"Theo Raeken? More like: Theo Fakin'," Ren groused, tousling his shiny black hair with one hand while the other supported him against the brick wall of Kamilla's house. "This kid knows about werewolves and stuff, and shows up right when super weird stuff starts happening? What in hell..."
Rebecca couldn't help but laugh. She was leaning on those same bricks, squinting at the walkway that lead into the forest. Even though she wore a black turtleneck to cover herself, she was still freezing. "Great. Now whenever I see him all that's going to come to mind is Theo Fakin'."
"Good," Ren smiled. Rebecca stuck her tongue out at him. "But personally, I hope I never see him again."
"Well, tough luck because he seemed absolutely in love with you," Rebecca said, shifting from foot to foot. "He hardly even looked at me. And don't even get me started on Kamilla. They're each other's number one fans."
"Who am I a fan of?" Kamilla appeared, her back door squealing loudly. With her rebelliously curly blond hair pulled back into an obviously last-minute ponytail, she looked stressed. "Don't answer that. I don't care."
"Hello to you too," Ren muttered. Kamilla gave him a nasty look.
"So, you found something?" Rebecca started, pushing herself upright.
"I did, actually," Kamilla said, pulling a face. "And it's weird. Very weird."
Rebecca's stomach dropped.
"I need to show you," Kamilla continued, ushering for Ren and Rebecca to follow her. She lead them out beyond her backyard through a rusted gate, and started towards the forest that stretched on for miles around the entire North side of their town. Rebecca gave Ren a confused look, but before he could do anything, a shriek of pain made all three of them jump.
Muffled yelling came from the house across from Kamilla's. They didn't need to investigate to know exactly where it was coming from.
"That's," Ren said, feeling the need to fill the oppressive silence between them. "Connor MonHeim's house."
"Yep," Kamilla said, trying to sound nonchalant. In truth, Rebecca could tell that all three of them were equally bothered by this piece of information, and by the cries that tore at their ears.
Rebecca turned to Kamilla who was a few paces in front of her. Her mouth was a thin line.
"Maybe we should go see what's going on," Rebecca suggested, worry clawing her insides and bubbling in her voice.
"It'll have to wait," Kamilla shook her head. Rebecca frowned. Kamilla rolled her eyes. "Yeah, what I found is probably more important than whatever's going to happen after the freak show settles down."
"More important than an angry Wendigo, starving for human flesh?" Ren asked, his question only sort of rhetorical.
"Just shut up and come on!" Kamilla snapped. Reluctantly, Ren and Rebecca followed.
"Who the hell is texting you now?"
When Kamilla's phone beeped for what seemed like the hundredth time, Ren finally let his curiosity get the best of him. Rebecca elbowed him in the ribs.
"None of your business!" Kamilla snapped.
"Let it go," Rebecca said quietly. Ren huffed and kicked a twig dejectedly.
"We've been walking for almost an hour and it sounds like you got all of Hollywood on your ass," Ren complained after a few more minutes of beeping.
"If you must know, Monkey Brain," Kamilla said, tossing him a glare. "It's Theo."
"Theo? As in, Theo Fakin'?" Rebecca asked, sounding shocked, but then bringing her hand up to her forehead to hide her face in shame. "Shit. I meant Theo Raeken?"
"Yeah," Kamilla said slowly, raising an eyebrow at Ren's sudden giggling. "That's the only Theo I know."
As if to prove this, her phone pinged, her ringtone sounding like the whip from a famous explorer movie. Rebecca and Ren exchanged glances, which didn't go unnoticed by Kamilla.
"Shut up, both of you!" Kamilla hissed indignantly. "Just because you have no friends doesn't mean I have to be a loner too."
"Sounds like you're overcompensating, there, Santa Claws," Ren said. Kamilla bared her teeth in a warning. "You can take Theo Fakin' and shove him up your-"
"Ren!" Rebecca shouted, tipping her head back to look at the treetops in exasperation. "Dial it down, would you? You've only talked to him once, remember?"
"Who's the Satori here?" Ren asked, making Kamilla snort and Rebecca groan in agony. "That's what I thought. I'm the one with the ability to read minds. I know what I know."
"Only when you touch exposed skin," Kamilla said. "Unless you've been holding hands with Theo, you don't know jack."
"My intuition is flawless," Ren said. Kamilla and Rebecca exchanged tired looks, while marching forward. They gave a decrepit tree stump a wide berth. "I know when something's wrong with situations, or people." He was soon a few paces behind Rebecca and Kamilla, who were tuning him out by this point. "I have an extraordinary mind. If you don't trust me, you can't trust-"
His voice was cut off suddenly, followed by a loud thump and a grunt of pain. Rebecca and Kamilla stopped and turned around at the same time. There was no one in sight.
"Ren?" Rebecca called out uncertainly.
"Down here," Ren called, his voice drifting from a gaping hole hiding behind the tree stump that Kamilla and Rebecca had been careful to walk around.
Walking over to the disturbingly large hole, Kamilla and Rebecca leaned in as far as their dared. It was about seven feet deep with Ren sprawled out at the bottom. He was sitting amongst leaves and twigs that had previously hid the hole from the naked eye.
Kamilla erupted into laughter. Ren's face flushed red.
"Shut up and help me!" he demanded.
"Did you just fall in a hole?" Kamilla said between heaving breaths. "Were you unable to sense anything was wrong there, you great and powerful Satori, you?"
"Shut up," Ren said again. Rebecca's mouth curled into a smile. "Get me out of here."
"Why don't you use your extraordinary mind, there, Monkey Brain?" Kamilla nagged, resting her hands on her knees and wiggling her eyebrows.
"Oh my God, I actually hate you," Ren seethed. He stood up, brushing off his back and analyzing the hole he was in to see if there was any way he could just climb out.
"I'm sure you do, there, Abu," Kamilla nodded. "But actually, this is the thing I wanted to show you guys."
"A hole?" Rebecca asked, a hint of irritation in her tone. She raised her head so she could give Kamilla an unimpressed look. She had gotten them worked up over a hole?
"Hey, it isn't your typical garden seed planting hole," Kamilla pointed out, looking up at Rebecca briefly before calling back down to Ren. "Even though thanks to your extraordinary mind it might be harder to find, there should be a phone down there."
"What kind of phone?" Ren asked, just as annoyed as Rebecca. "Is it going to be in the living room of this cozy little place? Is there a hatch that leads to Narnia?"
"Shut your face and get looking!" Kamilla snapped. "It's a white Blackberry, one that slides out to show the keyboard or something."
Ren got down on his knees, hands burying themselves into the leaves and twigs. Occasionally, he would gag in disgust as insects and spiders crawled over him.
"How did you know it was down there," Rebecca asked with a frown.
"I was walking Bailey, and came across this," Kamilla said, jerking her chin at the hole. "Saw a phone at the bottom."
"And you couldn't just grab it, then?" Rebecca asked, cocking a brow.
"And get my shoes dirty?" Kamilla said, sounding offended. "Hell no!"
"Found it!" Ren raised a tiny blackberry above his head in victory, shaking it a little as he rose to his feet. "Now will you get me out of here?"
Rebecca, sinking down to one knee, quickly snatched the phone from Ren's hand and leaned back to safety. Kamilla reached down and helped Ren out of the hole with ease. Rebecca brushed off a few clumps of mud. The phone was obviously long dead and the screen had a nasty crack down the centre.
Rebecca stood, giving the phone to Kamilla as if her friend would unlock its secrets. "It's certainly a phone."
"Really? I couldn't tell," Kamilla smirked, grabbing the phone and flipping it over. "But why the hell was it in a person-sized hole?" She rubbed the back, clearing most of the grime stuck to the device with her thumb. Her brow furrowed in concentration. Her face fell. She held up what she saw to Rebecca and said it out loud for Ren's benefit. "Omar Dhal."
"It's an engraving," Rebecca thought out loud, her voice going quiet as the sudden realization dawned on her. She blinked, looking at Kamilla because she needed to be wrong. "Oh my God, Omar was down there?"
"What?" Ren looked like he was going to be sick, peering into the hole as if under the dirt and leaves lead a passage to hell. "Why? How? When?"
"I don't know!" Kamilla said indignantly. "All I know is that I didn't smell or hear anything weird about Omar before he disappeared."
Rebecca couldn't look at the hole anymore. She looked to her left instead, and examined a tree, trying to assemble her thoughts. Omar had been buried, then turned up dead in a side street with claws and a detached tail.
Suddenly, along the bumpiness of the bark she was flitting her gaze across, a jagged scratch interrupted the pattern. Blinking and running her eyes across the claw mark two or three more times, she offered her friends a quick, "One second," before climbing over the stump to investigate.
Kamilla and Ren weren't even paying attention. They were far too busy focusing on the cockroach climbing into Ren's collar. He was shrieking like a banshee while Kamilla pointed and laughed at his horror.
Rebecca reached the tree, and noticed that including the original mark, there were five scratches in total. She touched the rough tree bark with her finger pads and trailed them along the scratch, mimicking the motion the claws would have had to make to create such a deep indent. Whatever did this had a thumb. Rebecca could see one scratch above the other four that deviated from the rest.
Whatever had made those marks couldn't have been much larger than Rebecca herself, seeing as their hands were around the same size.
Rebecca decided to investigate further around the tree, until she could only hear her friends carrying on near the hole, but not see them. There were no more scratches, but in the light only slightly thwarted by the canopy of leaves overhead, she could see a large splatter of blood.
Rebecca leaned in closer to investigate but reeled back when the stench of copper hit her senses. It was blood. But was it Omar's?
Rebecca was ripped out of her thoughts by Kamilla's low growl of warning.
"Don't move."
Rebecca froze the air was thick and suffocating with tension. She peaked around the tree.
Kamilla's inhumane snarl ripped through the air. Rebecca could see her fangs and cobalt blue eyes. Whatever she was facing off against was just out of sight.
In response, a louder growl ripped through the air. It sounded like a real wolf, not just a werewolf like Kamilla.
Rebecca put her hand on the bark to steady herself. Her heart was pounding so hard and she assumed Kamilla could hear it easily. Her palms began to pool sweat as she leaned further from around the tree to see what they were up against.
Kamilla stood, claws bared as she threatened a wolf, which was only six feet away from where she stood. Ren cowered behind her, visibly shaking in fright as the wolf raised its hackles.
There was a second where Rebecca could see Kamilla weighing her odds. Behind her was a hole. She had to protect Ren, and there was no guarantee that if she tried to fight, he wouldn't get hurt.
"Run!" Kamilla screamed. She pushed Ren away and he stumbled, almost falling in his haste to escape. Kamilla then turned to the wolf, blue eyes flashing dangerously. She roared directly at it, as a final warning. The wolf hesitated, and in that second, Kamilla ran as well. She spun on her heel, jumped clear over the hole, and sprinted as fast as she could.
Rebecca took her cue and pushed off the tree to turn and run as well. Worries flashed through her mind as she sprinted blindly through the forest; how were they to know when they were all safe? Did Ren get away fast enough? What the hell was a wolf doing attacking them alone in broad daylight? How the hell was she going to find her way back?
As Rebecca ran, there was a terrifying moment when she swore she was being pursued; the heavy pants of an animal followed her around a bend in the forest, but she lost it quickly, swerving and turning in every direction.
After what felt like forever, Rebecca burst through a clearing and gasping in shock as the sudden brightness of the sun temporarily blinded her, Rebecca slowed her pace, then stopped completely.
Resisting the urge to bend over and fall to the ground, she placed her hands behind her head, squeezing her eyes tight and walking in circles until she regained her composure.
Dropping her hands and examining her surroundings, she jumped almost a foot in the air when she realized someone was sitting down on the grass beside her.
"Kamilla," Rebecca managed to say, grabbing her own heart and forcing it to settle. Her friend looked up and gave her an apologetic smile before looking down and resumed tying her shoelace.
"Sorry, Becks. I thought you heard me." Kamilla sounded only slightly out of breath. She stood, her fair peach skin flushed and red from the sudden exercise. She placed her hands on her hips and blew a strand of hair out of her face.
"How'd you even find me?" Rebecca asked, knowing that Kamilla probably had been spending most of her time scrambling after her and Ren.
"It wasn't easy," Kamilla admitted, giving Rebecca a once-over to ensure she wasn't hurt. "You're hard to track since you can cover your scent so well. I kind of just stumbled on you."
Rebecca nodded. "And Ren?"
Kamilla pulled her phone out of her pocket and shook it in her wrist while displaying the screen to Rebecca. "Texted me a few minutes ago saying he's back at my house. That kid has a better sense of direction than anyone I've ever known." Her grin wavered. "But he dropped the phone somewhere while he was running."
"Lucky us," Rebecca said bitterly. The pair started towards the trees again. "So what the hell was that?"
"Honestly? I don't know," Kamilla admitted. "It didn't look like it wanted to attack us. Hell, I don't even think it saw you."
"Then why would it even bother?" Rebecca was stressed again, it was obvious in her raised voice and tense tone. Kamilla put an arm around her shoulders.
"I don't know. We should leave all this to Gus. He has to know something," Kamilla suggested. "Because I don't know why a wolf would just show up to scare a bunch of kids, but something about its scent seemed oddly familiar."
Rebecca, who was furiously scrubbing a pan with her soap-drowned rag, almost exploded when her mother put another plate in the sink.
"Watch it, there, Incredible Hulk," Rebecca's Mom warned, half-jokingly. "If you don't ease up on the scrubbing, you'll break it."
Rebecca took a deep breath, trying to steady her heart rate. She pursed her lips and steadied her pace until she was rhythmically rubbing the frying pan. The soothing tempo eased her slightly.
"Stressed?" Rebecca's mom asked but shook her head and raised her hand when her daughter opened her mouth. "Stupid question. What's up?"
Rebecca didn't know where to begin. She exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath. "Mom, have you found anything about that murder yet?"
"No," her mother said, and by the tone of voice she used, Rebecca readied herself for a speech. "That's what you're worried about? The murders are being taken care of, okay?"
"Okay, Mom," Rebecca sighed.
"Come on, Rebecca," her mom said, exasperated. Rebecca placed the pan and the washcloth she was using on the counter, turning to face her mother and wiping her hands on her capris to dry them. "I'm sure you have other things to think about. Like school. Obviously the most important, but things like your friends, semi-formal committee, boys even."
Rebecca couldn't help a grin from sprouting on her face as her mom gave her a suggestive wink. However, it turned into a grimace when she thought of one particular boy that had been gnawing at her thoughts.
"You're having boy trouble too?" her mother almost yelled, rubbing her temples with her finger pads. "Do you ever catch a break? Here's the deal: If he doesn't already know that I - your lovely mother who owns a gun, by the way - am a cop, tell him, and he'll back off. Kapeesh?"
Rebecca let out a genuine laugh, and her mother smiled at the sight of it.
"Maybe," Rebecca agreed, considering the idea. "But he's been bothering my friends too..."
"Oh, we're dealing with a player, huh?" her mom asked, her voice hard as if she was accepting a challenge. "What's his name? I'll make sure to keep an eye out if I catch him slipping up."
"Theo Raeken."
"Raeken?" In that instant, all the mirth was sucked out of her mother's expression. "I think I know who you're talking about."
Rebecca couldn't help but feel a small sense of victory. She knew something was off about that guy. Yet at the same time, she was worried. He had become quite close to Kamilla, and her being hurt was the last thing Rebecca wanted. She was at a loss for words, but too earnest to stay silent, so she opted to say simply: "Really?"
"Mhm," her mom replied, her hand on the counter tensing. Rebecca's mother stared at her daughter as if wishing to glean all the information she could with just a single look. "He was there at the crime scene two days ago, just after you left."
It was Rebecca's turn to become suspicious but only allowed herself to seem confused so her mother would continue.
"He said he knew the guy too, was in his biology class." That much was true, Rebecca knew. "And when we asked him how the hell he found out, he said he was on his way to meet his mother for something, but he didn't seem like he was in much of a hurry to leave."
Rebecca had to admit Ren was right. Theo Fakin' Raeken was spouting lies left, right, and center and had grown into his nickname.
"In fact, he hung around and walked over to where the tail was found when I finally asked him to leave," her mother said, recalling the memory.
Rebecca was speechless. She didn't know whether to sit down to process this guy's motive or to hunt down Theo Raeken and demand he answer all her questions. She had about a hundred for her mother as well, but it was obvious her mom was already shutting her out.
"What I'm trying to say is; stay away from him. He may have a pretty face, but there was something about the way he struts around the place. He's bad news," Rebecca's mother said, pushing off the counter and saying something about getting ready for bed.
Rebecca knew her mother just needed some time to think. She did too, but there were dishes to be washed. Groaning quietly so her mother wouldn't hear, she turned back to the sink.
Before she could grab her washcloth, her phone buzzed from its place on the table. Rebecca watched it as it vibrated across the wooden surface. She wasn't sure if she had enough room in her cluttered mind to spare space for whatever the person messaging her was going to say.
Eventually picking it up and turning it over, she was surprised to see Ren's contact name, Monkey Brain, flashing in the center of her screen. Underneath in all capital letters, it read:
BECKS I THINK I KNOW THE MURDERER'S NEXT TARGET
