The cursed thing had turned completely silver, malleable like liquid. It looked entirely like a wolf now too, lips pulled from her muzzle and silver saliva dripping down to melt into the fur at the base. And it was her. Somehow I knew it. A shudder went through me as I thought I might hear something but wasn’t sure. “You know what?” I said, my voice shaky as I looked at it in its box, cushioned by David’s scarf. “You can have it. I don’t want it back. Really.”

David swallowed. “Rachel, we’re friends and everything, but no. There is no way in hell I’m taking that thing into my apartment.”

“It’s not going back into my house!” Jenks said. “No freakin’ way! Listen to it! It’s making my teeth hurt. I already get misery once a month from twenty-three females, and I’m not putting up with it from some weird-ass Were statue on the full moon. Rachel, cover it up or something. Tink’s tampons, can’t you all hear that?”

I picked the box up, and the hair on my arms rose. Stifling a shudder, I opened the freezer and shoved it between the cold-burned waffles and the banana bread that tasted like asparagus that my mom had brought over. The fridge was stainless steel. It might help.

The phone rang and Ivy jumped up, heading for the living room as Jenks hovered over the sink and shed golden sparkles. “Better?” I said when I closed the freezer, and he sneezed, nodding as the last glitters fell.

Ivy appeared in the archway with the phone, her eyes black, and clearly ticked, to judge by her wire-tight stance. “What do you want, crap for brains?”

Nick.

Jenks jerked three feet into the air. I was sure my eyes were full of pity, but Jenks shook his head, not wanting to talk to his son. That Nick had romanced his son from him for a life of crime was far worse than anything Nick had ever done to me.

Not knowing what I was feeling, I held my hand out. Ivy hesitated, and my eyes narrowed. Grimacing, she slapped the phone into my palm. “If he comes here, I’ll kill him,” she muttered. “I mean it. I’ll drive him up to Mackinaw and throw him over for real.”

“Take a number,” I said when she sat in her spot before her computer. Clearing my throat, I put the receiver to my ear. “Hello-o-o-o-o, Nick,” I said, hitting the k hard. “You’re the world’s biggest jerk for what you did to Jax. You ever show your scrawny face in Cincinnati again, and I’m going to shove a broomstick up your ass and set it on fire. You got that?”

“Rachel,” he said, sounding frantic. “It’s not real!”