Page 26 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

Cold air hit my bare legs. Bass thrummed through the ground, and the house glowed like it was trying to be seen from orbit. People crowded the lawn and sidewalk while music pounded hard enough to feel in my ribs.

Cassidy caught my wrist. “Come on.”

I let her pull me across the lawn, gravel shifting under my heels. The grass was already trampled flat and the air hung thick with the smell of cheap beer. I scanned the house automatically—two visible exits, moderate crowd outside, heavier inside. Low threat. Just college kids and cheap beer.

Cassidy leaned in. “God, I love college parties.”

My cat wrinkled her nose.

Cassidy didn't slow until we reached the porch. Someone held the door. Heat and noise crashed over us as we stepped inside.

The living room had been cleared for the crowd, furniture pushed to the walls and a makeshift bar set up along one side, the lights dim except for a strip of LEDs casting everything in shifting color.

I clocked the room in the time it took Cassidy to spot someone she knew—wolves, at least six, their scent threading through the air, a possible bear shifter, and humans who had no idea.

No Jackson. My cat noted the absence.

“Drink first,” Cassidy announced, already angling toward the kitchen. “Then we carve out a corner that isn’t trying to deafen us. Sounds good?”

“Lead the way.”

She cut through the crowd with practiced ease and I followed. The kitchen was slightly less packed. Cups were stacked on the counter next to a row of bottles. She grabbed two, poured something strong and sweet into both, and handed one to me.

“Drink,” she said.

I sniffed at it, then tipped the cup back and drank it in one go. The burn hit first, followed quickly by warmth spreading through my chest. Shifter metabolism burned through alcohol fast, so drinking it all at once was the only way to get a brief window where I actually felt it.

Cassidy watched me, eyebrows raised. “Jesus. You drink like you’re trying to forget something.”

“Or just trying to survive the night,” I muttered.

She studied me for a beat, then threw her own drink back. She immediately coughed hard, eyes watering.

“Fuck. Okay, I see why you did it that way.”

Warmth settled low in my stomach, a soft hum under my skin, and my cat stretched, pleased.

Cassidy bumped my arm. “Come on. Let’s dance before I lose my nerve.”

I followed her to the living room. She found a bit of space and started moving, and after a minute I let myself follow the rhythm, the alcohol and the low thump of bass doing most of the work.

Two guys drifted close. I caught the eye of the first and shook my head once. He recalibrated and drifted away. The second got a look that communicated the same thing more efficiently, and he found somewhere else to be.

We danced fifteen minutes or more until Cassidy grabbed my arm and shouted something about finding the bathroom. She disappeared into the crowd before I could stop her.

I slipped toward the back of the house and found a door that opened onto a narrow side porch. The noise dropped by half the moment I stepped through it. The air outside was cool and clean, a welcome change from the crush inside.

Then the door opened again behind me and someone stepped onto the porch.

Chapter 11: You Like Trouble

Naomi.

She let the door swing shut behind her and moved fully into the cooler air, stopping a few feet away. Her eyes dragged over me the way they did on the track, assessing and dismissing, but here there was no coach to impress and no teammates to rein her in.

“I know what you are,” she said.

Everything inside me went still, my cat sharpening beside me. What did she know, and how much?