I watch the city move along, though it’s still sleepy on a Saturday at eight in the morning. A van full of kids drives by, the windows down. Noise spills out, a shrill scream from a baby cuts through the day. A couple on a bicycle speeds by, dressed in full gear. The coffee shop across the street only has a few caffeine-fueled customers at this point.

In my running gear, I wait, leaning against my car, watching for Eli.

It’s been a tradition ever since he moved so close in Greendale. Eli is ripped and in incredible physical shape. Maybe he stays so fit because of his job, I don’t really know. But he likes to run. And I started running with him. So, every Saturday morning for the past nearly two years, we go running.

He’s always harping on me about staying in good physical shape. Once I got over myself and realized he wasn’t trying to call me fat, I came to see that he was saying it because he’s always been a little over-protective. He is the one, after all, who has told me how to protect myself from parking lot predators. The one who has showed me how to flip a grown man over my shoulder. Who showed me all the right places to strike if anyone came after me.

The black car rounds into the parking lot and I stand, watching as Eli climbs out of it.

He wears a tight black athletic t-shirt and track pants. Every bit of it highlights his toned physique.

But the second I meet his eyes, I know that something’s off.

“Ready?” he asks without a friendly word of greeting. He just nods his head down the road, down our usual path.

“Uh, yeah,” I stumble through words. I scramble to my feet and follow after him. We cross the parking lot, and round to the sidewalk that cuts through the main part of town.

“I did some research about the woman you told me about last night,” he immediately says as soon as we start jogging. I look over at him, my brows furrowed. He only stares forward with intense eyes. “The police found her just a block from here.”

My stomach flops, and rolls over, and at the same time my heart decides to try a little backflip. “Are you serious?”

Eli nods. “Just one block in the other direction. Between your apartment and your work. The police found her body, but no traces of who did that to her. They first suspected it might be an animal attack.”

“But those bruise and scratch marks,” I say, the sight of her black and blue flesh flashing across my vision. “Those were made by human hands.”

Eli nods once more. “The police haven’t found any leads as to who did this. No suspects. For as much damage as they did, they left very little evidence.”

I shake my head, huffing a bit as my heart rate increases and my lungs have to work a little harder. “So this person is still running around?”

“Two nights ago, another woman was attacked,” Eli says, and now he does give a little look in my direction. “On the other side of Greendale.”

My step falters, and I catch myself before I trip. Eli slows, looking back at me, but we continue jogging.

“Same injuries?” I question, fearful of what the answer might be.

He nods. “The victim was decapitated. Covered in bruises. Body heavily damaged.”

“Here, in Greendale?” I gape.

“Yes,” Eli says. His breathing is hardly labored, even though he’s talking. “Again, police have no idea who did it. They’re getting worried this is a serial killer.”

I swear through my heavy breathing.

That’s terrifying. A serial killer, right here in my town.

Suddenly, Eli slows, and I blast past him for five steps before I realize. I stop, looking back at him, and see him standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I think you should move back home with your parents,” Eli says.

And despite how ridiculous his statement just was, the look on his face is dead serious.

“The first victim was found less than three hundred yards from your home,” Eli says, steeling his look, because he knows how I’m going to react in just a minute. “He’s obviously targeting women, women who were alone. And he seems to have taken a liking to Greendale.”

“So your solution is that I just pick up and move?” I say, my tone quickly transitioning over to mocking. “That I just tell my boss, ‘sorry, this is too scary. I’m going to run home to the protective arms of mommy and daddy’?” I give a huff of a laugh. “That’s ridiculous, Eli.”

His gaze doesn’t soften. Doesn’t show any signs that he’s kidding. “You saw that woman, Logan. You saw what this person is capable of. Would you risk that the next body in the basement of your funeral home is your own?”

I take a step forward and feel my blood turn hot. “Oh my… You’re… You’re serious about this. That because two women were killed-”

“Yes, killed, Logan,” he interrupts me. “Brutally.”

“That I just uproot everything.” I look at him in annoyance. I shake my head. “How much of a dainty, defenseless girl do you think I am?”

“It is not about that Logan. I-”

“I…I can’t believe you’re being serious about this,” I say, looking sideways at him, my brows furrowed. “Don’t you think you’re over-reacting just a little?”

“No,” he says, his face stone still. “I really don’t.”

I huff another disbelieving laugh. And I step forward, past him, back in the direction of home.

“Logan,” he says, following after me. “I know it seems a little extreme, but trust me, I’ve seen situations like this before with my work. And the very last person you expect could be this psycho’s next victim. I won’t risk that the next woman to lose her head might be you.”

I look to the side, glaring at him as he quickly follows me. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are that you can just tell me to change my life at the snap of your paranoid fingers, Eli.”

Like I slapped him in the face, he stops, looking at me through slit eyes.

“I’m…” he stammers for a moment. Something Eli never does. “I’m your friend, Logan. I’m just looking out for you.”

“That’s not actually your job, Eli,” I say. I fix my eyes on the sidewalk in front of me, refusing to look at him. “You’re not my father. You’re not my brother. You’re certainly not my boyfriend. So keep your nose in your own damn business.”

“Logan,” he says, his tone growing a little more desperate. “This is a dangerous situation. You can nearly see the alley where the woman was killed from your dining room window! Please, just consider this.”

We round into the parking lot of my building. And I stop suddenly, turning on him. “I think you need to go home, Eli. I am a grown-ass woman, and I decide what is best for me. Not you!”

I’m huffing, like I just ran three miles. My hands are on my hips, and I look around, anywhere but at Eli, because my insides are all twisted scrap metal.

I’ve never felt so betrayed. So hurt.

And from someone who matters so much.

“Logan,” he says, his voice a little breathy and taken off guard. “I…” But he doesn’t complete the sentence.

“I’m not leaving,” I say, finally meeting his eyes, and I hope he can see in them that I’m serious. And mad. “You should go home, and I don’t want to see you for a while.”

And I walk away.

Maybe I’m being overly dramatic. Maybe I’m over-reacting.

But that hurt. Him trying to tell me what to do. Eli assuming I couldn’t take care of myself.

I climb the stairs, aiming for my door.

I halt in front of it, taking in the bright pink piece of paper taped to the door.

EVICTION NOTICE.

And I’m just done with this day.

* * *

“I’m telling you,” Amelia says as she dips her French fry in my Butterfinger shake, “It’s all that sexual tension. You two just need to bang it out and then everything can go back to normal.”

“You have no idea how disgusting that suggestion really is,” I cringe. I scoop a huge spoonful of the shake and stick it in my mouth. “I mean, Eli is family. You might have had a thing for him, but the suggestion of me and him...”

Internally, I actually gag.

Not that Eli isn’t a good-looking man with a killer body. But still…family.

I cock an eyebrow and nod as I swallow the giant bite down.

“Well at some point there’s got to be a man who comes along and gets you all hot and bothered,” Amelia says as she shakes her head and dips another fry. “This has been torture, now that I have Tanner, and you’re just always the third wheel. Find a man, Lo!”

“Hey, you asshole!” I bite back, wielding my spoon in her direction. “I may not just walk up to some kid in class and tell him I think he’s hot, but-”

“But perhaps you should!” she says, teasing me. “Then you could finally get rid of some of that pent-up bitterness. Just be bold! Tanner and me were making out two hours later, and now look at us. A year later and we’re talking about-”

She suddenly cuts off, like she’s said more than she meant to.

“What?” I prod. She blushes hard, and bites her lower lip. “Oh, come on. You can’t just lead into that and not finish the sentence.”

She gives me a little wary smile, looking up at me from under her eyelashes. “We’re talking about…if we might get married someday.”

“What?” I gape. I actually fling my spoon in a big arc, sending a splatter of ice cream onto the window beside me. “Married? Slow down on me, Amelia. You two just moved in together. Is this for real?”

She blushes harder and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” she says. “I mean, we’re all in this. I don’t know a timeframe, but I feel like this is the right move.”

I study her. My best friend ever since I started at Greendale Community College. My five foot-nine, blonde babe best friend with the pouty lips and the green eyes of a siren.

Talking about getting married.

“Wow,” I breathe. “Amelia, that’s amazing. I’m…I’m really happy for you.”

“Really?” she asks, sounding wary. The look in her eyes tells me how much she’s been dreading telling me. “You really mean it?”

I laugh, reaching forward and grabbing her hands. “Just because I have the worst luck in the world and can’t seem to ever catch a break in the happiness department doesn’t mean you’re doomed, too. You and Tanner are great together. He worships the ground you walk on. Trust me, he recognizes that you’re out of his league.”

She laughs at that, smiling brightly.

“And even though you’ve already abandoned me in that apartment,” I say, gazing at her through my laugh. “I’m happy for you. You have my full support.”

I’ll never tell her that because she moved out, because of my debt to Shylock, I can no longer afford the rent on my own. That I’m getting kicked out. That the eviction notice on my door said I had to be out in two weeks.

She doesn’t need that guilt on her mind.

She does this relieved groan, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. “This is why you’re the best, Lo. Thank you, thank you!”

I laugh, shaking my head.

She launches back into the shenanigans of her life, telling me about her upcoming semester this fall, continuing in her pursuit of going into human resources. And eventually, she turns to teasing me about wanting to work with dead bodies for the rest of my life.

We finish dinner around nine and Tanner texts her, asking her which of two movies she wants to rent that night.

“Do you want to come over?” she asks. “I promise we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

I shake my head with a laugh. “Go. Enjoy your boy toy. I’m beat. I think I’m just going to go to bed early.”

“Fine,” she says. With a kiss to my cheek, she says goodbye and heads to her car.

So, alone, I hop in my own, and head back home, feeling like a loner for being on my own on a Saturday night, heading home early.

I park and climb out.

And I slow as I approach the stairs up to my apartment.

Sitting on the bottom one, is Eli.

An exasperated sigh slips between my lips. “What are you doing here?”

He stands, his dark eyes fixed on me as he does. “I came to apologize for the way I acted before. And to…talk.

We stand there in the darkening light, in the parking lot of my seedy apartment building. Staring each other down, I can just see it there in his eyes. He doesn’t actually regret anything he said to me earlier.

“I’m not moving,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.

Though suddenly I realize—I am about to be homeless. I can’t afford next month’s rent, there’s no way I can back-pay what I owe. Moving back home really might be my only option right now.

Not that I’m going to breathe a word of that to Eli.

“I’m sorry for how I presented it to you before,” he says, standing tall and rigid. “I should have been better with my reasoning and presentation. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I just stare at him, because he’s making it very obvious that he doesn’t think the heart of what he was saying was wrong.

“Can we go inside?” he asks, his eyes drifting up to the second floor.

My fingers curl into fists. Heat rises in my veins.

Because if he’s requesting we go inside, he must think there’s going to be a scene.

“I think we’re good out here,” I say.

I’m angry. On edge. Ready to throw verbal punches if I have to. Even if Eli is one of my best friends. Even if he is family.

“Okay, then,” he says with a little nod. “But can you just try to see that I only said what I did because I care about you?”

“Sure,” I say. My blood is growing so hot. “You can care about me. But expecting me to just pick up my life and move, is a little over the top, don’t you think?”

“No, Logan,” he growls, his tone rising. “I don’t. You might be an adult, might be working your dream job, might be living on your own, but you don’t know everything like you sometimes seem to think.”

“Are you trying to sound like a condescending asshole?” I seethe, my tone rising. “Because you’re doing a pretty damn good job, Eli!”

A scream cuts through the night.

Piercing.

Loud.

Utterly terrified.

And I look toward the street, just in time to see…something.

A motion.

A blur.

One figure. And then another.

“No,” Eli breathes.

And I see every muscle in his body tighten. Constrict. Prepare.

“Get inside,” he says.

The entire moment plays out in slow motion.

His eyes slide back to mine. Filled with terror. Filled with fight.

And for just a fraction of a second, I swear I see the faintest flecks of yellow in his dark eyes.

“Get inside, Logan,” he says as a second scream pierces the night.

And then he’s running.

Through the parking lot. Around the corner.

And despite how utterly pissed off I am with him right now, I still chase after him into the night.

Another scream rips through the night, only it’s cut off.

I race past the vape shop. Around the gas station.

And there ahead, between an apartment building and a Mexican grocery store, I see Eli slip into the darkness. He hides in the shadows, watching.

And there’s yelling.

Shouts.

A cry—not a scream.

And a roar.

Something inhuman. It reverberates off the walls.

I step into view of the dark, narrow space in time to see brilliant red glowing eyes fix on me.

A man, tall, muscular, backs away from two other figures, leaving a motionless female figure lying at his feet.

“You’ve had your fun these past two months, Rhys,” a female voice says. “But you know how the Houses and Court feel about exposure.”

The man with the glowing eyes laughs. “You and your Houses. Don’t you ever get tired of being on the leash? Don’t you ever get tired of holding it, Edmond?”

“I don’t know,” a male voice says. “Don’t you think it suits me?”

Rhys laughs again. And I don’t even see it, have no idea how he does it, but suddenly he lunges at a wall. He uses his momentum, kicking off the brick. He launches over the two figures.

He clears the alley, into the street.

Just fifteen feet from me, where I stupidly stand on the sidewalk, gaping.

His glowing red eyes lock on me. And I’m frozen as he lunges forward.

A thick set of arms wrap around him, and the two figures collide in mid-air, tumbling over the concrete.

Eli tackles the man, turning over, rolling.

A scream rips from my throat and I dart forward two steps.

But before I can get within ten feet, the two figures from the alley explode from it.

I don’t know what happened.

One second Eli was wrestling Rhys.

The next a head is rolling down the road, the man and the woman panting, looking at Eli and me with equally brilliant red eyes.