Beatrice and Victoria—her own pack—had refused to help her find her mother. The thought filled Claire’s mouth with the bitter taste of bile. She stashed her bike behind some bushes a few blocks from the nearest bus stop and waited, struggling not to cry. When the bus finally arrived, Claire got in and sat on the edge of one of the hard plastic seats, watching the stops tick by, getting more furious by the block. By the time she reached Zahlia’s, she was glowing with rage.
Rusted wires hung out of the buzzer outside Zahlia’s apartment building. Claire tugged on the greasy handle of the lobby door. It swung open easily. Inside, the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead. She shivered. Beatrice and Victoria’s house hadn’t exactly been glamorous, but this was one step above condemned. She’d had no idea Zahlia lived somewhere like this.
Claire took the rickety stairs three at a time until she arrived at the fifth floor. She knocked on the door of Apartment 503 and waited. Down the hall, two people shouted at each other in a language Claire didn’t understand. When she heard the sound of glass breaking, she knocked again. The current of danger, the coppery smells of fear and malice and desperation—it was too much to bear with her heightened senses. The next full moon was just over two weeks away, and with each night that passed, Claire could feel her transformation becoming more complete. Everything around her pressed in harder, filling her brain with so much information that it made her head ache.
Where was Zahlia? The hair on the back of Claire’s neck stood up. What if something had happened to her, too? She reached out and tried to open the door. Locked. But there was no deadbolt—it was only the flimsy push button lock keeping her out. Claire hesitated for only a second before she kicked hard at the door. It swung open with a satisfying pop, and Claire said a silent prayer of thanks.
The contrast from the dark, urine-scented hall made Claire do a double take. Inside, the apartment was immaculate. There was almost no furniture: one stiff-looking loveseat, a glass coffee table, and a small television. The walls were bare, and the only thing on the kitchen counter was an expensive-looking coffeepot. It looked unnatural, somehow. Like someone had put together the things they assumed people had in their houses, but with the details all wrong.
“Hello?” Claire called softly. “Zahlia? Is anyone here?”
There was no answer. Claire walked a little farther into the apartment. A small hallway opened off the kitchen/living room combo. Two doors stood open, the rooms behind them dark, but at the end of the hall was one closed door. A strip of light shined out from underneath it. Claire’s heart stammered in her chest and she instinctively moved down into a half crouch. She slunk down the hall.
The first door she passed was a tiny bathroom. The shower curtain hung perfectly straight, towels neatly folded over the bar. In the next room were a small desk and a wooden chair. The only nongeneric stuff she’d seen in the entire apartment was in this room, but it was a strange mishmash of things. A wilted sunflower had been pinned to one wall, and a little garden gnome sat on the desk, his paint flaking and peeling like he’d been outside for years.
On the floor was a man’s briefcase with the initials DRM monogrammed on the edge. Three round stones sat on top of it in a neat row.
Claire walked down the hall and stood in front of the last door, working up the courage to open it. Please let her be sleeping in there.
“Zahlia?” she whispered, cracking open the door. When no answer came, Claire pushed it open all the way. The overhead light shined down on a small bed with a faded quilt pulled up tight over the pillow. There was no headboard—in its place hung an enormous photograph. It was grainy from being blown up too big. The woman in the picture looked shockingly like Zahlia, except that her hair was gray and her cheeks were rounder.
Her mother. The thought popped into Claire’s head automatically. Before she could process it, her nose twitched.
In the middle of the bed, a small white dog lay curled up, its eyes closed tight.
The dog was dead. Claire could smell it.
Without a backward glance, Claire bolted out of the apartment and tore down the stairs. Whatever was going on with Zahlia, it wasn’t good. Outside the building, she leaned against the grimy bricks and gulped deep breaths of the garbage-scented air, trying to calm herself. Across the street, a couple of guys dressed in dark clothes, their hats pulled low over their faces, watched her.
When the bus pulled up to the corner, Claire dumped in her change with even shakier hands than the strung out woman who climbed on behind her. When the bus made it back to the stop closest to Claire’s house, she practically crawled off. It was nearly one a.m. and she was exhausted.