“I’m glad you’re finally considering your aunt as a suspect,” Brendan whispered to June, who was holding her nose to the slightly lowered window. Her hair billowed around her head.

“She’s not a suspect,” June whispered back. “Ach—that mothball smell! I just want to check in on her. Maybe she’s noticed someone odd around her snakes or something.”

She caught Dr. Chase turning his ear toward their conversation from the front. “Pay attention to the road,” she snapped. He straightened up quickly, his black leather seat squeaking with the movement.

Brendan, now looking to the front of the car, seemed transfixed by the glowing buttons, knobs, and levers on the dashboard and glossy wooden instrument panel. “What’s that thing right there do?” he asked, leaning forward and pointing near the steering wheel. “Can I touch it?”

“Do not touch a thing!” Dr. Chase hissed as the car swerved.

“What about that button?” Brendan asked, leaning and pointing again. “That one, right there.”

“The crown help me, boy, I can’t concentrate with you poking around like a child.” Dr. Chase’s eyes narrowed to slits in the rearview mirror.

“You know, June,” he continued, keeping his eyes on the road, “with all these persons disappearing around here, perhaps there’s someone with evil intentions about, someone like you.”

“You think I have evil intentions?” she said acidly, crossing her arms.

Dr. Chase nervously licked his lips. “No no, my dear! I just meant someone else in Seven Falls who can, you know, transform.”

“There’s no one else like me in Seven Falls, I can assure you,” June replied.

“Are you certain—” he began, but before he could finish Brendan leaned over the armrest and poked a button on the center console. Dr. Chase tried to swat his hand and the car swerved again. “Are you daft, man! We’re going to crash if you don’t sit back in your seat and stop acting so dodgy!”

*******

As they turned on to Aunt Violet’s street, Brendan suggested Dr. Chase let them out several houses away and wait in the car. Dr. Chase had disagreed and argued, until June said to do it, and then Dr. Chase agreed it would be wise.

As they got out of the car June listened intently and sniffed the air. Aunt Violet’s neighborhood didn’t have a lot of houses. Of the houses it did have, they were spaced far apart, and it seemed tonight like every house had a dog outside and barking. The dogs appeared unsettled about something. Remembering Chloe’s reaction, June had the uncomfortable notion the unsettling presence was her.

“What’s the plan here?” Brendan asked as he came around to her side. “Should we do ‘good cop bad cop?’ I figure I can be the bad cop and you can be—”

“What?” she interrupted. “We’re not interrogating Aunt Violet. I just want to check on her and ask her some questions.”

“Does she know about your ability?” Dr. Chase asked as he joined them and leaned in conspiratorially.

June looked at him with irritation. “What are you doing out of the car?”

“Helping, of course. I thought I’d join you in your interrogation of Dr. Langley.”

“Absolutely not,” June said, waving a hand through the air in a chop. “And we are not interrogating her. You can go home now, Dr. Chase.”

“Are you sure? What if you need transportation?”

“We’ll be fine, thank you.”

“All cards on the table, my dear—I was hoping to see more of your ability,” Dr. Chase said. “And I’m sure you’ll be better off with me here.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Brendan looked like he was trying to shoot death-lasers out of his eyes at the man. “You’ve done plenty,” June replied. “I really do appreciate the clothes and the ride. But you need to go home now.”

Dr. Chase let out a disappointed sigh. “If you say so, June. I’ll just wait here in the car to make sure Dr. Langley is home before I head on.”

“Fine,” she said. “Just don’t get out of the car again, and don’t follow us.”

They started down the street, and just as they passed under a streetlight, Dr. Chase yelled, “Your secret is safe with me!”

June froze in mid-step, turned back to him with blazing eyes, and held a finger over her lips in aggravation.

As they walked along the street, sticking to the shadows and avoiding streetlights lest Dr. Chase yell again, June spoke up. “We probably shouldn’t tell my aunt what we’re doing.”

Brendan nodded. “The less she knows, the better. If she is the bad guy—I mean girl—we don’t want her to know that we know. If she knows what we know, but we don’t know that she knows what we know—”

June held up a hand. “Please don’t say the word ‘know’ again. Your brain might get stuck. I also don’t want her to be an accessory, or accomplice, or whatever it’s called, for what we’re doing tonight.”

Brendan started to agree, but stopped short and furrowed his eyebrows. “It would be an accessory, I think—but that means I’m an accessory.”

June shrugged and smiled reassuringly at him. “I think you’d just be an actual criminal, like me, not an accessory.” Brendan laughed nervously. “And we aren’t going to get caught,” June added.

They walked in silence for a few more steps. June waved away her yoga-pant mask—they weren’t sneaking in, she reminded Brendan. He looked up at the full moon, shining brightly overhead. “Hey June, look at that full moon. Do you think there are werewolves out tonight?”

“I told you werewolves are just Shifters who turn into wolves. So yes, probably.”

Worry flooded Brendan’s face. June grinned. “You don’t need to worry. You know why?”

“Because…I have you?” he ventured.

“Correct. I would eat werewolves for breakfast.”

“That’s gross, June,” Brendan replied, but he smiled while he said it.

“And for what it’s worth, you would so be the good cop and I would be the bad cop,” she said as she climbed the stairs to the large, white porch.

The house, a dark blue cape cod, had white shutters along every window, and the blinds were closed on each one, shutting out any light. Except for the creaking of the wood as they moved toward the door, and the soft whoosh of the wind, it was eerily silent. Weird.

June knocked, but no one came to the door. As she closed her eyes to focus her hearing, bright light pierced her eyelids. She opened them to see Dr. Chase slowly roll to a stop in front of the house, his window lowered, headlights now shining down the street. He stuck his head out of the window and gave her a wave and a thumbs up. She shook her head in exasperation at him and pointed down the street. She knocked again on the front door, harder this time. The silence pressed in on them. No one answered.

“It feels weird up here,” Brendan whispered.

June closed her eyes again. She could hear faint noises coming from inside the house, too much noise to be anything other than a person. Someone was definitely home. Maybe Aunt Violet was taking a shower or something.

June took a few steps to the side and tried peering around the blinds, without success. She motioned to Brendan, and they crept off the porch and then ran to the back of the house—moonlight made the path clear even for Brendan. Several clusters of dogwoods, their red leaves soaking up the moonlight, created pools of shadow for them to hide under when they reached the back corner. A privacy fence around the backyard also helped conceal them.

June pointed at the window she knew overlooked the kitchen sink. But the window sat just slightly too high for June to see into the kitchen—right now, she could just make out a portion of the kitchen ceiling. “Can you see inside?” she asked Brendan.

He stood on tip toes, but then shook his head. “Not well. I can’t see into the room.”

“Okay, one of us has to lift the other up,” June whispered. “There’s only one way to settle who does the looking and who does the lifting.”

Brendan nodded. He knew what was coming, so he held out a closed hand, and June held out a closed hand. “Rock, paper, scissors, one…two…three…shoot!” they whispered in unison.

While June had the intellect of someone much older than fifteen, there were still some things she did not fully appreciate. One of those things was just how well Brendan knew her. She let out a quiet “Darn!” when she saw his paper against her rock.

“I always win,” he said, and got rewarded with an eye roll. He was mostly right; he’d won twenty of the last twenty-two times they’d played. June vowed the next time would be different.

And so, just like at Dr. Crushov’s wall, June made a basket with her hands for Brendan to step into, which he did. As she watched, he slowly raised his head until he was peering in the window. A few quiet seconds passed.

An owl hooted in the distance and June wondered what Cordelia was doing right now. Probably packing up their stuff so they could flee Seven Falls. Or had she decided to do the right thing, to stay and fight and rescue Mr. Moseley?

As she was about to whisper up to Brendan, he cried out and fell away from the window. June rushed to his side and looked up.

The face in the window made her heart leap into her throat.