindness and living off roadkill had poisoned his insides and he needed something fresh, something strong, to keep living and leading while he could. His brother was growing strong and was eligible to challenge him for the throne. His brother had more supporters because he was the ruthless killer, while our leader was the noble hero that was regarded as weak and unnatural.
My lungs are giving out; the world is spiraling into a sea of red eyes, seething with accusation.
Your mother is the murderer of a hero. We are now ruled by a tyrant who kills on instinct and lust. It’s not only humans and dogs and livestock he slaughters, either. When any of us speaks out of turn he rips our stomach out and makes us watch him devour the organs of our brothers.
It’s infecting us. We seek vengence. Perhaps, if we destroy what destroys us, we’ll stop.
I think the sky is bleeding.
It didn’t work. But we still seek blood, Olivia Flume. We seek to hurt and destroy.
I can’t feel anything below my waist. He’s eating me; , he’s eaten me-
We are hungry. We are wolves, after all, and our drive comes from two things: hunger and vengeance. Your mother has brought these out of us and we know what we are now.
Am I still breathing? How could I still be breathing?
You’re the most reasonable prey.
Red upon red upon red upon red.

***
I’m in the hospital again, and it’s white- the walls, the sheets, the floor, and it terrifies me. There’s no way there’s no red anywhere; there’s always red. A nurse smiles at me and I’m expecting blood to drip from her jaws in thick, heavy strings, like a yoyo, but her teeth are white white white.
The bandages of my hands are white white white, too, and I can see more white through the glass of water the nurse hands me. I’m still shaking.
“Honey, you were out for a couple days after breaking three knuckles, fracturing your distal phalanges and meta phalanges, and having a moderate concussion. According to your father, you had some...ah, hallucination issues, and we might need to prescribe stronger substances for those.” The nurse’s liquid voice slides over me like syrup, and I’m instantly on edge.
“Is my dad-?”
She gives me a small smile, pursed lips and pasty pink lipstick. “He’s at work right now; it’s 10:08 am. He’s very worried.”
“Oh. I-thanks.” Every syllable scratches my throat. She gives me another smile that makes me shudder on the inside before leaving me with a glass of water and a small plastic bottle of pills.
As I watch, the capsules darken from pale yellow to deep, bloody red, sorting themselves into pairs until the room is full of glowing red eyes, coming closer and closer to me. I can hear panting, snarling, growling, and most unnerving of all, laughter.
We’ll never stop hunting you.
My hand reaches out, trapped in plaster, for the pills, for the eyes, twisting the cap off in a jerky motion, sending some clattering to the ground.
Why are you trying to escape? You never will.
I tip the entire bottle between my lips and fill my mouth with water.
They’re hissing at me to give up, to succumb.
I swallow.
They’re gone.
I hope.