The soccer field looked different at night, quieter and softer, like someone had draped the whole place in velvet. The sky stretched wide and clear overhead, sprinkled with a spill of stars that seemed almost too sharp for a school night. The October air had a crisp bite in the night, cool enough to sting Adam's nose each time he breathed in, carrying with it the faint smell of wet grass and the distant hum of the campus generators.
He sat on the metal bleachers beside Luna, their shoulders not touching but close enough that he could feel her small field of warmth cutting through the chilly night. Most of the dorm windows were dark, the campus officially asleep, and the quiet felt heavier than usual.
Adam had just finished recounting everything that happened in practice. The dunk. Malik bleeding. The crushed bottle. The anger that had flared and burned too easily. He talked in a low voice, partly because he did not want to wake anyone, partly because saying it too loud made it feel more real. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of his hoodie sleeve, rolling it, unrolling it, rolling it again. A habit he never noticed until his nerves pushed it out of him.
Luna had listened without interrupting him, legs pulled to her chest, her feet tapping the metal lightly. Her expression was unreadable, which for her usually meant she was thinking a lot more than she wanted him to know. When he finished, the silence lingered for a beat, cold and still, like the night itself was waiting for her to speak.
She finally sighed, long and annoyed, and side-eyed him. "It's the wolf mind," she muttered, voice flat like she was tired of stating things that should have been obvious to him.
Adam blinked. "The wolf mind?"
"Yeah. Your predatory side. The part of you that feels instinct before logic, hunger before manners. It's the part of you that cares about territory, dominance, aggression, all that primal stuff." She tapped her fingers against her knee as she spoke.
"It's not separate from you. It is you, just... pulled from the deepest part of your brain where all the animal instincts live."
He frowned slightly, letting her words settle. The night breeze brushed across the field, sweeping the grass in a slow ripple. "So all of that today was… that?"
"Pretty much." Luna shrugged. "Every werewolf feels it before their first transformation. You eat more, which feeds your strength, but it also feeds the wolf. The more your body prepares, the louder those instincts get." She eyed him, squinting as if he was particularly dense today. "It's normal though."
Normal.
The word felt wrong. Nothing about what happened felt normal. He swallowed, throat tight.
Luna continued, "Look, the wolf mind does not care about sportsmanship. Or school. Or your ego. It only cares about survival. Territory. Pack." She pointed a finger at him. "You are getting stronger because you need to survive the first transformation. But the wolf mind is growing with you."
Adam leaned back against the bleacher seat, exhaling slowly. The cold metal pressed through his hoodie. "I hurt Malik."
Luna did not respond immediately. She looked at the field instead, eyes gleaming faintly in the starlight, jaw clenching like she was choosing her words carefully.
Adam filled the silence, voice smaller. "If coach and the team were not there to stop me… I don't know what I would have done." He rubbed a hand over his face, the memory flashing sharp behind his eyelids. Malik's bleeding nose. The anger that felt too easy. Too natural. "And earlier this week, I almost hit Bryce. Just because he touched my stuff. It was stupid."
Luna sighed almost dismissively. "Yeah, bet you would've broken his jaw or something."
That did not help.
He dropped his hands into his lap, fingers curling. "I do not want to be that guy. I do not want to hurt people. Especially not people I care about."
Luna scoffed. "Then learn control."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
Her tone was blunt, almost cruel, but she was still now, no longer fidgeting, which meant she was not as detached as she pretended. Adam stared down at the field, grass shining faintly under the moonlight. He felt small. Helpless. Like he was fighting something inside him with nothing but willpower.
A thought hit him suddenly. Desperate. Irrational. Exactly the kind of idea you get when panic outweighs logic.
"What if I stop eating meat?" he said.
Luna's head whipped toward him so fast he heard her hair swish. "What."
"If eating fuels the wolf mind, then stopping would weaken it, right? If I don't feed it, it can't get stronger. If it doesn't get stronger, it can't take over. Then I can't hurt anyone."
He said it quietly, but his voice trembled with the weight of the thought. The stars blurred slightly above him as his eyes strained, mind racing. "If starving it keeps people safe, then I can do that. I don't care if I get weaker. I don't care if I feel awful. I just don't wanna lose control."
Luna stared at him as if he had grown a second head. Then a third. Her expression moved from disbelief to irritation to something almost like concern, but masked under layers of sarcasm.
"That is the dumbest idea you have ever had." She shook her head aggressively. "If you don't have enough strength for the first transformation, you'll die. Not metaphorically. Literally die. Your body will rip itself apart trying to shift without the fuel to handle it." She leaned closer. "Do you get that, genius."
Adam met her glare, but he did not back down. "If that is the price of making sure no one gets hurt, then fine."
For a moment her mouth opened like she wanted to shout at him. Instead she stared, eyes narrowed, cheeks tinged pink in the glow of the stadium lights. She shifted once. Twice. A tiny jerk that betrayed something she would rather die than admit.
He had struck something in her, even if she would never say it.
Her voice dropped lower, less sharp. "You're an idiot. A sentimental, selfish, self sacrificing idiot."
"Is that a yes or no," he asked quietly.
Luna groaned and dug her hands lightly into her scalp as if massaging away a headache. "Eat the meat. But only the bare minimum, fine. Enough to survive the shift. Not enough to boost the wolf too much." She jabbed him in the forehead with one finger. "But if your first transformation takes longer because of this, you will wish you had died."
He shrugged lightly. "Worth it."
She glared at him harder. "You deserve to die."
He smiled weakly. "Probably."
Her face heated again. Real heat this time. She punched him in the shoulder, harder than necessary. The sound echoed faintly across the empty field. Pain shot through his arm and he winced, rubbing the sore spot.
"What was that for?"
"For being you." She stood up abruptly, turning away so fast her hair swung. "I am going to bed. Don't talk to me."
She hopped down the bleachers, her bare feet thudding softly. Adam watched her storm off, confusion tangled with amusement. She looked furious. But her steps were too quick, too flustered, the kind of walk someone used when they were definitely not running away but absolutely were.
He rubbed his shoulder again. "Ow," he muttered under his breath.
The field stretched quiet before him, the night deep and calm around the edges. He stood, pockets cold against his hands as he shoved them in. His mind swirled with worry and hope and fear, mixing into something heavy but not unbearable.
Tomorrow would come. With or without control. With or without clarity.
But for now, he just needed sleep.
Adam headed across the field toward the dorms, the soft crunch of grass under his shoes sounding louder in the empty campus. His shoulder still throbbed, but the corners of his mouth twitched upward anyway.
The night felt a little less heavy.
And for the first time since the gym, he breathed without feeling the wolf inside him breathe back.