Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(10)

Katherine severely doubted that all teenagers went from being able to run a mile in about six and a half minutes to running it in about five and a half. She didn’t know anyone who could increase their speed and endurance that quickly without some serious training. She hadn’t even felt winded after she had finished that mile either.

It wasn’t just that.

In cheerleading practice, she was more flexible and graceful than she had ever been before. She was doing handstands and toe-touches as she had never been able to do them. She thought puberty was supposed to make teenagers awkward and clumsy, not whatever this was.

Katherine supposed most people would be grateful for the changes, not questioning them as she was, but her sudden aptitude in athletics was not the only thing the girl was concerned about. Her body temperature had been inexplicably warm lately – like she was running a fever without the other symptoms of illness. It seemed that no matter what she did, she couldn’t stay cool for long. This, unfortunately, had gotten her into quite a bit of trouble in the past few days.

In an effort to keep herself as cool as possible, Katherine had taken to wearing as little as possible. She never wore anything vulgar, but for someone like Katherine, who rarely wore revealing clothing, showing up at school in short shorts and tank tops was apparently enough to cause a scandal.

The resulting confrontation with Mallory was still at the forefront of her mind.

She had been sitting with Abby in the cafeteria on Thursday when the blonde and her gaggle of impersonators had approached their table.

Mallory sneered at Katherine before grabbing the edge of the tabletop and leaning toward the unimpressed brunette in an intimidating manner. “I sure hope it’s not Brad you’re trying to impress with that appalling outfit,” she bit out snidely, “because I happen to know that he doesn’t go for desperate little girls.”

The blonde spoke loud enough for her sidekicks to hear and they snickered at the comment.

“Funny how he ended up with you then,” Katherine retorted before she could think better of it. Abby, startled by the unexpected comeback, began choking on her laughter.

Mallory immediately flushed at the retort and glared at the redhead until she managed to get herself under control, looking a little sheepish as she finally did. Then the blonde trained her eyes back on Katherine. “I’d watch yourself if I were you,” she warned before stomping off.

Katherine snorted as she pulled herself out of the memory. What was is exactly that the blonde was threatening to do? Spread rumors? Pull her hair?

She had much more important things to worry about. Like her sudden improvement in athletic ability. Like her sudden spike in body temperature. Like the strange cravings she’d been having for red meat.

It was perhaps the oddest of the changes she had been going through and the sudden cravings had come completely unexpectedly. It had first hit her on Tuesday evening.

She had gotten back from cheerleading practice and was working on her biology homework – explaining the difference between mitosis and meiosis – when she smelled the steaks cooking in the kitchen. The aroma had been so enticing that she abandoned her homework halfway through a sentence and followed her nose to the kitchen where her dad was cooking up a half dozen steaks over the stovetop. Before Katherine was even aware that she intended to speak, she had opened her mouth and blurted, “Can you make mine rare?”

Looking back, she was fairly certain that she’d looked as surprised as her father had at the request. She had never asked for her meat to be anything but well done in the past. Nonetheless, the man had agreed and half an hour later she had devoured the best steak of her life. It was so tender and pink – not to mention juicy – that she had managed to polish off the entire steak in record time, finishing her meal well before her parents.

Since that night, all she had been craving was meat. She preferred red meat, but poultry was okay as well. Other foods, however, had lost their appeal to Katherine. The smell of the cabbage casserole her mother had made the other night, for example, had smelled so terrible – so rancid – that she had been sure her mother had used bad cabbage. Both her parents had assured her after trying it that it tasted perfectly fine. Still, Katherine refused to touch the stuff, opting to make herself a quick hamburger – meat still a little pink in the middle – instead. It wasn’t just cabbage either, an assortment of other foods – mostly vegetables like broccoli and asparagus, greens that she’d always enjoyed in the past – were now completely unappetizing to her.

Food wasn’t the only thing her suddenly enhanced sense of smell picked up on either.

For the first time in her life, Katherine realized that people had scents. She wasn’t referring to the funky smell that always followed around her history teacher, Mr. Jeffers, or even the flowery perfumes that Abby often saturated herself in.

No, people had scents beneath all that. Like her dad, who smelled a bit like worn leather, or her mom, whose natural fragrance more closely resembled lilacs. Not everyone had a pleasant aroma, however. Mallory’s smell, for example, was putrid – not unlike the stink of sour milk.

No one’s scent was overpowering and she often only caught whiffs of people as they walked pass – and that was only when she put her mind to doing so. It was when she spent a lot of time with people, like her parents, or even Abby who smelled a little like freshly cut grass underneath her heavy lavender perfume, that she really noticed it.