The headaches are getting worse. At night she dreams of old seas, older than time, out of time. She dreams of teeth, and waves.

.

She’s always had a few stretch marks at her thighs, under her arms. They’re old and faint, spiderweb white from a time when she was growing too quickly for her body to keep up. She likes them—they’re the only scars she bears from something other than violence.

But they’re old, familiar, so it takes her a while to notice how much they’ve widened, deepened, her skin sliced to her knees, up her shoulders. The color is wrong too—the mottled yellow of a bruise, of things broken, and infected. She keeps an eye on them after that, watches as they darken to purple and then black, like ink and sin.

She thinks of saying something to Nick, but doesn’t know what she’d say.

They crack open during a hunt, oozing thick, tarry blood that stains all the way to her jacket. She doesn’t notice until afterwards, when she races through a shower (she drew the short straw, no hot water for the last in line) and then finds herself staring at open wounds.

It looks like something was trying to claw her way out from under her skin.