BLOOD MOON MATE: Claimed by the Enemy Alpha

The diner's back door was open.

Wren stood in the gravel lot, keys still in her hand, staring at the six inches of black gap between the door and the frame.

Marion never left that door open. Not once. Not in nine years of moving, of hiding, of lock everything twice.

"Marion?"

Her voice came out smaller than she wanted.

She pushed the door the rest of the way open with two fingers, like touching it less would make whatever was inside less real.

The kitchen lights were on. The fryer was still running, oil popping quietly, untended.

A rag sat crumpled on the prep counter next to a knife nobody had put away.

"Marion, this isn't funny."

It wasn't funny. Wren already knew that. Her stomach knew it before her brain caught up, that cold drop behind the ribs that had no name.

She stepped over the threshold.

Something crunched under her shoe.

She looked down. Glass. A shattered mug, sugar and coffee soaked into the tile, already going tacky.

"Okay." She said it out loud to steady herself. "Okay, okay."

She checked the walk-in first. Cold air hit her face, shelves of produce untouched, nothing. She backed out and kept moving.

She checked the storage closet next, yanking the door so hard it banged the wall. Mop bucket. Bleach. Nothing.

She checked the office. Empty, chair spun sideways, drawer hanging open, cash tray sitting on top like whoever went through it hadn't even wanted the money. The little desk fan was still running too, ruffling a stack of receipts nobody had bothered to weigh down.

That detail snagged in her mind and wouldn't let go.

Nobody robs a register and leaves the drawer sitting on top like a gift.

She found the cardigan on the floor by the back hallway.

Marion's cardigan. The gray one she wore every shift, sleeves always pushed up past her elbows.

There was a tear straight through the shoulder seam. Not a rip from snagging on something. A tear, like something had grabbed the fabric and pulled.

Wren picked it up without thinking and her hand came away wet.

She looked at her palm.

Red. Dark red, already tacky at the edges, same as the mug on the floor.

"No."

She said it flat. Not a question.

Her phone was already in her other hand, thumb jabbing Marion's contact before she'd made a conscious decision to call.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hi, you've reached-"

She hung up before the voicemail finished and called again.

Same thing. Four rings, the same recorded voice, cheerful in a way that made her want to throw the phone across the kitchen.

"Pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick up-"

Nothing.

She tried Denise next, the other waitress on shift tonight, fingers slipping on the screen.

Denise picked up on the second ring, half a laugh already in her voice. "Hey, if this is about the schedule-"

"Is Marion with you?"

The laugh died. "What? No. Why would-"

"Did you see her leave? Tonight, did you see her actually leave the building?"

A pause. Too long a pause.

"I left before her. Wren, what's going on, you sound-"

Wren hung up. She didn't have time to explain it and didn't trust her own voice not to crack halfway through trying.

Her phone buzzed once in her hand a few seconds later - Denise, calling back already. Wren silenced it and shoved the phone in her pocket. Whatever this was, she couldn't do it and hold a conversation at the same time.

She shoved the cardigan into her bag, blood and all, because leaving it here felt like leaving Marion here, and she wasn't doing that.

She turned toward the front of the diner and that's when she saw the fridge.

A single sheet of paper, torn from the notepad by the register, stuck under a ketchup-shaped magnet.

Marion's handwriting. Fast. Pressed hard enough to tear the paper in one corner.

RUN. Don't call anyone. Don't trust the eyes.

Wren read it three times.

It didn't get any less insane on the third read.

Don't trust the eyes. Whose eyes. Eyes doing what.

She almost laughed, one short broken sound with nothing behind it, because her aunt had never in her life written her a note that didn't end with a smiley face or a reminder to eat something green.

This wasn't Marion being Marion.

This was Marion being afraid.

Wren had seen her aunt calm during a kitchen fire. Calm when their car got broken into in Reno. Calm the one time a man followed them three blocks in Spokane and Marion had just steered Wren into a coffee shop like it was nothing.

She had never once seen handwriting like this.

Her hands were shaking now. She noticed it distantly, the way you notice weather.

She grabbed her keys again - when had she put them down - and headed for the front door instead of the back, because the back door already felt wrong, already felt watched.

The bell over the door jingled, too loud in the empty diner.

Outside, the lot was exactly as empty as it had been five minutes ago. Her car sat alone under the one working streetlight, the OPEN sign behind her buzzing faint and orange against the glass.

She got three steps toward it.

Then she heard the engine.

Not starting. Already running, already close, headlights swinging across the gravel and pinning her in place before she'd even turned around.

Two beams, blinding, closing fast.

Wren's legs locked. Not frozen - braced, like her body already knew running in a straight line was the wrong move.

The car didn't slow down.

Gravel sprayed against her shins as it cut the wheel at the last second, missing her by a foot, and shuddered to a stop sideways across the lot exit.

Blocking it.

The engine cut. The headlights stayed on, throwing her shadow long and black across the diner windows.

A door opened. Then a second one, on the far side.

Nobody got out.

"Marion sends her love," a voice said from the dark behind the lights.

Wren's stomach dropped straight through the gravel.

That voice knew her aunt's name. She hadn't said it out loud once since walking in the door.