My lips parted to speak, but I was instantly cut off by a searing pain running up and down my abdomen. Suddenly my joints locked up and my body folded backward and snapped at the waist. My flesh was on fire and my heart pumped so fast that my vision went blurry. Oh, God…this pain…I knew this pain. I was shifting.
But it wasn’t a full moon.
Molly did this. Somehow, she did this.
I wiggled like a worm on a fishing hook, trying to stand up straight and doing my best to fight against the changes my body was unnaturally going through. I was screaming, spitting, falling to my knees and crying. My body was like a duffle bag being unzipped in one swift jerking motion, with my skin being torn down the center and oozing with blood. Every turn was unbearable, but this felt different. I had no time to prepare, to ease into it. I felt like I was being torn apart.
As I rolled around in the snow shedding my human form, I saw Molly, Tiffany, and Veronica standing over me and watching. Then, Molly smiled.
Chapter Eleven
PRISCILLA
It may have been freezing cold outside, but I still left the door half open as I stood next to it. Max told me not to sit outside by myself, which I begrudgingly agreed to only because I didn’t want to get axed by a serial killer. But chilling in the store with a gushing dead body wasn’t really my jam either.
I felt like blowing chunks again, yet Max and Daggett were content standing over the body inspecting it like some knock-off version of Holmes and Watson. I don’t know what the fuck they thought they were accomplishing. None of us were CSI or even cops. Hell, we were probably making it worse by getting so close to the dead guy. TV tells you that you should never touch or contaminate a crime scene.
“Are we gonna get the hell out of here or what?” I complained.
Max only briefly looked over his shoulder at me and then returned to talking to Daggett. Wonderful.
I continued bitching them out, but all they did was ignore me. That is until a very loud, wailing animal sound screamed from somewhere down the road. If I didn’t have the door open I probably wouldn’t have heard it. Both Daggett and Max stopped everything they were doing and rose to their feet. They must have been using their little werewolf ears to listen more carefully because they both had dumb, scrunched up expressions on their faces.
It took me a second before my brain registered that this probably wasn’t just some horny dog screaming in someone’s backyard. This was a long, deep-throated howl.
Fuck, fuck, fuck…it was a fucking werewolf, wasn’t it?
Max stared passed me and into the darkness of the gas station parking lot. “Get inside and hide,” he instructed.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near that dead body, but I figured if my ass stayed out in the open like this, I was probably about to be a dead body too. I shut the entire fuck up and jumped into the gas station, locking it behind me. Max almost chuckled. “Locking that door isn’t gonna do you any good,” he told me.
“It makes me feel better, all right?” I barked.
“Max, Jesus, what about Dana?” Daggett said. He actually sounded worried. Wasn’t she a werewolf too? How much danger could she really be in?
“We’ll get her, don’t worry,” Max assured. “You guys stay here and hide out while I take care of this.”
“Wait, you’re leaving? Again?” I furiously asked. “Us constantly splitting up is what got us into this position.” I could practically hear Daggett’s hard-on growing, because I was talking just like him now.
Max groaned. “We don’t know how many wolves could be out there, and if she runs into a pack, she’s dead. It’s not smart for you to be out there with me, so stay here where it’s safe.”
“Safe?” I had to laugh. “There’s a dude decomposing in the bathroom as we speak. Nothing about this screams safe, all right?”
“Whoever killed that guy hit this place already. They’re not going to come back, which actually makes this place more secure than anywhere else. Just sit tight and I’ll be back before you know it.”
He didn’t give us any time to argue before he jetted out of the store, running so fast he practically vanished into the cold darkness.
Daggett hit the lights, putting us in darkness. He walked up beside me and softly said, “It’s just us again.” He didn’t sound scared, he sounded like he was popping wood.
I moaned and sighed. “Can the werewolf just kill me now?”
“Oh, come on. You and I were getting along just fine.”
“You do realize the last guy to drool all over me the way you are right now ended up having his decapitated head flung in my direction, right?”
Daggett shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”
“Gross.”
He started laughing and lightly shoved my shoulder. “Come on, lighten up.”
“Lighten up? We’re both probably gonna die tonight. You are aware of this, right?”
“You survived Rookridge, I survived Lunar City. I think that makes our odds of surviving this pretty high.”
“Did you actually play a hand in making it through the night, though? Or did you just get lucky because Max and Cora were there?” I hated to admit it, but that’s
