The blue moon hung unnaturally large in the night sky, its azure glow filtering through the grimy attic window where Fidira sat huddled on her thin mattress. Tonight was the night everyone in town feared Selection Night. Every seven years when the rare blue moon appeared, the werewolves who ruled their territory would come to claim a girl from among them. No one knew what happened to those who were taken. No one ever returned to tell.
Fidira traced patterns in the dust on the floorboards, her mismatched eyes one blood red, one emerald green-reflecting the eerie moonlight. Her white hair, so unlike anyone else's in town, fell around her shoulders like a silver curtain. She was seventeen now, technically eligible for selection, though she never imagined they would choose her. Who would want the town freak? The girl whose very birth had killed her mother? The unwanted daughter whose father couldn't bear to look at her?
From downstairs hearing the voice of her stepmother Melissa and stepbrother Maxwell arguing in hushed, urgent tones. Something about their whispers made Fidira's skin prickle with unease. She went closer to the door trying to hear what they were saying
"...perfect opportunity," Maxwell said. "Father will agree. He's never wanted her anyway."
"But what if they reject her?" Melissa hissed back. "What if they take you instead?"
A chill ran through Fidira's body. They couldn't possibly mean
The heavy tread of her father's boots interrupted her thoughts. Madison's voice, rough from years of hard living and harder drinking, silenced the others.
"It's decided," he said flatly. "The girl goes, Not my son."
Fidira at the door, her heart hammering against her ribs. They were going to offer her to the werewolves. Her own family was sacrificing her without thinking twice
Strangely as the reality sank in, Fidira felt an odd sense of calm replacing her initial panic, Perhaps she thought as she gazed once more at the hypnotic blue moon, whatever awaited her beyond the town's borders couldn't possibly be worse than the life she'd endured here.