Nif dozed. When she woke, her neck ached and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. And then it came crashing down all at once. Baskerville. Oliver shifting. The kidnapping.

The van had stopped. She was alone and in her head she vaguely could hear the echoes of a car door slamming. It was possibly what woke her up. Slowly, as if Stella would leap in her wolf form from the front seats at any moment, Nif carefully shifted to her feet, crouching to avoid being seen through the front windscreen. Her legs screamed as her blood burned through her veins after sitting still for too long. Outside the van was quiet. She could tell from the light it was morning. The soft, buttermilk yellow glow of first light filtered through the window to splash across her shaking hands. Straining her ears, all Nif could hear was the song of natural birds trilling to each other.

Where had Baskerville and his siblings disappeared to? Were they still in the city? She carefully crept to the front section of the van and saw what appeared to be a carpark, a dusting of undisturbed ice crystals coating the ground thickly. Beyond the carpark were dark, bare trees. A forest. The tree trunks were so thick even her mother in her shifted form wouldn’t be able to entirely wrap her arms around them. There was no movement besides the flitting flight of fluffy finches gathering the last of Autumn’s harvest.

Moira’s phone had no reception so Nif turned it off for now and hid it in her bra. As soon as she got out of the forest, she’d try again.

She didn’t trust the van sliding door to not make too much of a noise so she slipped into the passenger front seat instead and eased open the door. She hesitated, ears straining, to hear anything untoward. Nothing. Her heart pounded hard in her ears. There were footprints left in the frost beneath the door. Large boots. They headed towards the back of the van and for a horrible moment Nif wondered if the wolf family were waiting just out of sight in shifted form, long tongues hanging from their sharp-toothed mouths, open in silent laughter at her helplessness.

Staying here wasn’t an option though. Already she could feel the cold of the day seeping inside her jacket and wool jumper. It was so much warmer in the bustle of the city surrounded by people and cars, buildings pumping hot air into the streets and artificially warming the air. The sky here was a washed out grey, thin like broth, and the rising sun made no promises of a warmer day.

If there was a carpark, then there had to be a road out of here. All Nif had to do was follow it, maybe flag down a car and ask for help. Except it didn’t make sense for Baskerville and his siblings to just drive her out here and then seemingly abandon her and their van. If they were the ones who’d killed all those people, killed Morris, removing their eyes and leaving them discarded like unwanted rubbish, then they had obviously more planned for her. Belinda Woltonstcroft, Jeremy Chang and Sarah Lawson, the first three victims, had all been found a week after they’d gone missing. What had happened to them during the time they were gone?

Stealing her nerves, Nif slipped from the passenger seat, her shoes crunching through the icy crust coating the carpark’s stone gravel. Still no movement nor any hint she was about to be attacked. Without moving from the protective cover of the open door, Nif studied the path of the icy foot prints. They continued past the back of the van and towards the road leading out of this place.

Nif shivered. She couldn’t stay here. She followed the footprints around the edge of the van as they met up with the prints of other boots and the smaller scuffs of what could only have been wolf Stella. It led to a pile of clothes. The hoodie Daz had worn was discarded on top of Baskerville’s tracksuit pants and bare human footprints shifted into large pawprints, disappearing into the trees either side of the narrow, one lane track leading out of the forest.

This was a hunt. Baskerville and his family were a pack who enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. And their prey were people who had shift issues or had no shift at all. To Baskerville’s pack, they were chasing the unworthy.

Nif imagined what Thea would say, her steady, husky voice filling her mind.

“First the attacker would isolate the victim.” Breaking it down gave Nif the space to calm down and look at the situation rationally. “Then they would take them into the wilderness so they can hunt them.” The image of Thea paced in Nif’s mind, back and forth. “And finally the hunt would come to an end.” Baskerville would lead the hunt. He may not be the oldest and he was clearly not the alpha – Daz obviously held both positions –, but this hunt was his. Did they each choose their own victim? Hunting them first through social dating apps and luring them with hopes of love and friendship, this twisted family would then hunt their chosen one through the primedial forests where their ancestors once did the same thing.

“And afterwards,” Thea’s voice continued in Nif’s head. “They would carve out their victim’s eyes. Perhaps in remorse or guilt. Symbolically the victim can no longer see them to cast accusation or blame. Though the brutality of the attacks and the sadistic pleasure in the hunt itself lends to the idea that the removal of the eyes represents disgust or hatred, perhaps to mark the victim as being less than them or weak.”

Well just because Nif couldn’t shift didn’t mean she was weak. She was going to save herself and stop these monsters from ever hurting someone else again. But first she needed a weapon. They were probably watching her right now, waiting for her to start running so they could chase. But that meant she had a moment’s reprieve to prepare.

The van door did shriek as she slid it open, but she didn’t care anymore. There would be no fun for them if they attacked her now. The car keys weren’t conveniently left in the keyhole, though she did check the glove box and under the sun visor. Nothing. She locked the front passenger door and checked the driver’s side was unlocked before returning to the back of the van.

The duffle bag containing the electric screwdriver and the pile of white laminate were pushed into a corner and when she emptied the bag, she also found a plastic fishing box full of drill bits and a pair of surgical scissors, slim and rusted shut.

“Now this could be useful.”

Leaving the electric screwdriver -- the best she could do was throw it -- she emptied the drill bits into her palm, pleased to find the tips were pointed and sharp. While she didn’t have claws, she could make her own. She pocketed the scissors.

There were no forgotten weapons in the van and she doubted there would be anything useful in the pile of clothes outside, but she would check them all anyway, locking the van sliding door from the inside and exiting via the driver’s door. There was a tension weaving through the quiet trees. The birds had fallen silent, not even the soft rustle of their tiny beaks digging through leaf litter could be heard, as they hid, frozen, sensing the threat lurking in the forest.

Keeping an eye on the bone white trees that seemed as if they were edging closer and closer, edging her in, Nif scuttled towards the abandoned clothes. As she riffled through the hoodie pocket, Nif felt more than heard the growl. Her time was up and if she didn’t act now, her chances of survival would drop. She didn’t want to end up like the other victims. Her body dumped somewhere. It would destroy her parents.

Before she stood, she tightened her shoe laces as if she was preparing to run, but running from wolves would never work in her favour.

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Nif bolted. But instead of running down the road towards supposed freedom, she dashed for the van, slipping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind her. Locking it, she jabbed the scissors into the ignition and turned. Nothing happened.

“Come on,” she hissed. She’d read about jump starting a car like this from a detective book. The name of the novel eluded her, but on seeing the scissors, the passage had flashed up in her mind as if she was reading it again. The success of the act depended on how old the van was and the type of scissors, but it was the only hope she had. Being behind the protective shield of metal with the ability to drive over a 100 kph would give her the advantage. One she couldn’t afford not to have.

From the corner of her eye, Nif spotted movement. Slow and wary, as if Baskerville’s pack had yet to fully realise what she was attempting. Maybe they thought she was hiding. Had any of the others attempted to hide in the van? Locked inside? Or had they always attempted to run?

Nif turned the scissors again.

“Yes!” The engine roared to life. She pounded down on the acceleration before she’d even fully removed the brake and jolted forward, turning hard on the wheel to avoid ploughing into the wooden barricade surrounding the carpark and just missing the white muzzle of the wolf she recognised as Stella, snapping at the front wheels as Nif attempted to turn the van around.

Daz had shifted back into his human form, clearly understanding opposable thumbs would be more useful than paws, and was hefting a large rock, striding forward in all his naked glory. He launched his weapon and it thumped into the windscreen, becoming embedded in the glass, cobweb cracks radiating out and decreasing Nif’s visibility. Another blow and the whole thing would collapse inwards and Nif’s armour would be weakened.

Nif was prepared to mow down anyone who got in her way, but she still instinctively swerved, squinting through the cracks, to avoid Daz as he dashed in front of the van. The side of the vehicle crunched against wood. The van almost flipped, but Nif righted it and found herself facing the exit.

The wolf she knew to be Baskerville, his pelt streaked in grey and black, stood in her path and she grinned at him, all teeth, feeling a little bit like a wolf herself.

“Screw you,” Nif bellowed and accelerated. Baskerville leapt out of the way when he was close enough for Nif to see the rage flashing bright in his blue eyes.

Trees flashed past in a blur of white and grey. The howling of wolves followed her. The narrow road wound lazily through the forest and the shattered front windscreen made it impossible for her to go above fifty without crashing. At this rate, Baskerville and the others would overtake her. Sweat beaded down her cheek, her heart thumping in her chest, fingers slick on the wheel despite the icy air pumping through the cracked window.

The road curved, the wheels of the van sliding in the gravel and Nif’s attention was briefly divided as she wiped sweat from her eyes that she didn’t see the fallen tree until it was too late.

She wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

The windscreen shattered into chunky square pieces of glass as her body flew through it, and when she hit the ground, she found she couldn’t breathe from the impact and shock.

Darkness edged her vision as she forced air into her lungs. Long, toothy grins crowded round her, a mix of lupine and human.

“You were right, brother,” Daz laughed. “She’s given us an excellent chase. She’s strong and smart, but it’s a real shame she doesn’t look like she’s going to shift at all.”

“Please, let me go,” Nif whimpered.

“But where would the fun be in that?” Baskerville crowed. The sound of a car attempting to start, or maybe a motorbike, filled the forest silence and the siblings tensed. Stella’s fur bristled as she snarled over Nif’s head and Daz’s nostrils flared, as if he could smell something even in human form. Nif struggled to see, her neck feeling like knotted rope, but she couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from. It was familiar though. The sort of sound her mother would make if she discovered the last of the shortbread had been eaten, but less annoyed bear and more outraged. Had her mother somehow found her?

“Shit, Daz. Who the fuck is that?” Oscar’s skin flickered briefly, as if he’d considered shifting but had changed his mind. Instead he inched towards the van, the driver’s door crumpled open, and felt beneath the driver’s seat. Why hadn’t Nif thought to check under them? He pulled out a gun. An honest to god, shiny black gun. For some reason Nif hadn’t even considered the family would be actually armed.

“Easy, brother,” Daz murmured. He was smiling, as if he had no fear at all for what may come charging out of the forest. He barked something – strange from a human throat – and Dougie and Stella faded into the trees to leave the two older brothers waiting over Nif’s supine body, Oscar by the van with the gun.

When Oliver charged out of the forest, it was more of a tired, angry lope. He had to have been chasing them since the University, which could’ve been for hours for all Nif knew. It showed from the dark streaks of sweat through his fur and the foamy spittle around his open, panting jaws. His eyes were the startling sea foam green of his human form.

“Oliver?” Nif wondered if she was dreaming.

“You’re the freak who attacked us at the university!” Oscar exclaimed, pointing the gun at the bear shifter. “You were a real pain in the arse, you know?”

Baskerville waved his brother down and stood tall, hands on his hips, head tilted to the side as he studied Oliver. “You know what she is and yet you come for her. What is your relationship with her? She’s not dating, otherwise she would’ve long deleted her Tender account. But would just a friend go to all this effort of tracking her down in person? You’ve come quite some way. Anyone else would’ve just waited for the police.”

Oliver snarled, ignoring the gun still trained on him and only stopping when he reached Nif. His nostrils flared as he tried to smell if she was okay without taking his eyes off the brother.

“I’m alright,” Nif whispered, reaching up a hand to touch the soft fur beneath his chin.

“Neither of you are,” Baskerville interrupted. “I’m afraid your so-called friend has made this particularly difficult and I’m left with a dilemma. What should we do with you? It was Oliver, wasn’t it? See, we’re not quite finished with Jenny here so I’m afraid my brother will just have to shoot you.”

Nif screamed as the gunshot tore through the tense silence of the forest. Oliver grunted and swayed over her and she forced herself up, ignoring the pain flaring in her body. He was so big she couldn’t tell where he was actually shot at first. Oscar shot twice more, the dull, thumping sounds of projectiles hitting flesh made her sick. When Oliver collapsed into a heap, almost on top of her, Nif cried out again, tears making it hard to see.

“Now, now, Jenny. We haven’t killed him,” Baskerville said soothingly. “He may be useful in making sure you do as you’re meant to. He’s just heavily tranquilised. Enough to knock out a bear, so it would seem.”

“He’ll be a bitch to carry,” Oscar grumbled.

“Patience, my dear brother,” Daz spoke up. “Give it a moment and...ah, there he goes.”

Oliver trembled and then shifted, fur absorbing into skin, muscle and bone transforming into something smaller and delicate until finally, lying in a heap, was a human man. In one shoulder and two in his right thigh were the small, feathered tips of darts. The relief rushing through Nif left her dizzy. She groaned softly and fell back in the dry leaf litter covering the road.

Nif fought to remain conscious, but her thoughts were slipping away from her, like goldfish in a pond. Baskerville’s face grew closer, his thick eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m not done with you just yet,” he said. His hands cupped Nif’s face, almost gentle, tilting her head from side to side as if inspecting her for injuries.

“Daz, I’m not sure if this one is going to work out and now with two of them? It’s putting the pack at risk,” Oscar said.

“You know that sometimes the shift occurs a little while after the initial trauma,” Daz soothed. “Rules state she has a week. It’s tradition. And this is Bas’s hunt.”

A week? Nif blinked hard, her mouth opening but no words could be formed, her mind full of fog. Was this some kind of trial by fire? Either she would shift or die? And what about Oliver? What would they do to him when she failed their little test?

“Get her up then,” Daz ordered. “She’s totalled the van. Oscar, get the spare. It’s gonna be a long wait until you can pick us up. Bas, she’s your pick so your responsibility.”

“I know that, Daz.” Baskerville leant down close, his breath warm against Nif’s cheek and she could smell something spicy on his breath. When he picked her up, something in her arm flared hot and white and she finally succumbed to unconsciousness. Her last thought was of Oliver and whether he’d managed to get help before charging to her rescue.