Eve pressed her hands into her eyes and groaned quietly. Even with the smell of hot, sweet coffee and lemony cleaner in her nose, she was exhausted. WaffleHenge was starting to fill up with old people for the weekday lunch rush, and the hum and clatter created a pleasant distraction from the dancing runes behind her eyes and the headache she’d had since Harvey had woken her up at dawn.

This henge rune translation was not making any sense. Eve’s notes were still on the page in front of her, thank god, but nothing in them mentioned anything about ghosts or spirits or binding. It read like some kind of sermon, talking about God and Judgement and shit like that. It was weirdly Christian, for a pagan henge.

She sighed and looked at her phone. It was almost lunch, and the guys had agreed the night before to meet up at the diner for the next planning session. After they’d left, and Eve was alone with Harvey and Chelsea, she’d thought about what Jon had said—if, and it was a big if, she had bound Chelsea’s spirit to herself via some kind of spell, it would’ve had to have been in the henge runes. And that meant she needed to translate them.

She slapped the notebook shut and blew air out of her mouth. Stupid runes were pissing her off.

Jon was there, anyway, walking in like he had a gently-blowing breeze and perfectly angled lighting on command. He beamed at Eve and sat down across from her. He was wearing plaid today, going for a rugged woodsman variation to his normal look. The seat creaked as he settled in.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to her notebook. “Spells? Curses?” He grinned.

Eve frowned, the furrow between her eyebrows feeling like a permanent feature. “I’m trying to translate the henge runes I copied the other day.”

Jon’s eyebrows lifted. “The ghost ones?”

“The ones you think might have bound Chelsea to me. But I’m not getting anywhere.” She shoved the notebook into her open backpack and zipped it closed. “What have you been up to?”

“I’ve been doing some hiking while you and Ezra are busy.” Jon stretched and gestured to his bag. “Now that the data from the other night is all compiled, I don’t have much to do during the day.”

The door’s bell jingled, and Ezra strode in with the confidence being in a hurry brings. He sat down next to Jon and barely glanced at him. He had on his press badge still and tugged it off, catching slightly on the fucking bowtie tied around his neck. Eve held her breath to keep from saying something that would hurt his feelings about his fucking bowtie and watched instead as he pulled out his notepad.

“Hi,” Jon said, leaning in on one elbow and smiling at him. “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” Ezra said, touching the fucking bowtie. There, at last, was a hint of the normal Ezra—he laughed nervously. “How are you guys? Sorry to be late; I didn’t see Eve’s text until a bit ago.”

Eve waved the apology away. “I’m fine. Annoyed, but fine.”

“So pretty different than normal?” Jon said, smiling brightly at her.

“I’ll curse you,” Eve said, narrowing her eyes. Jon just laughed, and Eve allowed a tiny upward tilt to show on her mouth.

Ezra laughed softly, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he looked at her. Then he straightened and opened his notepad. “I don’t have a long lunch break, so we should get to work,” he said. “Let’s go over everything we know so far. Chelsea used the word ‘betrayed’ in reference to her death, which we believe means she was murdered. Kyle, our primary suspect, seemed to know that Chelsea had been bitten when he shouldn’t have. The police initially removed him from suspicion after a suspiciously short talk. The police have no other suspects, as both her parents had alibis and they don’t know of anyone else with a motive.”

“What about you?” Eve asked, glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to hear them. The din of forks clattering and scraping against ceramic was loud enough to drown out their discussion, and Donna was too busy with the rush to lurk.

Eve was pretty sure Ezra the vegetarian was the type to gently escort bugs outside rather than kill them and figured he was about as likely to murder someone as a particularly ornery toddler, but she was curious. He’d said it could’ve been him or Kyle in Chelsea’s apartment at 3 AM.

Stolen novel; please report.

His pen froze, and he blinked hard at his notepad. He did not look up at Eve or Jon. “I was never questioned by the police,” he said.

“Huh,” Eve said. “Okay.”

Ezra scribbled something quickly in his notes and then looked up. A thick ray of sunlight broke through the cloud cover and shone into his eyes. “I don’t have an alibi, though, if that’s what you’re asking. I was alone at home that night.”

“You weren’t with your girlfriend or anything?” Jon asked.

Eve rolled her eyes. “Subtle,” she murmured.

Ezra looked down. He shook his head. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Jon tilted his head and leaned in slightly. Ezra sputtered and coughed, shaking his head quickly. Jon smiled at him and Eve.

“That’s okay, we know it was Kyle,” he said. “I mean, that comment about bite wounds on the body…” he made a face. “Being alone that night doesn’t make you a suspect.”

Ezra smiled tightly. “Yeah.” He flipped through his notepad again. He cleared his throat. “Ah. So. We should decide what to pursue next.”

“If you were working on a story,” Eve said, “what would you do?”

Ezra seemed to relax on familiar ground and took a breath. “We suspect Kyle, but the police don’t.” He looked off in thought. “I’d try to figure out what he said to them. Did he give an alibi? Is he bribing the police? How is he getting away with that? Getting the medical examiner’s report on the body would be helpful, though we almost certainly won’t be able to. If the bites on her are animal, that kind of rules Kyle out.”

“But if they’re human,” Eve said, “which they totally are, then we can assume that he did that to support his bonkers defensive strategy of claiming a werewolf killed his girlfriend.”

“Unless Kyle is the werewolf,” Jon said, cupping his chin.

Eve sighed. “Or, crazy thought, there is no werewolf.”

Ezra took a deep breath. “I have reason to believe that there is, um, at least one werewolf in Blackwood.”

“Holy shit, how many times are we going to do this? Werewolves do not exist.”

“Yes they do,” Ezra said. It was one of the most confident things he’d said the entire time she’d known him.

“They definitely do,” Jon said.

“Agree to disagree, I guess.” Eve pressed her lips together.

“You bound a ghost to yourself with magic,” Jon said.

“Allegedly.”

“Ghosts.” Ezra said.

Eve threw up her hands and then crossed her arms. “I guess. How do you even find out if someone is a werewolf? Do you have any leads?” she asked Ezra. He fidgeted and shook his head.

“It’s almost the full moon,” Jon said. “That’s the perfect time to investigate a werewolf.”

Ezra startled, dropping his notepad into his lap. He laughed a little as he picked it back up. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It seems dangerous—“

The door of the diner jingled as someone walked in, and Ezra’s eyes went wide. Eve glanced back. Kyle stared at the three of them with a stupid smirk on his face. His hair was styled into ridiculous height and looked like it might collapse if someone breathed on it. He strode over to their booth like he was doing them a favor, and Eve could already feel her hackles rising.

“I heard you all were helping the police investigate Chelsea’s death,” he said when he reached their table. Jon’s face went from friendly to flirty with a speed that might have been comical if it hadn’t involved Kyle, who was starting to be a massive pain in Eve’s ass.

“Have a seat, handsome,” Jon said, winking. Eve mouthed “the fuck?” at him, but his gaze remained glued to Kyle.

“Thank you, I will,” Kyle said, sitting in the spot next to Eve. Ezra stared wide-eyed and silent at him, worse than he’d ever been around Jon or Father Thomas. “Have you figured anything out yet?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Eve said. She didn’t know why the guys were drooling over an average-looking fuckboy, but that didn’t mean she had to sit there and let it happen.

“Yes. I want to know what information you’ve come across,” he said, smiling at her. The smile thinned as she glared at him.

“Of course,” Ezra said, swallowing. “Anything you want.”

“How sweet of you to help me,” Kyle said, reaching out to touch Ezra’s hand. Jon glanced at their hands, envy plain on his face.

“We aren’t telling you anything. Don’t fall for that,” Eve said. “He’s not that hot, I promise.” Jon and Ezra blinked, looking confused.

“Excuse me?” Kyle said. He tilted his head and looked at her. Looked to see her, rather than to catch her attention. “You should apologize.” He stared straight into her eyes. There was something odd about his eyes that resisted being seen. Like heat waves or the floaties in her eye—it moved when she looked for it.

“I absolutely will not,” Eve said, staring right back. “You should fuck off, you creepy bastard.”

Kyle recoiled.

Jon shook his head a little. “Wait, what?” he said. “Who is this?”

“This is Kyle, the weirdo.” Eve leaned toward him, poking a finger at his chest. “But none of us are interested in his bullshit, are we? So he should go away.” Kyle winced and squinted at her. Ezra sucked in a breath and pressed his back into the booth cushion, leaning away from Kyle.

“How…?” Kyle started to say, and Eve was done.

“Listen, you nasty-ass, steamed cauliflower bitch,” she said. “I know that’s difficult with your scrambled egg brain, but we want you to leave. Your white-bread, D-tier romance lead face is annoying, so fuck off.” Kyle sagged back against the vinyl seat and brought a hand up to his chest, struggling to breathe. Without another word, he scrambled out of the booth and left the restaurant, the door slamming behind him.