Across the parking lot, a girl was getting out of an old, dust-covered sedan. She moved carefully, almost uncertainly, as if her legs were still figuring out how to work. A gray scarf was wrapped high around her neck, and her coat was a soft brown that seemed to blend into the winter landscape. But it was her eyes that caught the light—wide, dark, and watchful, like something that had spent a long time learning to be afraid.

Across the lot, a few other students had gone still. A boy near the bike rack had dropped his backpack. A girl by the doors had frozen mid-step, her nostrils flaring. The werewolves of Beacon Hills were all smelling the same thing, and every instinct in them was screaming one word, over and over, like a drumbeat.