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That was the owl that once held the spirit of my friend, but it’s not breathing anymore, and neither is she.
sixteen
FORD
I holdmy tongue through Natalie’s fight with the general who insists I’ll contaminate the crime scene and her debate with two professors worried that seeing a dead body—even if it’s not technically a human body—will traumatize both me and Juliet.
They clearly have no idea what the two of us have lived through.
We’ve seen our share of dead bodies. Hell, we’ve both created corpses ourselves. Less than a month ago, I spent an evening tossing people we’d both killed in a dumpster.
But we’ve never had to get up close and personal with the corpse of someone we cared about. With a friend. An innocent friend who’d done absolutely nothing to deserve being ripped apart.
Diana wasn’t just shot or stabbed or something relatively normal when it comes to murder. She was ripped in half from claws to beak, and her insides scattered across the grass leading deeper into the graveyard. The scene is disturbing to say the least, but I force myself to shift and get my nose as close to her feathers as I can without leaving my own scent behind.
I sniff and sniff, searching the ground around the body, too, for good measure. I sniff some bloody footprints I find near the corpse, but the blood belonged to Diana’s owl and the only wolf smell I find is several days old. If a Lupine shifter was in this graveyard tonight, he or she must have done something to conceal their scent. With enough layers and a face mask to protect against any saliva spray when they spoke, the murderer could have done this without leaving a trace, but it still wouldn’t have been easy.
And if Diana was able to fight back, chances are she ripped a few holes in their gear. Making a mental note to look around my dorm for people with claw marks in their jackets, I trot back to sit on my haunches beside Juliet, who’s just completed her own turn around the cemetery, and shake my head from side to side.
Natalie sighs. “I was afraid of that. I didn’t smell anything, either, but I was hoping maybe your nose was younger and sharper.” She reaches out, giving Juliet’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Want me to walk you back to your dorm? And maybe we can stop by my apartment and have some tea on the way? It’s been a while since we had a real chat.”
The last time they spoke was when Juliet pretended to be upset about being forced to keep her implant in until after the trials nearly two weeks ago. She elected not to tell Natalie, or anyone else on staff, that she’d removed it herself until after the trials had started, and it was too late for anyone to insist she put it back in.
“Thanks, but I should get back to Layla,” Juliet says, moving her hand to stroke the top of my furred head in a way that’s comforting, despite the horror still splayed out in front of us. “And Ford will make sure I get home safe.”
I rumble low in my chest in agreement and Natalie nods.
“All right,” she says, glancing between us. “But go straight home and listen to your counselors and the teachers who will be staying with you tonight. Your safety is our top priority. Until we find out who did this, we’re going to be keeping an even closer eye on all our students.”
Which means it’s damned lucky Juliet finally learned how to shift today. I seriously doubt we’ll be allowed beyond the walls until long after the trials are over.
“Thanks, Natalie,” Juliet says, gathering my clothes in her arms. “Talk to you later.”
“Reach out anytime,” Natalie says, pulling her sweater more tightly around her as a cool breeze gusts through the graveyard, making the leaves on the trees hush and sway. “I’m always here for you. Both of you.”
Juliet lifts her hand in weary farewell, and we start up the path, leading back through the woods toward the main part of campus. We move beyond the circle of the two searchlights flooding the graveyard pretty quickly, but the moon is bright in a nearly cloudless sky, making it easy to see the change in Juliet’s energy the moment it happens.
She stands up straighter, walks faster, and motions me to one side of the trail, behind a clutch of cedar trees.
When we’re both hidden from sight, I shift back into my human form, sensing I’m going to need a voice Juliet can understand. “What’s up?” I ask.
“While you were sniffing around, I took a lap around the graveyard,” she says, her gaze momentarily straying below my hips before she jerks it back to my face. She clears her throat and fumbles my clothes into my hands. “Here.”
“Thanks,” I say, tucking my shirt under my arm as I step into my swim shorts. “What did you see?”
“I don’t think she’s dead, Ford,” she says, hope bubbling in her tone. “I don’t know how, but I think she’s okay.”
I emerge from the neck of my t-shirt and pull it down with a furrowed brow. “What? How?”
“Like I said, I have no clue, but I saw bloody footprints, female footprints, leading away from the owl. They got lighter as they moved across the graveyard and disappeared entirely by the time I reached the tree line.”
My frown deepens. “I saw those, but I assumed they belonged to whoever killed her. How could you tell they were female? Could have been a guy with small feet.”
Juliet shakes her head. “I don’t know. But as I walked around the stones it was like I could see it replaying in front of me. Diana bursting out of her owl form and just…walking away from it. Well, running. The steps got farther apart as they got lighter. Like she was picking up speed.”
I finish stepping into my shoes and prop my hands on my hips. “Which would make sense, in a way, I guess. She wouldn’t shift from the owl to her human form—”
“Because the owlisn’ther shifted form,” Juliet finishes, her excitement catching. “She’s actually a wolf. The owl was a curse. Maybe she figured out how to break it somehow.”
