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I have for you here the first little chapter of a novella I had intended to write, detailing the life and difficulties of a hyena raised in a society where predator and prey coexist peacefully. In his world, predation is the greatest crime, bearing the harshest penalty, and as such biting behavior in carnivores and omnivores is strictly punished. No one wants to grow up a biter.

No one wants to be bit.

Though I may one-day post the other chapters of the novella, I hope readers will enjoy this look into the seminal moments in a young carnivore's life, and take some amusement from the battles he wins and loses against himself and the world that fails to understand him.

---

Bite Down

It was a baking, dry mid-afternoon at the Sunny Dunes preschool the first time Jeremy solved the problem. He has memories of it, in the present day, but they've been stretched and distorted with time and he has lengthened the shadows under the awning above the preschool's doors, daubed them black with shame. He remembers hearing things he could never have heard, or mixes them up with things that were said during the car-ride home.

It is only the outside of Mrs. Farrier's office he remembers with real clarity. He remembers the plastic chairs, the Zootastic! magazines featuring the multi-species skateboarding mascot pack. He can place himself in that moment exactly, staring up at the walls and trying to comfort himself with that happy vision of the world. Pastel blues and pinks and greens, children of every species holding paws with bright cartoon eyes and cartoon smiles. Jeremy had been focused on the spotted hyena, because that's what he was. ("You can tell 'cuz of the ears and spots,").

His mother was desperate in the other room.

"He's a little kid," Mom said, and she was really pleading. "He's just a little, little kid, it happens now and then."

"He's a little pup," said Mrs. Farrier, "And daycare policy is clear. A bite is a bite."

"I'll pay for the stitches--" Mom began, but Mrs. Farrier cut her off.

"I think what would be best for him right now... what would be best for everyone, is if you took little Jeremy home."

There'd been a pause, then, long enough that he'd lost interest, and began playing with the painted wooden beads on the looping tracks of wire. The best toy in the room. The taste of pennies on his tongue, the summer sun shining in through the windows on the puzzle-piece playmat... all of these things came to loiter in his shadowed corners for decades.

He remembers more distantly the pain in his back where the ibex he'd tousled with not a half-hour before had sunk her flat teeth into pelt. Sarah had wanted up on the slide, but he'd wanted up too, and she wouldn't get off. It was before the alliances and politics their childhood warfare had drawn their lines with adequate clarity, and though their parents had each told them not to hit, Sarah had proclaimed herself Queen of the Slide with violence as her mandate. In such a situation, what recourse could there be?

Everything had been going smoothly until David had taken her side, loyal twin brother that he was. While Jeremy had been distracted with her sibling, Rachel had bit him right on his spine. Pup-thin pelt, flat teeth on bone. A new hurt, brighter and worse than anything, and Jeremy had wanted it to stop.

The detail of exactly how he'd made that happen is lost to him today, although the fallout certainly spoke for itself. What remains clear to him is that talk in Mrs. Farrier's office and the anxiety of the ride home. His mom's claw marks on the steering wheel, the barely contained tears as she shouted at him, saying "You NEVER bite, you NEVER EVER bite." The glory of her full wrath was blinding. Spotted hyena matriarchs have a capacity for grand displays and the snarl of her voice, her stomping through the kitchen, the shattering of some formerly beloved glass bauble against the wall drove him cowering out of her sight.

That evening, Ms. Al-Rashid's only son had a nightmare. He lingered outside her bedroom door, but dared not scratch to be let in. Jeremy spent the night in the alien hostility of the living room, too afraid of the were-crow under the bed to return. The carpet was rough and it clung to his fur. He did not understand the thermostat, and could not make himself warm.

The next day, Mom hugged him and kissed him good-morning, and made as if all was well. She'd spent a good portion of the morning calling around to day-cares and preschools that were close enough to the school at which she worked and cheap enough to budget for. She never revealed to Jeremy that all the options at the optimal intersections of these two factors denied her the moment they heard his name.

There was a Bite List. Nadine al-Rashid's pup was on it, and it would be an entire year before he could come off. For the rest of his childhood, the hyena was always one year older than everyone he knew in school. One year older, and one year bigger.

***

Then one summer he was down by the tracks leading south out of the city, in the fields where the sunflowers grew tall and proud, their heads heavy with seed for the meadowlarks and tanagers that wheeled and perched and cried to one another in the summer-song. The smell of the meadow and the heat of the day complimented the blue of the cloud-dappled sky, royal and rich and deep as the sea. The picture of teenage freedom. School was letting out in just a few weeks, and then Steve could get back to working on his photo collection, and Michelle could spend her evenings camped out in the wilderness with her dad, looking at stars the way she'd been begging to do since March.

Steve and Michelle were real miracles. Steve, the sambar deer, who was just beginning to get a real set of antlers (one day, they'd be as big as his dad's). Michelle, who wasn't done growing into the tall, strong body nature had apportioned for her, the lankiest and most awkward girl at their school, but whose tiger smile was the most sincere.

Them and JD, the spotted hyena who never laughed, and never showed his teeth, and never raised his paw in class. He felt responsible for them, even though they'd taken him in. Next year, they'd be going to Sunmount High together, where the classes and the kids would get rougher, time would grow shorter, and all the aches and pains of growing into yourself post-puberty would flower forth in a hundred embarrassing ways. This summer was to be the last hurrah, and since they still had a few weeks of school left, it seemed to be stretched out infinitely before them. Endless promise was on the wind.

"... So I asked dad, and he said it was crazy expensive, like you could sell it for like, a hundred dollars a pound." said Steve, pushing his way through the high, fine grass. Lightly stepping over a two-by-four someone had left out in the meadow, he rubbed the base of his new prong. "He said we weren't gonna find shit out here, but what does he know? He hasn't been out here. It's a gold mine, but like, with flowers."

"Eugh," said Michelle, tromping behind the deer, picking her way a little more clumsily through the foliage. "Who wants flowers that bad, anyway?"

"Everybody." Steve plunged out of the tall grass and sunflowers and onto a little path that led beside the train tracks. His hooves tapped along as he walked, light and springy compared to Michelle's lumbering and JD's trot. "Well, I guess not preds- but it's supposed to taste and smell really good, so people put it in their food all the time. "

"I'd puke," said Michelle.

"Yeah, same." said JD, and he hiked his backpack a little bit, squinting against the high sun and wishing he'd followed his mom's advice of bringing sunglasses. "Remember your birthday back in October, dude? When your mom made tulip salad and I ate it to be polite, and then I totally blew chunks on your new camera?"

"Don't remind me." Steve stopped and turned around and gave his carnivore friends a flat look. "But see, this isn't like flower salad at all- you don't even need the whole thing, you just gotta have the little stamens."

"The stamens?"

"The flower dicks!" Michelle chirped and flumped down at the tracks, stretching herself in feline fashion, and shaking out her tail. "You know, the little whiskers that poke out from the center. They got all the pollen on 'em. That's the flower jizz."

"Fucking gross, dude!" JD said, and the tigress laughed at the look on his face.

"It's either the stamens or the stigma," Steve cut in, pulling off his backpack and digging around. He came out with a little glass bottle, capped with a rubber cork. "I forget which. Either way, we find 'em, and then we pluck 'em and put 'em in this jar and sell them."

"I wouldn't want the stigma of munching on flower dicks. That is some gay shit, man. Who's gonna buy it?" JD flickered an ear, feeling a little heat rising in his cheeks and turning away to look out across the field of sunflowers.

"Cooks. Connoisseurs, gourmands, those types, I guess. If we can find enough, we could totally buy the new Super Tanuki Bros I know you nerds wanna play. Enough for that, and a system to play it on."

Michelle was digging in her own backpack now, but she stopped, clutching a protein bar in her paw. "You really should have opened with that, Stevie."

"Yeah, seriously." said the hyena. "I'd pick like a billion flower wieners for that. What do they even look like?"

"Just like, purple flowers, right? Kevin said they're purple, with six petals and yellow filaments in the center."

"Filaments?"

"The wieners."

"Got it," said JD, hunkering down on his haunches next to Michelle. He wasn't quite hungry enough for his own protein bar, but now was as good a time as any for a swig of water. "So we basically find a field full of these flowers, grab the filaments, and sell them to a cook?"

"For fat stacks, that's right." Steve hopped up on one of the rails. His hooves clicked as he wandered along it, balancing with his arms out. "When we get to high school, I'm gonna be throwing down major-league paper."

"If we can find any," said Michelle through a muzzleful of chocolate-flavored cricket protein.

"We'll find some," said the deer as he hopped down from the track and sat down next to the tigress. He picked up the end of her tail and pointed at her with it. "You just see if we don't. We're gonna be living like Saffron Sultans after this. Sultans and... girl sultans."

"Sultanettes." JD said, and Steve lowered his antlers in deference to this wisdom. Michelle was tickled pink by the idea.

***

"I dare you to go in there," Michelle said, an hour of fruitless wandering later.

"What do I get if I do?" Said JD.

"You get to be courageous," replied the tiger, pointing her finger at him, the tip of a claw showing from the little slit in the front. "You get to be something other than a yellow lil' chicken dog."

JD frowned at that. "Hyenas aren't dogs."

"Yeah, but they ARE chickens, unless you nut up and go inside."

"How come you're not going?" Said Steve, who felt a little defensive on his fellow male's behalf.

Michelle looked over at the old too lshed, dappled with rust and looming between two trees. It was festooned with cobwebs and corrosion. The later afternoon shadows had filled it with an orange half-light that reddened all the rust, and the tiger could smell something rotten, cached deep inside. She narrowed her eyes at it, and flickered her ear in irritation, the way she always did when she was caught out. "Because..." she said pensively. "Because I'm a lady. And it's OK if we're chicken. And besides, I could step on a nail."

"I could step on a nail too!" said JD indignantly. One broken window of the shed had been taped over with plastic. It bulged obscenely as the breeze blew by, producing a sound that, to the ears of children, resembled the moans of the dead. The little hyena gave it an anxious, irritated glance. "And then I'd get sick and die and it'd be your fault."

"Just don't step on any nails, then."

"How about YOU go in, and YOU don't step on any nails, bitch?"

"Tigers aren't dogs either!" Michelle growled. Now she was on the point of baring her teeth, and JD's hackles were up.

"Guys!" Steve held his hoof-tipped hands out between them.

"That's right, I forgot, you're the literally the biggest fuckin' pussy on the planet!"

"Not compared to you, you spineless little maggot muncher! Marshall's right about you!" JD's growl turned into a violent full-fang snarl.

"GUYS!" Steve shouted and he shook them both by the shoulder. Three years of middle school friendship had taught him when and how to get between his carnivore friends, and when they saw the earnest expression and that flat-toothed smile, threatening to falter at the sight of their fangs and claws, the both of them relaxed.

"Sorry, dude," said the little hyena.

"Yeah, sorry... I know you're not a scavenger." said Michelle. The tigress ran a paw over her face, straightening her whiskers and huffing up at the lonely tool shed. A rake had been left out some time ago, and its broken shaft and rusted head stuck out from the wall like a skeletal claw, grasping for life. "And... sorry I brought up Marshall. There's probably nothing cool in there anyway."

JD sniffed the air and padded toward it. He tried visibly to calm himself and shut out thoughts of Michelle's ex-best friend by examining the lengthening afternoon shadows, looking for any hint of purple flowers. "Probably not any saffron, in any case."

"That's right," said Steve. "Remember what we came for. Besides, I don't think anyone's lived here for a while. Who has a tool shed out in the middle of nowhere?" He thrust a hoof-point at a rusted watering can. "No way they're keeping a garden out here. This thing has been abandoned forever, probably."

Another ghostly moan swept in, sighed out through the tool shed, carrying with it the scent of must and age and corrosion. JD imagined for a moment that the structure was a metal mouth, all dark inside, all sharp and sparkling implements, positioned to catch and pull open the skin of little kids who went nosing where they didn't belong. The tinkling of a broken storm lantern hanging behind the plastic sheet over the window seemed to be saying 'There's no light in here, there's no shelter. Come in and let me bite you. Let me pull your pelt off.' Fear always seemed to make him angry. He felt his muzzzle wrinkling.

Something creaked inside, and Michelle jumped a little, and turned her head away. Steve grabbed her arm.

"C'mon. It's gonna get late soon. We gotta find that saffron."

"No," said Michelle, pulling away from him and turning to look up the path, over a small ridge. "It wasn't... it's not the shed. There's something going on up there."

The hyena pricked his ears and listened hard. He could hear it too, a dozen tiny little voices, muddled with the wash of the nearby stream. The song of distant birds mixed with the breeze and the stilled breathing of two young mammals. As a pup he'd asked a lot of adults why all species of people could think and walk and talk, but birds could only chirp. JD liked birds.

"It's up there," he said, turning. "I'm gonna go and see."

They came to the top of the ridge and looked down. Steve jumped a little when he saw, and JD and Michelle yanked him into the tall grass. The two of them lay low with the deer between them, their ancient hunter's instinct suddenly roused from troubled slumber. Three pairs of glittering eyes peered out from the long grass and down the slope where a trail wandered beside the stream. A colossal figure was crouched over it, its shadow broad and dark in the burgeoning twilight. It had long, powerful limbs that were scooping something out of a cardboard box and into a burlap sack. Something chirping and uncomprehendingly desperate.

"Are those... chicks?" Steve said, and both predators shushed him with a hiss.

The great dark form shifted, turned toward them. A powerful silhouette with a red corona of setting sunlight. Though its features were too shadowed to discern, JD recognized the species. Ursine. A huge brown bear, his coat in tangled ruins, the strings of unkempt fur dangling from his body as he cast his gaze up along their ridge. Simultaneously, Michelle and he hunkered down into the grass, pushing Steve into the dirt so his antlers wouldn't give them away. His gaze passed over them once. Twice. The figure turned again to his work: scooping chicks from the box into the bag. Dozens of little chirping voices.

'Someone's pets?' JD thought, as the figure hoisted the bag. It was full now, bulging at the sides with baby birds. Crying out for worms, maybe. Crying out for their mothers, afraid of the big bear, afraid of the rushing stream. The hyena could hear a low bearish rumble, satisfied with the end of the day's work. The figure wore no shirt- JD could see it now, but the bottoms of some denim overalls covered his shame. A heavy animal. The young hyena bit his tongue and watched as the man stooped, picked up a round stone, put it in the sack.

"What's he doing?" whispered Steve. "I can't see."

"Shut up!" Michelle hissed, the ragged edge of panic threatening to pull a snarl into her voice.

JD could see it all. He saw each stone that went into the bag. Heard the click of one against another, felt his mind dredging up a conclusion from under the cold, still body of fear that had chilled his thoughts to torpor.

"He's killing them." he whispered in a voice so low that he wasn't sure if his friends had heard it. The bear was killing them. He was going to drown those chicks in the stream, fill their chirping infant lungs with water. They would die cold and confused and screaming for a mother that would never come. All those little lives pinched out all at once, and there was nothing they could do to prevent it, or understand it, or come to terms. The little hyena felt sympathy and helpless, childish rage rise in his throat and catch there, choking him. For a moment, he had to turn away.

All three of them sat in the grass and watched like pillars of salt. In went the stones, click click click, and the sack grew as heavy as Hell-- and when the shaggy colossus yanked the strings tight, JD could feel his own heart close shut. The frantic chirping was quieted now, muted by burlap. The sun shone red on the flowing water. A plunk. No more chirping. In an instant, the thought that he could race down there, scoop the bag up and run like hell occurred to him like a flash of red lightning. The little hyena tensed himself to move.

"Don't!" Steve moaned, but before Michelle and JD could shut him up a third time, the colossus was up, and he was staring, the plates in the backs of his eyes reflecting the evening redness. Michelle shrieked and stood up, yanking Steve along by the back of his shirt. It ripped a little and JD scrambled to his feet. Without turning, they bolted, but they could hear the pounding of heavy footfalls just behind them, dashing up the hill and through the tall grass.

It was faster than they had ever moved in their young lives. The adrenaline sang in their veins and magnified every sensation, set every breath aflame as they charged down the hill. Michelle dragged Steve with a paw, JD tore ahead, backpack bouncing with every step. He turned back only when they had nearly reached the old toolshed with its guttering moan and glass teeth, and saw:

There, against the blood-red sky, his terrible eyes flashing, his claws un-clipped, his mouth a glittering array of knives, the bear-man, chick-killer, all malice and putrid odor of unwashed pelt, unclean fangs, his breath like a living abattoir that JD could smell from where he stood- and he was so much closer to them than the hyena could have believed.

"Hide!" He shrieked, and with all his youthful muscle, he threw open the door to the toolshed. The murk that had frightened him just a little while ago beckoned now, and he waited only long enough for Steve and Michelle to hurl themselves inside to slam the corrugated metal door closed. His eye chanced upon an old rubber mallet with a wooden handle, and without thinking, he jammed the door with it. Just in time. A terrible blow shook the rusting iron. The echo of it rang like thunder in their ears.

JD turned to the dark, his chest heaving, his thoughts spinning down the rifle-spiral of his mind. He glanced up, saw two pairs of eyes glittering from the darkness. "Hide!" He yelped. "Shut your eyes! Eye-brights! He'll see!"

With that, he dove under a workbench, hauling himself behind an old red toolbox that threatened to spill its contents out of the rusted-through bottom. There in the dark he lay, quivering, eyes closed and body tucked into a ball. He could hear a scraping outside, another terrible blow, another and another. Some insect crawled across his paw, but he dared not shake it off or open his eyes to see it. A long silence followed, and then the squealing of deforming metal, the smell of iron and dust in his lungs, and cold fear pressing on his bladder.

"I can smell y'all in there." Said a devil's voice, low and venomous and red as dusk. It snuffled, drew in thick drags of musty air, and sighed. "No hidin' in here. No runnin'. Cut y'all's pelts to ribbons if you try. What'd you see, kids? What'd you seeeee?" The last word dragged itself out of the huge bear, low and rough and tinged with black laughter.

Heavy footfalls entered in.

All JD could do was breathe and be still. Every little sound in the toolshed grated- the percussive tred, the scraping and shifting of old tools and shelving. The bear's great snuffling breath was loud enough to imagine on his neck, and every moment loitered, a screen on which every possible terror could be projected from the back of his mind. JD imagined being broken, being put into a sack. He imagined the heavy dark of it, the cold water creeping in, how he'd cry for his mother who was miles away and would never hear. He imagined a little hyena body in among the stones, bones picked clean by water and time.

"Fucker!" The bear's sudden, anguished roar filled the shed and shook the shelving. JD's body kicked out from its hiding place and he sprang to his feet to dash for the door. Michelle stood, silhouetted against the broken, sunlit window with a box of tacks in her paw. He only narrowly avoided knocking her over in his manic haste.

"Wait!" She cried. "Steve!"

JD turned back. The bear was hunched at the back of the shed, clutching at his feet, and around him lay the points of the tacks. They glimmered in the twilight like miniature teeth. The young sambar buck crouched on the floor, picking his way gingerly through the tacks. He looked up at JD and Michelle and rose to join them when a great paw swung, grasping. The two predators watched in horror as the deer's head was yanked back, the bear's mighty paw wrapped around one antler. Steve was bleating in terror. Michelle was frozen, clutching the box of tacks to her chest, caught somewhere between dropping them to reach out, and bolting. In a blind instant of panic, JD darted forward and grabbed his friend's frantic, waving hand, felt the cool hoof-tips in his paw as he grabbed and hauled with all his might.

There was a scream. Warm wet spattered on the hyena's muzzle and he flinched away. Something came free, and then they were running, he and Michelle into the light of the ending day, speeding over the grass and the flowers and hammering the earth until their sides hurt, until their lungs burned and their throats choked with the near-vomit of exertion. They'd run blind along the trail, back to the tracks and up along it, following it for as long as they could until at last, totally unable to push himself further, JD collapsed to his knees and heaved.

At first, he thought it was only he and Michelle, but when he looked back, he remembered he'd been holding Steve's hand, and the sight that met him now turned his stomach.

Steve's face glimmered. The blood and the tears mixed on his cheeks, and it gave him the appearance of wearing a ghastly Halloween mask. He was panting and shaking, his teeth clenched together tight, his eyes still wide enough to see the whites. A panting, bloody, exhausted fawn. He looked at JD, and sank to his knees, clutching his head. "Hurts..." He said, barely able to squeeze the word out amid his desperate panting. "Hurts so bad..."

"I think... you'll be... ok." Michelle panted, drawing in a gulp of air and trying to steady herself. She looked all over her friend, cringing at the jagged spit of antler that remained on his head. She reached out to touch it, but thought better of it and put a comforting paw on the deer's shoulder, squeezing softly. The torn buck leaned against her, shaking, while JD caught his breath and snarled deep in his throat.

"Who WAS that guy?" he said through clenched fangs, the immediate fear draining away, leaving only a bitter and nauseating anger trapped in the sieve of his thoughts. "What was he doing? What did he want with us?"

Michelle didn't answer him. She was holding Steve close, her big, stripey arms covering enclosing his shaking, silently sobbing body while she whispered "You're ok. You're ok now. Breathe deep, Stevie, breathe..." into his ear. Her Stripes and Solids band t-shirt was smeared with deer blood now. They'd have to wash it, and it was going to take a ton of baking soda to get it out. That last thought struck JD so abruptly and with such absurdity that he began to cackle.

The laughter died in his throat as he put a paw to his face, and it came away sticky.

***

They'd only just caught their breath and started walking again when they came to the edge of the field. Here, waving golden grass and wildflowers met the paved cement sidewalk and asphalt of the city. One by one, they stepped from wild fields to parking lot. All three of them trudged along as if caught in a dream, barely speaking to one another, shielding their eyes from the sun that was nearly set all the way.

Now that he was safe, the anger would not leave JD alone. It buzzed in him like an insect, stirring him up every time his mind tried to slip into the placidity of walking home. His paws clenched so hard that his claws cut furrows into his palms, and the scratches threatened to well with blood. He tried to focus on the sounds of his own loping gait, the click of Steve's hooves as they touched down on pebbles, Michelle's unconsciously graceful feline padding... but the feeling of being weak, of being a child and being angry with these things churned and turned over inside of him, a voiceless, aimless mocking anger that ate of itself and grew strong.

He didn't even notice the lion and his buddies until they were feet away from the concrete.

"Oh man. Just look at him." Came the second-to-last voice JD wanted to hear. "What in the fuck happened to you, Stevie-buck? Did these big mean preds drag you out into the fields and use you as a chew toy?"

"Fuck off, Marshall." said Michelle.

Marshall Leonard, it had to be said, was a good-looking cat. Proud leonine features, bright green eyes and the hints of a mane coming in a few summers before its time, he stood head and shoulders above them, the tallest guy in their class. He looked regal, even if the smile on his face was that of a mean little puke with too much time on his paws- a description which applied to his buddies, too. They flanked him, a pronghorn in a shredded blue jeans and a faded denim jacket with a number of local bands represented in pins and patches, and a lanky pine martin in black everything.

Marshall turned to look at them, a wounded look on his face.

"Aw jeeze," he said, unable to hold back a little purr. "I guess we gotta fuck off, guys. Maneater Michelle says we can't play out in the field after dark."

"Oh noooo..." said the pronghorn. "I forgot she was Queen Bitch over all of nature."

"We can use the park whenever we want." Said the marten. "It's a free country, you stripey fascist." He rolled his eyes at Michelle and pulled a cigarette from his pocket, sticking it between his teeth, unlit. "Besides, it's not like we're gonna eat anybody out there."

"Not like you guys, anyway." said the lion, arms folded over his chest, scrutinizing. "What, was Fish-fil-a closed? Did you get hungry?" Those glowing green eyes turned themselves on JD, and lingered. "Or was this kid hoping to score some venison? Tyler, how do you feel about that?"

The pronghorn, Tyler, tsk-tsked in mock disappointment. "Not so good, not so good. Is that you under all that blood Jeremy? Did you finally fucking snap like everybody said you would? What a disappointment. I can't believe your mom has to deal with another predation suit, now."

"Shut up." Said JD, and the words came out through his clenched fangs. Too much had happened today.

"Or what? You gonna eat me too?" Tyler said.

"He'd better not." said Marshall, stepping up to them, fangs glinting in his shadowed smile. "Imagine what his mom would do to him. Have I ever told you two what hyena moms do to their kids?"

The pronghorn and the marten, grinning, shook their heads. "Shut up." Said JD again, this time letting a little growl seep into his voice. He strode out in front of Michelle and attempted to step around the lion, but Marshal smoothly intervened.

"They don't just cuff 'em." He said. "No spankings, no time outs, nothing like that."

JD could feel his hackles lifting, his eyes lifted, and he could feel something pop, either in his jaw or in his fist.

"No, when a hyena cub is bad? The mom takes out her big fuckin' dick..." The lion put his paw on JD's shoulder, shoved him back a pace, and then made a thrusting motion with the hips. "And they FUCK the shit out of the little tyke 'till they behave! Ain't that right, Jeremy? Ain't that why you're like that?"

It was all too much. Too much, too much- the next sensation JD felt was the impact of his fist against the lion's muzzle. Marshall reeled back, yowling in surprise as the hyena came at him, swinging away with artless fury. One hook landed in the lion's ribs, cushioned by his hoodie and his pelt, but the other, the big cat caught. There was a brutal sound of impact and a harsh wheeze. JD felt all the breath leaving his body as he stumbled back, doubled over, suddenly feeling too tired to be angry, or even frightened. He tried to uncurl, growling as the lion advanced on him. Marshall's thin black lip was bleeding, and his gaze was narrowed in rage.

"Oh, you spotted little bitch," He said, the beginnings of a roar behind his words. "I oughta pull your tail out by the root."

JD saw the tackle coming a moment too late, and soon they were both rolling on the ground, the big cat punching, the hyena trying to get his breath back. He covered his face with his arms, knocked around as impact after impact rained down. Soon he was unable to tell which were stopped by his arms and which were getting through. Then, a shock ran up his snout and a glorious burst of orange and purple light filled his vision- hot fresh blood, his own blood, ran down his muzzle, over his chin and neck. Marshall yanked him up by the collar, and the sky around them spun, red and clouded and threatening to plunge itself into Night.

"When I'm done with you," the lion snarled in his face, all fangs and heavy breath, "you won't have a single tooth in your fucking head. When I'm done with you, your mom won't have to tell you not to bite when she -fucks-, -your-, mouth-- AGH!"

The lion's fist came down to punctuate the last three words, but the third blow never quite landed. There was a rush of hot blood in JD's mouth, nostalgic and sweet as summertime as he rolled and shoved and caught his breath. They broke apart, and the hyena scrambled to his feet, panting and heaving while Marshall rolled, clutching his paw to his chest. His eyes were suddenly bright with tears. JD stood and looked down, rage over-boiling, face smeared with blood and the smell of it making him giddy. He stood tall above the lion, the black mask of his face peeled back, wetness dripping from his teeth, eyes lambent in the blood-red light of the failing sun.

When he spoke, his tone was flat and smooth.

"I'll kill your whole fucking family." He said. "I'll eat your whole fucking family."

His tongue pushed two of the lion's fingers between his teeth, and he spit them into Marshall's face.

Neither Tyler nor the marten stopped him as he left with Steve and Michelle. The three of them went silently into the city, parted, and went to their homes in the light of the silver moon. Neither the deer nor the tiger could quite meet his gaze.

JD didn't see them all summer. By some miracle, the police never came by, and Marshall's parents never called. When they all went to Sunmount high, the lion took two years to get back onto the football team, learning to throw with his left paw. No one said a word about it to his face, but there wasn't one kid, not one teacher whose gaze didn't linger on him a little too long, gazing at his mouth. No one gave him a reason to bite again, which was good. But no one was talking, either. Steve moved away in Sophomore year. Michelle joined a big group of friends, and got a boyfriend, and went to prom. She was visiting her dad in the hospital when he graduated.

It wouldn't be until his freshman year of college that Jeremy al-Rashid would make another friend. It took some time, but he learned to relax in a new space, where no one knew his name. Where no one knew he was a biter.

He almost made it to Halloween in his sophomore year before it happened again.