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Just like when you were dealing with a basilisk, it was better not to look. Looking would get you killed.

I walked toward the kitchen, giving the dining room a quick glance. It was the same. Long, wooden table, cluttered with chairs that had been filled during the many dinner parties my mother hosted. A chandelier hanging over the table, candlesticks in the middle. The sideboard containing various glasses and tableware remained, as did the bar. It was stocked with bottles of liquor that had been half water when I’d lived here, sneaking booze from them whenever I could. Colton and I used to snicker when our parents would have dinners together, drinking cocktails made with nothing but gin-flavored water. My parents died before they found out. Maybe it was good that they weren’t here to see their daughter as a bitter, alcoholic cynic who couldn’t hold down a job that didn’t involve violence and death.

The kitchen had changed. It was still open, full of light, the windows facing the backyard letting in the afternoon sun, showcasing the large garden and the woods our house backed up against.

The woods the werewolf had skulked out of and made its escape into while I stood in my living room screaming. I stared at the trees for a long time, as if the wolf was lurking in there, waiting. I needed to scour the area at some point, though I doubted I would come up with any clues. It had been too long.

I returned my attention to the kitchen.

The appliances we’d had were dated even when I lived here. We were never poor, but the mortgage for this place was hefty. Plus, I always demanded new clothes, desperate to keep up with the latest trends. With my father’s modest salary, things were tight. If something in our house worked, it wasn’t replaced. I could only assume that the old appliances had kicked the bucket at some point over the past decade and a half. Someone had replaced them with sleek stainless-steel ones. Fancy shit. Who picked up the tab for that, I wondered. Gerald could afford it, I supposed.

Though he was on a small-town cop’s salary, he didn’t need that paycheck. He and his wife, Sharon, both came from money. Old money. Old money in this country was blood money. However, I didn’t have a moral high ground since all the money in my pocket had been stolen.

I doubted even old-money, rich people like the Hughes would’ve paid to outfit a kitchen for their long-dead friends. So where did the money come from? I hadn’t stayed for a reading of the will, so maybe my parents’ estate had been healthier than I thought.

I ran my hands along the butcher block of the kitchen island, fingers traveling through the scores and grooves that had once been so familiar. As had the small nook to the left of the kitchen, housing a circular table with four chairs around it. That was where we ate mostly, if we weren’t having a dinner party. The three of us. Sometimes four, when Colton stayed for dinner.

Dad would sit there with a glass of wine, watching my mom cook with a rapt expression of love that used to gross me out. Now the more cynical and worldly version of myself understood how rare it was to have parents still utterly besotted with each other.

In fact, it was too rare. Maybe my mom had been some kind of witch and had put a spell on him. That was more believable to me than a love that lasted through parenthood, money troubles, and life changes.

But no.

A witch would’ve stood a better chance against a werewolf. Depending on her power, a witch could be evenly matched with even a fully grown werewolf, especially on the full moon. It wasn’t just creatures of the night who gained their power from the full moon. Many supernatural entities drew strength from it.

Even I was respectful enough of it, though now it was fucking trendy to align yourself with the moon, charge crystals, or whatever the new age, wannabe Wiccan were doing.

Gotta love capitalism. It wasn’t too long ago they were burning women at the stake for being witches. Now they were draining them of their cash to profit off their need to be magical. Special.

No. My mother had not been a witch. She’d been a housewife. A content one at that. One who baked cookies, was on the PTA, and always had a spotless house.

Even in death, it seemed.

I opened the fridge, expecting it to be empty, but there was yet another sign that someone had been here, in preparation for my arrival. I was impressed with Mrs. Hughes—it had to be her, having worked so quickly.

It was stocked to the gills, full of fruit, glass containers of food, drinks, and vegetables. Fancy packaged shit that looked far too healthy for me. There was booze, thankfully. But it was wine. Pink wine, to be exact. I gagged. I’d drink gasoline over that.

I added picking up some packaged food and whiskey next time I was out to my mental list.

Closing the fridge, I quickly inventoried the first floor, skirting past the laundry room and my father’s home office. Just a quick glimpse of the big oak desk and the leather chair in the corner speared me in a place I thought had healed. Every step ripped at the scabbed-over wounds inside of me. I felt as if I were dripping blood all over the floor.

Forcing my feelings back into their cage, I headed for the stairs. They creaked as I ascended them, a detail that I liked for the mere fact that it was cliché and perfect in any horror movie. Murder house: old, rambling, creaky stairs. If only the rest of the place were a little creepier, instead of … familiar, warm, loving. Though that love had long rotted. Now it was something ugly and decaying, assaulting my senses.

The bathrooms looked like they had updates similar to the kitchen. The old claw-foot tub still remained, but the shower beside it had fresh tiles, the vanity was crisp and white, the towels arranged neatly on a rack were expensive, fluffy. I tore them off, hurling them onto the shiny tiled floor, just because I could.

The door to my parents’ room was closed. Vibrating with unease, my hand lingered over the brass doorknob. I should’ve been strong enough to face their bedroom. I’d stood in the room where they’d died without so much as a sniffle.

It had been thirteen fucking years. Not to mention I’d been in much scarier situations than this. I’d almost died more times than I could count, seen gnarly shit that would give even the most hardened of cops nightmares. I was a badass bitch. I could walk into the room with the large, cozy bed where I’d cuddled with my mom and watched soap operas while I was sick. I could walk into the closet that smelled of her, risk seeing her clothes still hanging there.

Yes, I should’ve been able to handle that.

But the door to my parents’ bedroom stayed closed.

I turned toward my old room, which was down the hall. That door open. I wondered if it was by design, if whoever had prepared this house for me was protecting me from the horror of my parents’ memory yet inviting me into the room I grew up in.

That thought made my fingertips numb. I was not used to people taking care of me. I would rather people try to kill me. That I could deal with. Kindness? It made my skin crawl. I didn’t have the wiring for it. Not anymore.

How exactly I was going to combat it was not yet clear. Violence was my kneejerk reaction, as it was with most things. But even I didn’t have the cajónes to get physical with Mrs. Hughes. Worse, I didn’t have the heart. Try as I might, I couldn’t forget the nights she held me when I awoke from nightmares after my parents’ deaths, her unyielding and gentle presence.