Page 26

“Cliché story,” I said through a bite of my sandwich. “Angry teenage girl, trying to free herself from the shackles of a small-town identity.” Truth peppered with lies always worked well.

“Did it work?” Shay studied me over her glasses. “Did you free yourself from the shackles of who you really are?”

My skin heated at the question, it was probing, unadorned by the usual softness of Shay’s tone.

I forced a laugh. “Can we ever? I try with tattoos and boxed dye, though.” I put down my sandwich, mindful of my goal. “Now tell me about how you got here and all the juicy gossip about who we went to school with.”

My words sounded foreign, maybe a little forced to my ears. I did actually want to know what had become of the people I went to high school with. Morbid curiosity. I definitely wanted to know why Shay didn’t go and do the great things I suspected she was capable of. My main goal was to create a false friendship I could use to my advantage.

And hers too, I told myself. I’d be saving her the potential of getting ripped apart by a hungry werewolf.

Shay smiled shyly. “I mean, I don’t keep up with them that much, but I’ve got some tea.”

As she proceeded to spill the tea, I made necessary commentary, asking the appropriate questions to keep her going. I was actually enjoying hearing her stories, the dark humor and annotations she added. It was clear that she lived outside of the ecosystem of the town and its social rituals. It was also evident that she watched a lot, took note of everything. She could be a powerful source of information, I figured. And I was enjoying her company until her phone rang.

She glanced down at it. “I’ve got to take this.” She crumpled up her empty sandwich wrapper. “It’s the chief. It may take a while. I have to give him what I found on the two bodies from the woods.”

“Bodies?” I stood up. “That’s horrible.”

She nodded absently, putting the phone up to her ear then hesitating. “This was actually … nice, Hadley. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I gathered our trash. “Next time we’ll add booze so we can get into the juicy stuff.”

“Yeah, okay.” She was obviously distracted, almost stressed at the prospect of the phone call. The way her whole demeanor changed, stiffened, another interesting tidbit to file away. “Chief Hughes, I’m sorry, I was at lunch.”

A pause. A nervous laugh from Shay. “No, I’m done. I can talk you through what I’ve found so far.”

I waved to her, deciding not to make myself heard by either the elder or the younger Hughes—I wasn’t sure who was top dog yet—since that would open a whole barrel of worms.

I closed the door behind me, in order to give Shay privacy and me what I needed to walk confidently across the double doors to the morgue.

One of my riskier moves, since I couldn’t know how long the phone call would last. Given how long it had been since Colton got the call, I doubted Shay’d had enough time for a full autopsy.

But I wouldn’t get a chance better than this, so I slipped into the morgue.

It wasn’t in the same kind of disrepair as the outside or reception area of the building. There was faded paint, worn out floors, but the equipment itself was gleaming. Bright overhead lights highlighting the two steel exam tables and trays with neatly arranged tools, scalpels, and bone saws. There was a small desk with folders all neatly stacked, the pens laid beside them perfectly angled. The cold storage drawers were spotless. The room reeked of chemicals and the coppery scent of blood. It was cooler in here too, enough to make my skin rise with goose bumps at the quick transition from Shay’s overly warm office.

Then there was the energy. I was no witch, but I understood that death made a place feel different. Heavier. And I was also aware of rudimentary laws and rules witches lived by. Some I scoffed at, others I took more stock in. Liminal spaces—where the dead mingled with the living—were ripe with power. Some more harmless than others.

It all depended on who and what was lurking around, ready to harness that power.

I shook off the heaviness sinking into my pores as I moved to the exam tables. I didn’t have much time.

The sheets covering the bodies were only up to their necks. Shay must have only done a preliminary exam, since it wasn’t customary to leave them like this. Which meant I had a very short window.

Interestingly, their faces seemed to have been spared many injuries. I noted just small scratches and bruises, which likely would’ve been from trying to escape rather than the attack itself.

Their eyes were open. That didn’t scare me. Dead bodies had long stopped scaring me. Well, as long as they were truly dead. Having a pale, unseeing corpse grab you by the throat is an experience that would make anyone on guard around the dead.

But these were not victims of a strzyga, so I doubted I had to deal with a second, bloodthirsty soul lying in wait inside the corpse of its victim, trying to end me.

They were young, the couple. Younger than me. Honeymoon, I thought I’d heard. A werewolf attack was one way to kill the honeymoon phase. At least they didn’t have to slog through the eventual decay of the marriage, one of them resenting the other enough to cheat or bankrupt them with ill-advised investment decisions. It was only simple math; 50 percent of marriages ended in divorce, and I’d wager a fuck of a lot of the remaining 50 percent were in unhappy marriages.

Though I was almost certain it was a werewolf attack, I couldn’t be sure until I pulled back the sheet on the male victim. My heartbeat spiked, and I smiled in satisfaction. Rather crude of me, but we were in business. Definitely a werewolf.

The chest cavity was a mess of torn flesh and splintered bone, claw marks scoring through layers of skin in an obvious attempt to get to the heart. Which was still present though seriously damaged.

Curious. Werewolves only needed to consume hearts on the full moon, so why it was even going for the heart with such obvious desperation was bizarre to me.