Christmas was already over, and Sofia would not deny that it had been the best of her life. That New Year's Eve, after taking Kas out, the two of them went to Sara's house where they ate their fill, sang and danced until well into the early hours of the morning. On Epiphany morning they met for breakfast and to exchange gifts. They never mentioned the kiss they had almost shared, and it was better that way.

January had already begun, and ever since the first day the teachers were making them work hard. It was understandable, since many of those students were going to take the national university entrance exam, but it was no less exhausting. In addition to doing the class exercises, Sofia and Dave had to prepare for the physical tests and study the subjects they were going to be tested on in the public examinations. They barely had time to breathe, and they were both starting to feel quite stressed.

Since they needed to use all the time they could to study, it was not unusual for them to sit together during breaks to review something. That was the case that day in mid-January. Sofia and Dave were sitting on some rocks in a sand circle surrounded by trimmed privets and the occasional tree. It was a quiet spot behind the school building, away from the cafeteria and other crowded places. It had become their usual study site, but their classmates believed that they were dating and were looking for privacy to make out. Sofia would have liked that to be the case because she was really worried about him.

“And that's how you get the result,” Sofia said as she wrote a number in the notebook resting on her friend's lap. “Dave, are you listening to me?”

“Eh? Yes... no... sorry, I'm having trouble concentrating,” he said, huffing.

“Are you all right?” Sofia rested her hand on his and noticed that it was shaking.

“Why do you ask?” Dave raised and eyebrow and looked at her sideways.

“You're restless again. After Christmas Eve you seemed to have relaxed a bit, but ever since New Year's Eve you’ve been having stereotypies again, and they're getting worse.”

“You've noticed...” The boy looked away from her and licked his lips.

“You're my best friend. It's hard not to notice,” she replied with a small smile.

Dave let out a long huff and rubbed his chest. He didn't wince but when he felt any kind of discomfort he used to do that. Whenever he was nervous, his muscle strained and it caused him pain, or at least that's what he had told her. Sofia bit her lip. She hadn't talked to him yet. She told herself she hadn't found the time, but the truth was that she was terrified of what could happen afterwards.

“I'm stressed. We have so much to study, so much work to do and I don't have time for everything. What I really want to do is to take a walk with you in the woods, go for a run or something, but I can't. I need to pass this no matter what.”

“This is not helping you either. You need to relax, unwind. You're going to be much more productive and learn faster and better than if you lock yourself at home to study.”

“I don't have a choice.” Dave ran his tongue over his lips and looked at the bushes to the side to sniff the air.

“Of course you do. Come run with me today. It's been days since we've gone for a run.”

“Thank you, but I honestly can't. I'm doing well on the physical tests, I'm not going to fail them, but I'm not so sure about the other stuff and I really need to work hard. I'm sorry...” he said, crestfallen, although it didn't escape her notice that he was avoiding her eyes.

Dave picked up the pen with a trembling hand with the intention of returning to his studies. As soon as he rested the tip on the paper, he curled in on himself and brought a hand to his chest. A moan of pain escaped from between his tight lips, but almost immediately he began to breathe in deep, controlled breaths.

“No way, Dave. We're not pushing on, not like this. You need to rest.” Sofia took his hand and noticed how much it was shaking.

“Sofia....”

“Please. Don't come to run with me if you don't want to but stop forcing yourself like this. Look at you, you can't go on like this.”

The boy looked away abruptly and clenched his fingers around the pen. Something else appeared on his face, a shadow of pain that broke Sofia's heart. A sigh of resignation escaped his lips.

“No, I can't go on like this,” he said in a plaintive voice.

On the gravel path just behind the hedge wall, they both heard the sound of approaching footsteps. At first the two teenagers did not think much of it, since it was not uncommon for some students to look for more secluded places to share a secret or to exchange exam questions away from the teachers' eyes. However, the voices that reached their ears sounded familiar and they soon realized that it was Luis, Rodrigo and Miguel.

“What do you want to show us now, Rodrigo? If it's something related to that mutt again, I'm getting the fuck out of here, I'm totally serious,” said Luis, and from the way he sounded it was obvious that it wasn’t an empty threat.

“It's better. Look at these photos I took in the forest. They are pure gold,” said Rodrigo while turning on his cell phone.

Dave and Sofia looked at each other's eyes, wondering what on earth those three conspirator apprentices could be up to now. Sofia was still holding his hand, which was still shaking. Not as much as a few minutes ago, but enough so that she could feel some twitches that were like muscle cramps.

“What is this? A dead animal?”

Sofia's heart skipped a beat and she clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from whimpering. What animal? It couldn't be the cinanthrope. It wasn't that easy to take one down. Seeing her so distressed, Dave gave her hand a gentle squeeze in an attempt to reassure her, and leaned toward her so that his lips were next to her ear. In other circumstances his closeness and feeling his warm breath against her skin would have made her shiver, but she was too worried to think about her stupid feelings.

“Calm down, I don't think it's your dog,” he whispered in a very quiet voice.

“It's a dead and eaten roe deer, and from the looks of it, the beast must have been starving for some fresh kill. I found it before New Year's Eve, one morning when I went out to see if could hunt something. He must have snagged it days before because it was so frozen that even the foxes were having trouble gnawing on its bones,” said Rodrigo.

Sofia allowed herself to breathe again and looked at Dave in time to see him smile at her with an expression that clearly said ‘I told you’. Now it was Sofia's time to start shaking and panting. It had been so long since she had seen any sign of the cinanthrope that she had taken it for granted that he had left. Perhaps it had been another weredog that happened to be in the area. The twenty-fifth fell on a full moon, so maybe some visitor needed to make use of the forest for a few hours. However, she couldn’t rule out the possibility of it being him.

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“So what? It could have died of cold and been eaten by vermin. Or maybe it was the fucking dog. As long as it doesn't go near the meadows, what do you care if it eats a roe deer?” said Luis, exasperated.

“Look at these tracks, man, and tell me if they look normal to you. I tell you that this animal is not a normal dog. Its paws are huge and it has a very strange behavior. It's as if it were a ghost that goes into hiding for weeks, and one day it appears again only to disappear again. The only animal it killed, as far as I know, was that roe deer. What kind of dog is capable of going for weeks without hunting?”

One that is able to dress in human skin and live among humans, feeding on the meat it can buy at the supermarket. However, Sofia doubted very much that this cinanthrope would be happy living that life. He was a wild animal, a born hunter who enjoyed being in the forest. If he had devoured that poor roe deer as viciously as Rodrigo said, he had probably been repressing his instincts for so long that when he let go, he was completely unleashed.

Cinanthropes couldn’t go for too long without changing. If they tried, they would eventually lose control and change anyways. They needed it because they were not human, they were dogs. The human appearance was a disguise. That's why Sofia behaved like a dog and had all her instincts intact, even if she had never changed. Her true nature was constantly trying to come out, and for a cinanthrope who had already changed that was not limited to just their behavior.

“Listen up, man, because sometimes you really do seem to be half stupid. The fact that you haven't seen more animals eaten by the dog is probably because he hunted them somewhere else, or buried them around, or because his owner feeds him. Not because it's a ghost that appears and disappears,” said Luis, visibly irritated with his friend’s obsession.

“Really? Well, look at this, you moron, let's see if you can understand what it is.” In the sudden silence, they both heard the electronic sound of the cellphone as more photos were displayed on the screen. “Do you see it? The creature's trail ends. Then there is disturbed snow here, and a few meters further down there are footprints of boots coming from the road that goes to the village.”

Boots. The cinanthrope was good at avoiding leaving tracks but hiding his trail in snow was much more difficult, more so if he was in a hurry to change. For lack of knowing the exact day, Sofia speculated that the cinanthrope probably decided to stay low profile for a while so they would stop chasing him. It was possible that, after going for weeks without changing, he could no longer stand it during the full moon of the twenty-fifth, maybe even earlier. If for her, the moon’s influence in the days before and after the full moon already felt intense, for a cinanthrope who was repressing his nature it had to be unbearable.

Sofia looked down at the trembling hand still entangled in hers and bit her lip.

“Yeah sure, man. The werewolf, right? Cut the bullshit and stop chasing that mutt, you're starting to rave. Come on, let's go to class, recess is almost over,” said Luis.

“Don't believe me if you don't want to. You'll see when I manage to catch it, you'll be on your knees begging me to forgive you.”

“Sure I will, man. Whatever you say.”

A few minutes after the three boys had left, the bell rang to signal the end of recess. Sofia and Dave picked up their notebooks and, with their backpacks over their shoulders, hurried back to class. Right before they reached the door, Dave let out a moan and held onto a tree trunk. With a trembling hand against his chest, he began to breathe in long, deep breaths. The expression on his face pretended to be one of concentration but what it really showed was pain, and it had to be very intense considering how much he was tensing his jaw.

“Dave...”

“I'm all right...” he groaned with a hoarse voice.

“Don't listen to them. They're talking nonsense and Luis doesn't want to know anything about it anymore.”

“No, but that... psychopath is still obsessed with killing that animal. What has he done to Rodrigo personally to make him hate him so much? Is it not enough for him to go to deeper parts of the forest to be away from humans? And all because of a damned lamb that he hunted unintentionally. God!” Again he put his hand to his chest and stifled a groan.

“We won't let him do it. If we have to, we'll report him to SEPRONA.” Sofia held him from the arm and felt the throbbing muscles under his clothes.

“Did you know that Miguel's father leaves the cattle loose and unattended? Did you know that the lamb was found dead in the woods because it wandered away from the meadow and got lost? The dog didn't go near the meadow. He just happened to come across easy prey just as he was hunting and his instincts did the rest.” Unable to restrain himself, he bared his noticeably large fangs and turned his head sharply as he clenched his fists. A deep growl rumbled in his throat.

“How do you know that?”

“Because my godfather knows them and he has already had several heated arguments with him on that subject. It's not the first animal he's lost in the forest. When I talked to him about the snares we found, he told me,” he answered, a little calmer, although he was still trembling. “We'd better get to class. We're already late and Rosa is going to give us a good scolding.”

“Are you okay? Can you go to class?”

“Yes, don't worry.”

After taking several deep breaths, Dave moved away from the tree and they both went into the building. At the threshold they ran into Sara, who had a worried expression on her face and was carrying a plastic bottle in her hand. Despite what the label indicated, the dark greenish liquid that looked like a herbal tea did not appear to be water.

“Here you are. Rosa asked me to come and get you, she wants to talk about the exams and you're some of her best students... well, you know Rosa has a soft spot for you, Sofi. Everything all right?” said the girl.

“Yes, we were on our way to class. We'll tell you later what we have heard,” said Sofia.

“Sure, mate. Here, buddy, take a sip of this. It's one of those herbal concoctions my sister Monica makes for stress and anxiety. It’ll help you,” she said, offering the boy the bottle.

“Tha… Thank you.”

Dave took the bottle and looked at it with some hesitation before opening it to take a good sip. As soon as he opened it, Sofia was hit by a strong smell of herbs that inspired her anything but any desire to drink that infusion. From the disgusted look on the boy's face as he swallowed, it became clear that her nose had not been wrong.

“It's not perfect and it doesn't cure stress, but it gives you relief for a few hours. The bad thing is that later the symptoms can come back stronger and worse, and if you have a crisis, I'm not going to fool you, man, you're going to have a bitch of a time until you get over it. Since I've seen you fucked up these days I asked my sister to make it in case it could help you, but man, you have to do something about it” said the girl, who seemed more worried than Sofia had ever seen her before.

“I know,” he said after letting out a sigh. “I'll think of something. Thank Monica for the concoction. I feel better already.”

Together, the three friends returned to class. After apologizing to Rosa and enduring their classmates’ gossiping, they each went to their seat. Sofia discreetly looked in Dave's direction while he, as always, drank in the teacher's words with fascination. The concoction was certainly effective, his hands had stopped shaking and his breathing had returned to normal.

Sofia bit her lip. The forest scent was almost completely gone from his skin and the same thing had happened the last time, on the very night she got sick. The next day, however, he had been much more relaxed, and not once did she see his hands tremble. He always seemed to be doing a lot better when the scent of pine trees was strong on him.

Sofia turned towards the window. A nagging suspicion had begun to well up inside her, an idea she had dismissed thanks to a message she received on her cell phone while the full moon was still high up on the sky.

‘Clever bastard!’