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Just dinner.

With my ex. And his fiancée.

And my dead parents’ best friends.

Nothing to stress over.

Dinner was as horrible as one might expect. The food itself was sublime, as it always was. Succulent lamb, buttery potatoes, homemade bread—the latter of the two Angela didn’t touch. I happily had her helping. And Gerald was prompt at keeping my glass full, which was much needed.

Angela spoke a lot. Mostly about herself. Then about her and Colton’s plans for the future which sounded a lot like her plans. Kids. Houses. All things that made me feel ill. And Colton didn’t look super enthused either. Though that could’ve been due to my presence, marring what would otherwise have been a nice family dinner.

As much as I disliked Angela as a person, I greatly appreciated her narcissism because it meant there was no room for people to ask me questions. I could feel them, thrumming underneath the surface, radiating from both Sharon and Gerald but mostly from Colton. As if he had the right to know anything about me anymore.

Dinner was cleared away, by Sharon and Angela. I should’ve offered to help, as manners dictated, but I didn’t want my manners to enforce some stupid misogynistic ritual of men not helping women.

Therefore, I declared I was going for a smoke, to no one in particular, then made my escape.

The air finally felt crisp, unwelcome, like the cold had come to steal away all the life and warmth.

Hopefully, I’d be long gone from here before winter fully arrived.

Tomorrow, I decided. Tomorrow I was going to ramp up this hunt, go back to the morgue, digging up graves if need be. Anything to get me the fuck out of here.

Though the nagging question remained: What happened if I did find the werewolf, the thing I’d been hunting for over a decade? Was I done, then? Could I hang up my blades and my nomadic existence for a home and a job of some kind?

Yuck.

No.

I’d gotten into this with the intention of killing one monster then getting out. That was over thirteen years and countless scars ago. There was no getting out now. I couldn’t just return to civilian life knowing what was out there.

I was no longer wired for a normal life. For better or for worse, hunting was my career. And it would eventually be the death of me. It was a more comforting thought than ending up married with kids.

“You should leave.”

I turned, not completely surprised to see Angela standing at the edge of the deck, scowling at me. Or trying to. Her overzealous cosmetologist had overdone it on the Botox, so her face didn’t move much.

“You are articulating my very thoughts.” I inhaled, looking back out into the woods. I’d forgotten just how much land the Hughes’ house sat on. They owned acres of woodland. Untouched, apart from an old treehouse Gerald built in a weekend. One where Colton and I would play when we were kids, then smoke, drink, and fool around as we got older.

I idly wondered if they had any idea what hunted in those woods. They’d both been on numerous crime scenes over the years, seen the results of many werewolf attacks. They were locals, they hunted deer, they knew what an animal attack looked like.

I took a long drag. Maybe I needed to look closer at the people I didn’t want to reconnect with. Even though the thought that they could somehow be involved was laughable. It was more likely they were being willfully blind. They believed they were animal attacks because what else could they be?

“You don’t belong here anymore.” The nasally voice knocked me from my musings.

I sighed, turning to fully face Angela, since I figured this was going to be a whole thing. “Again, took the words right out of my mouth.” I blew smoke in her direction.

She waved her hand, coughing dramatically.

I rolled my eyes.

“Gerald, Sharon, and Colton may be buying your innocent act, but I know better.” She fidgeted with one of the ridiculously large diamonds in her ears.

I laughed, really laughed at that. “My innocent act? Honey, you might’ve had a few too many cocktails. It’s okay, Gerald has a heavy pour. You’ve got to build up a tolerance.”

“I’m serious.” She sauntered closer to me, her hands fisted at her sides. “I will not let you try to lure Colton from me, now that you’ve had a taste of what the real world does to women like you and want an easy life.”

Another bark of laughter burst from me, this one with a slightly hysterical edge. I threw my smoke to my feet, stomping it into the grass—I probably should’ve picked it up, but fuck it.