Another scream echoed through the building. It was less shrill and sharp than before. Whoever had screamed was growing weaker by the second.

I blew out my candles without making a wish and raced to the door behind everyone else. My feet faltered when I saw who had screamed. A girl. Dressed in a white nightgown. She stumbled toward us. Her long black hair fell to her waist in a disheveled mess. Mascara was smudged beneath her eyes, and her skin appeared slick with sweat and ashen. Her plump lips formed the shape of an O as though she were struggling to scream but unable to make a sound.

My heart hammered hard and fast inside my chest, not because of her presence or the eeriness emanating from her looks but because of the blood soaking the neckline of her nightgown.

I didn’t have to step closer to her to know I’d find two puncture marks on her throat. I also didn’t have to guess any longer if the Midnight Reaper would make his way to Mirror Lake.

Standing there, I already knew the answer to both questions, and it was enough to send my mind racing as fast as my heart. The Midnight Reaper was here, and this was one of his victims.

Happy freaking birthday to me.

“Get the kids inside!” our alpha shouted. He jumped into action while the bulk of us stared at the girl. “Charles, make sure everyone gets inside safely. Frank, Sabin, and Glenn, you’re heading out with me. We need to find who did this. There’s a chance he might still be around. Dorian call nine-one-one. Eli, I want you to call Officer Dan. Give him a heads up. Tate, help Charles get everyone inside and secure the building.”

Everyone jumped into action, following the alpha’s orders. I spotted Dorian on his phone as he rushed to the girl’s side. Eli was beside him, chatting with Officer Dan. The girl made a noise, drawing my attention back to her. She didn’t look well.

A loud scream bellowed past her lips. Goose bumps prickled across my skin.

“Get them off me!” she shouted. She smacked at her body as though she saw something I didn’t.

Oh, shit. Was this girl Jane Hawker?

Hadn’t I heard someone say she kept claiming spiders were crawling on her when no one else could see them?

Her being here, bleeding from her neck and acting the way she was, was proof enough to me the Midnight Reaper was close. I sought Ridley. If the Midnight Reaper had made its way to Mirror Lake, it meant her family hadn’t put their ward in place yet.

Ridley stood with Alec, Benji, and Becca. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of me, and she nodded toward them. I knew what she was trying to convey. This was supernatural related, and they were human.

I hoped everyone remembered my human friends were among us tonight, and no one decided to shift. I didn’t know what implications it might have on Alec’s brain after he’d been compelled to forget once about the supernatural world. Would it jog the year’s worth of memories he’d been forced to forget?

I rushed to Ridley.

“I take it your aunt didn’t have time to put the ward up yet?” I asked in a whisper.

Ridley shook her head. “Not yet, no.”

“Crap,” I muttered.

I glanced to the woods. The girl couldn’t have walked far in her condition, which meant the alpha was right in thinking the one responsible was nearby. The kids had already been ushered inside the party building, as well as some of the other pack members, but my friends still stood out in the open with me. My gaze drifted over each of them, taking in their expressions. Benji’s face had grown pale, making him appear as though he were at risk of passing out any second. Becca looked worried. Her body seemed tense as though she were ready to fight or run. And Alec, he’d stepped forward a few feet. His determination to help the girl vibrated in the air around him.

I reached out for him. “Don’t. You can’t help her.”

“I know CPR. There might be something I can do,” he insisted without making eye contact with me. He was fixated on the girl, waiting for the word to jump into action.

“Dorian is on the phone with the nine-one-one operator. I’m sure she’s telling him everything he needs to know in order to help her.”

Alec’s fists balled at his sides. “I feel like I should do something. There’s so much blood. What did this to her?” he asked.

How could I explain without mentioning vampires?

“An animal. One that could still be lurking around here somewhere. We should probably head inside with the others,” Ridley insisted.

Thank you, I mouthed. I was glad she’d said something because I couldn’t think of a justifiable answer, considering I was having as hard a time as Alec staying put.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Benji muttered. He dashed to the nearest trash can. Ridley rushed to him and smoothed a hand over his back. “It’s too much blood. Why is there so much blood?” he asked.

“I’m not sure, but everything will be okay,” Ridley insisted.

There was a tremor in her words. An uncertainty.

I felt it too.

Regardless of what she’d said, nothing would be okay. Not after this moment. The harsh reality was that the supernatural world had touched my human friends again, and I was the person responsible for it. They’d all been here because of me. It was my birthday they were here to celebrate.

My stomach twisted at the thought.

Eli stepped to where I was. “Come here for a second.” He interlaced to his fingers through mine and pulled me away from the others.

He walked me toward the girl, pausing only once we were about two feet away. The coppery scent of her blood hung heavy in the air, souring my stomach. My gaze fixed on her.

Was she breathing? Dorian blocked my view. I couldn’t tell if her chest was rising or falling. I couldn’t see if her eyes were open. He was hunched over her, his phone still pressed against his ear as he chatted with the nine-one-one operator.

Sirens sounded in the distance, but I knew they were still minutes away.

“Is she okay?” I asked, meaning is she still alive.

“No,” Eli said. My heart stopped as my gaze swung to look at him. He smoothed a hand along the back of his neck. “She’s...dead.”

Dead. The word lingered between us, siphoning all the breath from my lungs and forcing a shiver to slip along my spine. My gaze drifted back to what little I could see of her. Sadness crept through me, numbing my fear.

“Who was she? Was it Jane?” I hated saying her name with such uncertainty when I felt it in my gut that was who she was, but my voice wasn’t my own. It was too weak sounding, too shaken up.

“Yeah, that’s Jane Hawker,” Eli said.

Sickness sloshed through my stomach. I felt like Benji, just waiting to hurl any second.

“Why was she here in the park?” I asked once I was able to find my voice again. “Was she here to see us?”

It didn’t make sense because Jane was a human. She wouldn’t know we were werewolves. Even if she suspected it, why waste your final moments trying to get to us?

“I have no clue,” Eli insisted.

The sirens grew closer. They were almost upon us. I could see their lights in the distance. The blue and red bounced off Mr. Russell’s trailer.

Was Officer Dan going to make it here before anyone else to look over the scene and come up with a story that didn’t reek of something suspicious?

An ominous feeling settled over me. “Do you think she was planning to warn us about something?” The Midnight Reaper perhaps.

“I don’t know what she would be warning us about; she was human. One who couldn’t have known for sure what we were.” Eli’s voice was soft, respectful. Still, his words stung.

I hated that he had discredited Jane coming to warn us about something simply because she was human. I knew I’d made the same judgment seconds before, but now it didn’t seem right.

Her being human didn’t mean anything. She still could’ve had a message for us. She could have known what we were and thought of us as her salvation.

If that was the case, we’d failed her.

Even if it wasn't, I’d failed her.

I should’ve pushed harder for the pack to visit her. I should’ve gone on my own. I should’ve asked her the questions I wanted. I should’ve listened to her rendition of what happened that night. Instead, I’d listened to Eli. Next time I’d listen to myself. I’d do what I thought was necessary.

However, I hoped like hell there would never be a next time. I hoped the Midnight Reaper would be caught and brought to justice.

An ambulance made its way toward us. Paramedics hopped out the instant it stopped. There was nothing they could do for Jane. She was already gone. Still they tried.

The police showed up next. Officer Dan was among them. He stepped to Dorian and Eli. Questions were tossed between the men, but I didn’t pay them any mind. My focus was on the body of Jane Hawker.

She hadn’t deserved to die. She’d only been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Officer Dan bent to touch his fingertips to her eyelids, closing them when the paramedics had given up on trying to revive her. Somehow, this made her seem at peace. I truly hoped she was after everything she’d had to endure. My gaze drifted to Eli. His arms were folded across his chest in a stiff way as he stared down at her. His brows pinched together in sadness, but the longer I stared at him, the more I noticed another emotion surfacing in his features.

Curiosity.

What was he staring at with such interest?

“Wait!” Eli moved closer to Jane’s body. He bent at the waist and pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown. “There’s something here.”

Words decorated the inside of her arm. My stomach flip-flopped as I took in the rusty liquid they’d been written in. Was that blood? Her blood? Had she wrote on herself, or had someone wrote a message on her?

I stepped forward, needing a closer look.

“What the hell?” Dorian peered over Eli’s shoulder. “What’s it say?”

“Your alpha is mine,” I answered when Eli didn’t. My voice shook from the fast pounding of my heart as I continued to stare at the words.

This couldn’t be something Jane had wrote on herself. She didn’t know about us. She didn’t know about our alpha. It had to be a message from the Midnight Reaper. But what did it mean? Was our alpha really in danger?

“It’s a trap,” Eli insisted. He stood and scanned the woods. “She was a diversion. This was all a trap for my dad.”

How? Why? My mind raced with multiple questions.

“Where’s your dad?” Officer Dan asked.

“He went to search the woods with some others,” Eli said. “He thought the one responsible might still be close by.”

“We should make sure they’re okay,” Dorian insisted.

Eli swung around to face me. His eyes were dark and cold. Whatever horrible thoughts I was thinking were obviously no match for his.

“I’ll be back as soon as we find them,” he said.

I didn’t want him to go, but I knew he had to. He needed to make sure his dad and the others were okay. I understood that, even if I didn't like it.

I licked my lips. “Be careful.” I pulled him in for a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Make sure you call or text me if you find them,” Officer Dan insisted, breaking up the fragile moment I was stuck in with Eli. “I’ll stay back and figure out a way to cover this up. I doubt anyone else noticed it, or else they would have said something. The coroner will find it though if I don’t get rid of it, and then it will be hard to make the claim of an animal attack or another victim of the Midnight Reaper stick.”

“I’ll get you a rag or something to clean it off.” I rushed back to the building without glancing at Eli again. I didn’t want him to see how worried I was to have him leave my sight. To have him going out there with that monster on the loose.

“Is everything okay out there?” Gran asked when I entered the building.

“No. That was Jane Hawker,” I said in a low voice as I spotted Ridley, Benji, Alec, and Becca in the back of the building. Somehow Ridley must have been able to get them inside. “She’s dead.”

“Oh my goodness. I knew something was going to happen today. I could feel it.” Gran placed a hand on my back.

“I did too,” I admitted.

“Do we know what happened to her yet?” Mom asked. Her voice was low, but I knew the pack could hear her even if my human friends couldn’t.

“We think it was the work of the Midnight Reaper,” I said. “I need a rag. Or a napkin. Something.”

Gasps echoed around me as murmurings of what I’d said rang through the pack. I hoped no one mentioned vampires and it got to the ears of my friends. I especially hoped no one repeated what I was about to say next.

“What do you need a napkin for?” Gran asked as she handed me a stack.

“There was a message written on the inside of her arm,” I said as I took them from her. “It said ‘your alpha is mine’.”

“Oh dear,” Gran whispered.

Alec said something to me, but I ignored him. He shouldn’t be here. Neither should Becca or Benji. They needed to go. The party was over.

I glanced at Ridley, hoping to convey this without words. She nodded in understanding, and I headed back outside with a stack of napkins to help Officer Dan.