Of course I was sure. Even though Perry was a werewolf, he couldn’t possibly expect me to remain in the department now that I knew the truth. It was definitely a safety hazard to continue working with any of them, especially Cale.
“I’m not telling anyone what you all are if that’s why we’re talking.” I wanted to sound brave, but instead I sounded afraid.
Perry smiled at my fear. “Oh, I know you won’t be. I managed to pull some strings for you if you didn’t wish to reconsider.” My brows furrowed as he continued. “Tim needs another employee in shipping. Since it’s your old stomping grounds, I figured you’d probably enjoy going back to that department.” I was shaking my head, about to say that I didn’t wish to go back to work at the hotel, before Perry was again speaking. “Don’t you worry, my dear, it’ll only be you and the blonde one working from now on.”
Jonna was my old coworker that was blonde. But it was irrelevant. Even if I wasn’t fearful of the set-up department’s werewolves, I still wouldn’t go back to shipping. Laurel the supervisor had irrationally despised me. She played head games where she purposely wouldn’t answer me if I spoke. Or worse, when she did speak, all she had was a very snotty tone. Going back to shipping would just put me in the exact miserable situation I was in prior to my transfer. Still, curiosity got the better of me as Perry started to walk away without hearing from me.
“Did Laurel leave?”
It was as though Perry was waiting for me to ask exactly this question. He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair as he turned to me. He smiled warmly. “No. Damndest thing, she’s gone missing.” My eyes widened as I tried to process how this could be. Perry watched my fearful expression, a slow smile developing. “What a dangerous world we live in,” he said softly. “Hopefully a grisly demise hasn’t befallen the poor young woman.”
At this point, I was shaking with fear. I had a very bad feeling that was exactly what had happened to Laurel. Even though I didn’t necessarily like her, I would never wish her any harm. Perry nodded slowly as he analyzed how frightened I now was. It amused him.
“How very lucky such an event transpired for you.” He grinned. “Now you can stay at the hotel.” Perry walked away after that. I could only stand in a stunned stupor for a few moments after his departure.
After collecting the items on the list Simon had made, I made him and Erik check out with me before we quickly exited the store. We were missing wooden stakes, but Simon and I didn’t think that Erik properly thought through what it was we were up against. Stakes went along with vampire myths. Stabbing them with a wooden stake through the heart supposedly killed them. That would be helpful if we had ourselves a vampire problem. A part of me then gave life to the idea that there was far more to the world than I previously thought. Maybe vampires, witches, and other curses were real as well. The other—stronger—part of me realized I couldn’t spend time thinking about the what-ifs. There was already one monster problem to deal with; I couldn’t scare myself about the other hypotheticals out there in the world.
But even if the wooden stakes worked for killing werewolves, I didn’t relish the idea of getting close to any of the guys while they were in full transition to try to stab them. In order to stab Cale with a stake, I would have to be right next to him to accomplish the task.
I didn’t see Perry again in the store, but that didn’t matter. I was still afraid. He accomplished exactly what he wanted in telling me about Laurel.
I drove straight back to our house instead of stopping by the local Catholic church. Simon protested we needed to collect holy water and have the squirt guns he bought blessed by a priest, but I couldn’t pay him any attention. I needed to see for myself if what Perry had said was true. Part of me knew it was; he wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t know for certain.
I would have simply looked up Laurel’s name on my cell phone, but mobile internet was surprisingly limited in the Dells. You couldn’t pull anything up. During the trip home, I explained to Simon and Erik what had happened. What Perry said, how it was as though he was trying to scare me. Both boys were freaked out as well. With their being so young, I hated scaring them, but telling them the truth was better than sugarcoating anything.
When we got home, I made Simon look up the name Laurel Reed on an internet search. I went up to my room and dug through some papers on my desk. By the time I found my old coworker Jonna’s phone number, Simon had found multiple articles about Laurel that had been uploaded just that morning.
MISSING HIKER PRESUMED DEAD
The article went into detail how Laurel had disappeared the day before yesterday. She had been hiking one of the many trails by Devil’s Lake by herself. No one had seen or heard from her since she left her apartment. Search and rescue teams had failed to locate her, but her ripped clothes and a bloody shoe had been found.
My phone call with Jonna had been brief. She was barely audible while crying on the phone. Word of mouth confirmed that Laurel was most likely dead. Jonna had spoken to Laurel’s sister, who had come back from the coroner. The reason why she was believed to be dead was that inside of her shoe was the bloody remains of her foot.
All I could do was stare at my phone in stunned silence after I hung up. “Why her…?” I wondered aloud as Erik and Simon made their way into my room. “Why would the wolves kill Laurel?”
“We don’t know it was the werewolves,” reasoned Erik before Simon and I shot him dirty looks.
He shrugged weakly. “I’m trying to get you guys not to panic.”
“Too late, it’s the perfect time to panic!”
I buried my head into my hands.
Simon broke the tension-filled atmosphere. “Most likely the lady didn’t get eaten by a bear,” he reasoned. Erik helped himself to the contents of our fridge. He casually searched for a snack as if we weren’t in the middle of discussing a sudden mysterious death by the hands of monsters.
“So the werewolves killed her, but why…” wondered Simon as he started scribbling in a notebook.
My brother was oblivious to his friend raiding our fridge. Erik grabbed a stack of cheese, a few pieces of peppered turkey, and then a few pieces of pepperoni. After getting himself a plate to lay his pile of food, Erik proceeded to head to the pantry in search of bread. Simon was still talking, but all I could do was watch Erik proceed to make three large sandwiches. Each sandwich looked as big as two sandwiches high.
Erik sat himself down at the bar before finding that Simon and I had stopped talking to watch him.
“Oh. Did you guys want me to make you one, too?”
Simon glared. “Focus, man. Why would they kill Everly’s old coworker?”
“Well, that’s obvious,” Erik said around a mouthful. He swallowed his massive bite of food before taking another oversized bite. His cheeks looked like an inflated chipmunk’s as he chewed.
Simon and I waited as he ate. My impatient brother even waved his hand to get his friend to answer faster. “There’s three possible reasons,” said Erik with a full mouth. “One, the werewolves want you to join the pack,” he reasoned as he finally swallowed his bite. “They want you to join, but you quit.”