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What was going on?

“So these reports of a dragon terrorizing a town in the North West aren’t about you?” the reporter asked.

“No, I’ve been here this whole time.” Not-Adam smiled and shrugged, looking friendly and approachable on my hotel’s front porch.

“What the heck?” I muttered.

“Then the SSD have it all wrong, and you weren’t in Minnesota?” the reporter pressed.

“Oh that?” Not-Adam laughed. “Oh well, uhm . . . I did go away for a few days, I guess.”

I blinked at the TV. At me. On TV.

“And the dragon seen on social media that turned a hotel to rubble? That wasn’t you?”

“Hey, bro, you that dragon?” Jake called, eyeing me suspiciously.

“What? No. Yeah, I guess. I mean, not him. That’s not . . .” I stared at the TV, my thoughts racing.

“What?” Not-Adam on the TV chuckled. “Ruin a hotel? Me? Pfft. That’s crazy.”

What was happening here? How could I be sitting in a diner in Florida, but also be at the SOS Hotel? This had to have been recorded recently—yesterday maybe. Someone was pretending to be me. Not just a lookalike, but someone who could change their appearance to look exactly like me . . .

A shapeshifter.

Someone who could look like a werewolf, or a Gen X No Tel Motel owner who liked plastic plants and killing people.

Jenny, the loup-garou, had not died when she fell—okay, I maybe dropped her—off the cliff.

I had to tell Victor and Zee right now.

Jake shoved a wrinkled, finger-marked piece of paper under my nose. “Hey, can you sign the menu?”

“Huh?” I looked up at his curious face.

“This menu, man. Can you sign it? I’ve never seen a dragon before. You’re pretty small.”

“Small? I’m not a dragon right now.”

“Whatever.” He flapped the menu. “Just a scrawl will do.”

He was blocking my exit from the booth. “Sure. Fine.” I grabbed the pen he offered and scrawled across the menu. The diner’s phone on the tabletop rang.

Jake scooped it up, and the menu. “Awesome.” He headed back behind the counter, raising the phone to his ear.

I had to get out of here. Had to talk to Victor and Zee. If Jenny was pretending to be me, she could do all kinds of damage to the hotel—to my friends, my life.

“Dine for a Dime—what? Oh . . .” Jake chatted into the phone.

I scooted out of the booth and headed for the door.

“This is like the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me,” Jake was saying. But my thoughts were so focused on Jenny I only half heard him. “I didn’t call you . . . the dragon guy . . . Yeah, I’ll put ’im on. Hey! Dragon man. It’s the SSD for you.”

I hesitated, my back to him. The door was right there.

If the loup-garou was at the SOS Hotel, pretending to be me, that meant she could have met Leomaris, could have spread more lies. What if Leomaris was no longer a friend? No, no, they were clever . . . But we had also disappeared with no warning . . . and left a few bodies behind . . .

This was awful.