Prologue
It was another beautiful, glorious day. Melissa sat before the mirror in her dorm room as she brushed her hair. It felt good to enjoy the simple pleasures in life once again without dreading what she would become after the sun set.
Two weeks had passed since that night when Travis the vampire drained the werewolf blood out of Richard Green, taking the curse into himself and killing both of them in the process. She figured that it made everyone happy in the end, and now the world was rid of those monsters.
However, nothing could have prepared her for what happened that day. It was a typical Saturday morning that she had planned to use by catching up on her studies, when she heard a knock at the door.
Curious as to whom it might be, she set the brush aside on the table and went to answer it. Her eyes went wide when she saw none other than Rachel Green standing there.
“You must be Melissa.” Rachel’s mouth was set in a thin, grim line. Her eyes tightened into a bitter scowl as they focused on Melissa, taking in every line of the former werewolf’s face and every curve of her form…
Melissa did a double take. Rachel’s eyes were focusing? How was that possible? She was blind!
“Rachel, what are you doing here?” Melissa demanded. “And how did you get here?”
Rachel pushed her away into the room and shut the door behind her. She then whirled to face Melissa again. “You figure it out,” she snapped. “What did you think would happen? Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out that it was you? Did you think I wouldn’t put two and two together?”
Melissa paled as the realization hit her. “You mean… you…?”
“Say it!” Rachel shoved Melissa so hard that she stumbled backward over the coffee table. “Say it out loud!”
“You… you turned into a werewolf!” Melissa gasped after she caught her balance. “But… but how the hell is that possible?! Richard Green is dead!”
“You know the reason! It’s because he didn’t bite me. He bit you. And then you bit me.”
“But the curse should have ended! At least… I-I didn’t think that I’d be able to turn you! I thought… I thought…”
“Thought what?” Rachel demanded, advancing into the room. Her eyes were ablaze with fury and her fists were balled up into fists at her sides. Her expression and movements were so fierce that Melissa backed up just to stay out of arm’s reach. “Did you think that just because you got your curse lifted that I’d be free, too? Well, it didn’t! I turned into a werewolf three nights after Travis died, and I’ve spent every night since trying to find out where you live.”
Melissa circled around behind the couch. It felt only moderately comforting to have a large piece of furniture between her and the enraged girl. “Well uh… what took you so long to find me?” she asked, her numb mind trying to make sense of all this. “And,” she added, “how can you see?”
“Werewolves have healing powers, you should know that,” Rachel spat. She snatched one of the cushions from the couch and flung it at Melissa, causing her to duck down behind the couch. “And I didn’t find you sooner because I lost my sense of smell; I became human again after my Aunt Mae killed herself.”
Melissa remained where she was behind the couch, her heart pounding her chest and her mind racing. “Your Aunt? But why…” She trailed off, and her blood turned to ice in her veins as an epiphany struck her.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Rachel kicked the couch, for what good it did; the large piece of furniture did not budge an inch. “Yeah, now you get it, bitch,” she snarled. “And you are a bitch! You’re an even bigger bitch now than when you were a real dog!” She began to circle around the couch, but Melissa heard her coming. Melissa jumped to her feet and ran toward the bathroom, shutting the door and locking herself in before Rachel could catch her.
“I’m sorry!” Melissa yelled through the door. “I’m sorry!” Her heart thudded against her rib cage. Her lungs heaved as air entered and exited her lungs rapidly; she was dangerously close to hyperventilating.
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t change anything!” Rachel screamed, banging her fists against the bathroom door. “It doesn’t change what you did! Travis died just for you! He never would have done that if he knew what you did, you bitch!”
“What do you want?” Melissa demanded. “Why did you come here?”
“I want you to know what you’ve done! My Aunt, the only person I had left in my life, killed herself to free me from the curse.”
“I didn’t know your Aunt was the witch who created the spell!” Melissa shouted. “If someone had told me…”
Rachel screamed in hysterical rage, throwing her entire body against the door. It seemed that she wanted nothing more than to knock the door down and strangle Melissa. “You never talked to me and Travis! You attacked me and then let us think Uncle Richard did it!”
It turned out that the adrenaline of sheer rage was a powerful force to be reckoned with; either that or the hinges and lock were not as sturdy as they appeared. Rachel managed to knock the door in and Melissa barely managed to scamper out of the way before it hit her. She leaped into the shower and hid behind the shower curtain, as if that could somehow protect her.
Rachel shoved the curtain aside. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pistol. “I took Aunt Mae’s silver chain necklace with the silver pendant, and had it melted down,” she hissed. “I managed to find someone who knows that werewolves exist, and he helped me make a silver bullet.” Her eyes narrowed into slits, and her mouth formed a tight, grim smile. “Call it poetic justice,” she purred.
“You are insane!” Melissa gasped. Her eyes darted around the bathroom, but she already knew that she was cornered. She was, after all, standing in the shower with nowhere to run. She would not even be able to reach the window, and Rachel would definitely shoot her before she reached the door.
“If I am, you stole my sanity,” Rachel stated. Her hair framed her face and neck in wild tangles. She looked almost like a crazed witch herself now. “Just like you took everything else I had. Everything could have been fine somehow, but no, Melissa only cared about Melissa!” She cocked the gun, and her finger rested on the trigger.
“Rachel, please! Let’s talk about this!” Melissa pleaded, raising her hands above her head in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. If this had been done under any other circumstances, she might have felt silly, as if she was mimicking something out of a movie.
Then again, everything that was happening really did seem like something out of a crazy horror show. None of this was supposed to happen! She had her life back, and now this crazy woman was threatening to take it away from her.
“There is nothing to talk about,” Rachel stated.
“What’s gonna happen to you if you do this?” Melissa demanded. “Have you thought about that?”
A loud, dry laugh escaped Rachel’s lips. “Do you really think I have anything left to lose at this point?” She shook her head. “I prefer to think that I got my sight back so that I could hunt you down and end you. The thought of you roaming free after what you did makes me sick. Once I kill you, the world will finally be free of monsters.”
“Rachel, no!”
Thunder exploded throughout the bathroom as a silver bullet shot from the gun nozzle and entered her chest. Rachel aimed very well, as if she had practiced for this moment. Blood oozed from the wound as Melissa’s mouth opened in a scream that never came, and her eyes went wide and blind. She collapsed on the shower floor in a heap.
Rachel lowered the gun, allowing her arm to drop down and return to her side. She stared at the bloodied form for a long moment, taking in the sight of it.
“I have nothing left to live for,” she said aloud to the corpse. “And I’m not going to jail. Especially not for performing justice.”
She took a deep breath and slowly raised the gun again. In truth, she had had two silver bullets made by her secret contact, one for each of the former werewolves. Her contact did not know that the werewolves were no longer cursed, but that did not matter.
“I have nothing left to live for,” she whispered as she pointed the gun at her head. “My time here is done, and the world will be rid of all the monsters.”
Somehow, she did not even hear the second bullet when it fired, nor did she feel any pain. There was only darkness.
