The nightmare always began with the unanswered phone calls.
"6:30! Where's Aldo?" Mrs. Maria Carvalho entered her kitchen with sounds from clinking glasses and the laughter of guests slipping in.
Her daughter, Reina, looked up from her seat by the kitchen table, phone pressed to her ear as Aldo's voicemail greeting played for the umpteenth time. "He's not answering, mama. I've tried calling him over and over."
"Ugh," Maria moved to the soup on the stove. "I bet he's out with those boys again. He didn't even bother with the turkey before pulling another disappearing act. Today of all days, Lulu's engagement dinner!"
Reina nodded in agreement as she redialed his phone. Six months ago, she would've made excuses for his behaviour, but his recent friendship with the Souza Alphas of Souza High, annoyed her terribly. They weren't actual werewolf Alphas, but a group of badly behaved human kids who ran the school as they pleased. Since he started keeping their company, Aldo always came home smelling like cigarette smoke despite his asthma. His clothes, swagger, and manner of speaking had changed completely overnight. Although he remained a loving son to their parents, major slip-ups like this never went unnoticed.
Maria finished with the soup and grabbed a large charcuterie board, still grumbling as she exited the kitchen.
Reina tried her brother's line again, cursing to the high heavens as she went directly to voice mail. She cut in anger and flung the device across the kitchen table. Something was wrong. She could feel it deep in her gut as her twinny senses fired on all cylinders. But what could she do? Aldo had stopped sharing his location that morning, and she hadn't bothered to have the numbers of his new friends before now. Although, she could find them if she really wanted to. A few calls to some friends from school and a little snoop around their socials could reveal what new location they were hanging at. But that would mean abandoning her cousin's engagement party too.
"Reina?" The kitchen door swung open, and her cousin swooped in for a second charcuterie board. "Are you joining the party or you're going to be here all evening?"
"No, I'll be out in a minute."
"Good, because it's my big day," Lulu flung her head back in an exaggerated show of excitement. "And I shouldn't do nothing but sit and look pre—"
A sudden loud ring from Reina's phone interrupted them. She peeked at the caller ID before snatching it up in a hurry.
"Where the hell are you, Aldo? Everyone's been asking of you."
"He better be on his way back." Lulu muttered as she took the board and exited the kitchen.
"Hello? Are you there?" Reina frowned. The network connection wasn't so good, but she heard his laboured breathing through the static. "Are you…running?"
"Reina!" his voice came up clear. "Ruiz knows! He saw me shift and—" It trailed off with the bad connection.
"Hello?" A shudder passed through her. Ruiz saw him? She scrambled off the kitchen stool and bolted through the backdoor for a better network signal. "Hello? Aldo!"
"—have a gun." His voice steadied again, sounding forced and painful. "I've been shot at twice!"
"What?" Heart slammed against her chest. "I—I can't get a word of what you're saying, Ruiz saw you shift and shot you?"
As if the news had conjured it, a loud bang from a gunshot rents the air in the background instantly. Fear clutched at her throat as his painful screech pinned her to a spot.
"A-Aldo? Aldo?!!"
Silence.
"Aldo!!!" she screamed, her eyes pooling with unshed tears. The line went dead, and she redialed quickly. It rang a few times before his voice came back again.
"He shot me. . . He—"
"Where are you?!"
"They're . . . kill me, Ray." Static. "—running around in circles, help me."
"Mama!" Reina hurried inside, worsening the static from the lousy connection. She stuck her head out the kitchen door and screamed above the loud celebratory music. "Mama, Aldo's in trouble!"
Maria took one look at her daughter's tear-stricken face and froze mid-way through serving another guest. Reina ran back towards the backdoor, knowing the adults weren't far behind.
"Aldo! Aldo, say something, please."
Her father came up behind her and snatched the phone from her grip. "Aldo? Son? What's wrong?"
"Put it on speaker, Gabriel!" a panicked Maria yelled. Their guests and family surrounded them outside, their excitement gone.
"I'm losing a lot of blood, Reina." Aldo's voice came back on. He was crying. "My wolf isn't healing me, I think. . . silver bullet."
On the brink of a major breakdown, Maria snatched the phone from her husband "Where are you, baby? We're coming."
"Mommy! I'm in school."
Three loud gunshots resounded on the other end, and the line went dead.
The sheer horror on their faces shrunk into darkness as Reina jolted awake from her nightmare, forcing several deep breaths into her lungs. Her heart thrashed wildly in her chest, as she sat up disorientedly, taking in her surroundings. Neon-blue lights from the signpost of Club Pita, the most exquisite nightclub in Sao Paulo, flooded the parking lot where she was and forced her to squint against its intensity. She'd fallen asleep in the back seat of a Ford Mustang GTD, heavily disguised as a man. And as soon as she realized what had happened, she pressed her hand across her mouth to suppress a sob.
Reina tried to fight back the tears, to suppress the searing pain in her chest. But the memories were too fresh to forget especially while the culprits roamed free a month and three weeks later. The police were aware of Aldo's last call, but nothing had been done about it—about them. Perhaps they'd been brought in for questioning, but no arrest had been made. To worsen matters, Souza High was set to reopen for the new school year in two weeks, like her brother's head hadn't been left on the school's reception desk for anyone to waltz in and find.
Aldo had been beheaded, and his body stolen.
When an officer broke the news to the family that same evening, his mother fainted, while his father suffered a heart attack. Reina, on the other hand, was numb. The body was returned a week after the murder, abandoned by a highway with a note stapled to the body bag it had come in. It read: Here's your son's body. You can bury him now.
Reina fought the horrible memories as she tried to anchor herself to the present. To the NOW. She'd broken into this car to destroy it—Ruiz's eighteenth birthday gift which arrived in the country less than seventy-three hours ago. The internet had been raving about it. Congratulations with a lot of ass licking accompanied his birthday wishes from their school mates, and tonight, at Club Pita, he was celebrating the new age.
He and his friends—four privileged bastards—were partying somewhere in the Club's VIP section, while her brother decomposed in the grave. It was greatly unfair, and she would rather join Aldo in the after life than watch it continue for much longer.
It ends tonight.
Her phone pinged, lightening up in the darkness. It was a text from someone inside the club—a friend crazy enough to assist her tonight. It read:
The second shift is over. I have the uniform, get in here now!
Reina's fingers found the dagger at her hip, then the cold weight of the gun tucked into her waistband. They both felt right in her hands—felt like the only truth left in a world built on lies.
Ten minutes.
She typed back, pocketing the phone as she glanced around the vehicle. The Mustang's interior was pristine. Ruiz babied this car, posted about it constantly even before its arrival, treated it better than he'd ever treated another human being. It was his pride and joy, and she would enjoy doing this.
She pulled out the dagger, feeling its weight, its balance. Then she raised it high and brought it down into the leather seat with the strength of a mad man. The blade sank deep, tearing through expensive upholstery like paper.
Again. Again. And again.
The dashboard, headrests, steering wheel, every surface became a canvas for her rage. Each slash was for the days she moved around the house like a medicated zombie. Each slash was for her grandmother who fell terribly ill that night. For her mother who became a shadow of herself. For Lulu whose engagement was ruined and her wedding called off till further notice. The car alarm system went crazy, shrieking with a high, desperate wail that should've brought people running. But Club Pita's bass was thundering, and the parking lot was full of people too drunk or too high to care about one more noise in the chaos.
Nonetheless, she moved quickly, shredding the seats until foam and springs spilled out like guts. She smashed the dagger's butt through the rearview mirror, and kicked at the door panels until they buckled. Then she climbed out of the ruined vehicle. The dagger was still in her hand, streaked with leather and her own blood from where she'd gripped it too hard.
The tires were next.
She crouched beside the first one, pressed the blade against the rubber, and stabbed until the satisfying hiss of escaping air blessed her ears. She moved methodically, doing the same for the rest until the Mustang sagged on its rims like a dying beast.
Satisfied, she straightened, glanced around to be sure no one was approaching as she tucked the dagger back into its sheath, and adjusted her disguise—baggy clothes, a fake mustache, thick bushy eyebrows, and a cheap wig hidden under a black baseball cap.
Then she took several steady breaths, and turned toward the club.
Ruiz Souza was next.