That was my life for six years. A gray, loveless life that probably would have gone on forever.

Until Gordon Brink came back to town.

Until the Ursulina came back.

At that point, sweetheart, I had no idea who Brink was. My mind had a face, but no name. And obviously, Brink was terrified of running into me. I can only imagine the horror he’d felt when Ajax told him about the murders. He’d assumed that Kip and Racer had buried me in the forest along with his sins. Instead, he knew there was a woman in Black Wolf County burning for vengeance, a woman who would never forget his face.

Maybe, if not for the pig’s blood dousing his wife, he and I never would have met again. She called the sheriff’s department without telling Gordon, and I was the one Jerry sent to investigate. Fate. When we saw each other, he didn’t miss the surge of violence on my face, the shock that became blinding rage. He knew I’d be back for him. He knew. That Sunday before Christmas, while the town and my husband were at the 126 watching Jamie Lee Curtis take off her shirt, I was knocking on Gordon Brink’s office door out in the woods.

He was no fool. He had a gun, because he assumed I was there to do to him what I’d done to Kip and Racer. It was kill or be killed. But I tried to put him at ease. I told him that too much time had gone by, that neither one of us wanted the truth to come out. I said I was there so we could come to some kind of arrangement. Money. A lot of money. I suggested we drink on it.

As he poured the whiskey, I hit him in the back of the head.

When he was unconscious, I dragged him to the bed. I could feel the beast in my bloodstream, putting me into a kind of fugue where I wasn’t even aware of what I was doing. When I awoke from my transformation, I was soaked in blood, the meat shredders in my hands. Gordon Brink lay on the bed with the look of someone who’d seen the face of hell before dying.

The message from the beast was already painted on the wall.

In that moment, Shelby, I thought—I swear I thought—I was free. It was over. Done. I’d purged the beast. The past was the past, and it had given up its grip on me. But of course, no evil deed comes without consequences.