Jonas had the food in one hand and a torch in the other.
Daniel recognised the way he walked before he caught the smell of him clearly. Tired, shoulders forward, hurrying because whatever he wanted at the end of the path had become more urgent than the journey. Home, probably. A shower. His own bed after a day which had gone on into another.
The food swung slightly in its bag.
Daniel stood beneath the hedge.
Jonas passed the turn for the slipway and stopped to shift his grip. The torch dipped, lighting his shoes and the wet path. He tucked it under his arm while he took his phone out.
Daniel heard his own name.
“Tell your useless boyfriend he's buying me breakfast.”
He was speaking to Leah.
A pause.
“No, it went well. They're still there. Ruth's shut the kitchen before they start asking for things again.”
He laughed.
Daniel knew that laugh. He'd made Jonas do it hundreds of times. He ought to have gone back into the trees.
Instead he stepped onto the path.
The torch came up.
Light struck his eyes. He shut them, then opened them against it. Jonas had stopped speaking.
“Leah,” he said.
His voice had changed.
Daniel stood still.
It was absurdly tempting to move his head in recognition. To let Jonas see that he knew him. He tried to make a sound and what came out belonged to the body, low in the throat.
Jonas took a step backwards.
Daniel liked it.
The knowledge came plainly enough to make him retreat if he wanted to. His friend was afraid and there was pleasure in being the thing which had frightened him. The day in the kitchen, the trays he couldn't carry, Jonas's easy help. None of that had been an insult until Daniel stood here with the power to answer it.
He moved forward.
“Don't come out,” Jonas said into the phone. “There's something on the path.”
A pause, quick and sharp.
“I don't know. It's fucking enormous.”
He lowered the phone without hanging up. The torch stayed fixed on Daniel's face.
“All right,” he said. “All right.”
He was talking to an animal. Trying to make himself less interesting, perhaps, less dangerous. He held his arm out a little from his body.
Daniel could smell the food, but Jonas was stronger than the food now. Sweat at his collar. The skin of his hands. A sourness which had changed as soon as he saw Daniel.
Fear had a smell.
Daniel knew that. Silas must have known it in the bedroom. He must have stood close enough to Leah to know whether she was afraid of him.
The thought should have stopped him.
He took another step.
Jonas backed towards the workshop.
“Go away,” he said.
Not loud. He didn't want to excite it.
Daniel could let him go. Jonas would tell the others what he'd seen. By morning Daniel could explain, make a terrible joke about it, say he'd been trying to get home and hadn't known how to make himself understood.
He knew better already. He was choosing to go after him.
Jonas moved faster.
Daniel sprang.
He didn't intend to bite. He intended to arrive beside him, to send him stumbling, to see what he would do. The intention lasted until Jonas turned and the torch hit Daniel's face.
Pain flashed across his eye.
The bag struck the ground. Containers burst open, potatoes rolling white across the path.
Jonas ran.
Daniel followed.
There was no difficulty catching him. That was what Daniel had wanted to feel and now he felt it, the easy closing of distance, the man's unsteady feet, the arm thrown out as he tried to reach the side door.
Daniel hit him from the left.
Jonas fell against the wall. His arm came across Daniel's mouth.
Daniel bit.
At first there was only the pressure between his teeth. Then the taste.
Hot. Immediate.
Jonas screamed.
Daniel knew him. The scream didn't make him someone else. It was Jonas, whom he'd stood beside that morning arguing about salt, Jonas with the blue tablecloth his mother had ironed, Jonas who had carried supper because Daniel asked him to.
Daniel loosened his jaws.
Not enough.
Jonas's other hand was moving at his waist. Daniel saw the flash of something, smelled metal and the sweat of the fingers round it.
The blade went into his shoulder.
He jerked back, dragging Jonas's arm before he could let go. The man screamed again.
The second stroke caught Daniel lower, along the flank.
He released him.
Jonas fell. The utility knife was still in his hand. He was trying to get his feet under him, trying to hold the wounded arm against his body while blood came through his fingers.
Daniel stepped back.
The workshop door opened.
Leah appeared in the light, Cass close behind her.
Daniel turned his head towards them.
“Inside,” Jonas said.
His voice was almost unrecognisable.
Leah looked at Daniel.
He didn't know what she could see. His size, his mouth, the blood. Perhaps she knew at once. Perhaps she knew only that Jonas was down and something had done it to him.
Cass pulled her back by the sleeve.
Jonas moved towards the door on one knee. He couldn't get up properly. Leah reached out, caught the back of his coat and pulled. Cass came past her with a long metal bar held across her body.
Daniel backed away.
He could have been faster than Cass. He could have got past her. The knowledge disgusted him, and another part of him wanted to test it.
Jonas was nearly inside now. Leah had both hands on him. He was making small sounds between words.
“Arm. My arm.”
“I know,” she said. “We've got you.”
Daniel saw her face clearly in the workshop light.
She wasn't looking at him any more.
That hurt. He wanted her to look up, even with Jonas's ruined arm in her hands.
He moved into the dark.
Cass didn't follow. She stayed at the door until Leah had Jonas through, then shut it.
Daniel stood outside.
His shoulder was opening with every breath. Blood ran down his foreleg. The flank wound pulled when he shifted his weight. The cold water still in his fur made the pain seem to reach deeper.
Inside, Leah was speaking to someone on the phone. Her voice was quick and practical, words clearly placed.
Animal attack. The workshop. Yes, severe bleeding.
Daniel heard the address.
Cass moved something across the floor. A chair, maybe. Jonas said he was going to be sick.
He wanted to push his head against the door.
He wanted Leah to come out and understand what had happened. To tell him that he could still be himself after doing this. The desire was so familiar that he stayed there for a few seconds, half expecting her.
Then Jonas cried out again.
Daniel went away.
He didn't run. He couldn't. The knife wound in the shoulder made the front of him heavy and uncertain. His left paw was worse now because he needed it more.
He found the shelter of the hedge where he'd first watched Jonas.
From there he could see the path, the scattered potatoes, the torch lying on its side. Its beam touched the bottom of the wall. One container had landed upside down and the lid was still on.
There was food all over the ground.
He had sent Jonas here to carry it.
He tried to lie down. The flank pulled. He stood again.
Inside, doors opened and shut. Water ran. Voices rose and fell. Somebody was coming.
He could go to them.
He imagined changing on the path, lying naked among the food, Jonas seeing him where the animal had been.
He couldn't do it.
He heard a vehicle beyond the workshop yard. Then another voice, unknown to him. Cass came out through the main door and called towards it.
Daniel turned away.
The old office was near enough to reach without passing them. Silas was there. He'd promised to stay. There was a blanket, his clothes, a body waiting to take what had happened to his.
He knew what he was going to do before he moved.
It had been easy to tell himself the arrangement would make Silas understand. That a little hurt would be fair, that Silas could carry something for once.
Now Daniel could barely put his right foreleg down.
He went towards the waiting room, keeping to the side of the building, away from the light.
Behind the wall, Jonas said, “Where's Daniel?”
Leah didn't answer at once.
Daniel stopped.
“I don't know,” she said.
He kept going.