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The three of them piled into Kira's car, mouths drawn in thin lines with desperation. Kira's foot was heavy on the accelerator, going as fast as she could without risking getting pulled over. Darcy kept her phone in hand to see if Malia would update them further, but there was nothing immediately so she settled on rereading her first text.
One word popped out at Darcy, making her frown at her phone. "Tail? What tail? Do we even know any supernatural creatures with a tail?"
In the passenger seat, Lydia's face was hard to read as she replied, "It's called a kanima, but... Tracy's supposed to be a werewolf. That doesn't make sense."
"Maybe Malia typed wrong?" Darcy didn't know what else Malia would be trying to say and why she would feel the need to point out Tracy's claws like they were different from other werewolves. "But why would she say to avoid them- the claws and the tail?"
"Kanima venom paralyzes whoever it touches, and if Tracy really is a kanima..." Lydia trailed off and let Kira and Darcy figure out the rest themselves.
The rest of the short time it took to reach the Sheriff's Station passed in silence. When they finally arrived, Kira hadn't even put the car in park before Lydia and Darcy opened the doors and clambered out of the car. They sprinted to the station doors and Lydia threw them open, announcing, "Mom, she's coming!"
Sheriff Stilinski and Lydia's mother only looked confused, their eyes flitting from the three girls to the deputies spread throughout the front. Darcy followed their gaze, shocked to find all of them slumped over their desks, heads turned uncomfortably but eyes bright and alert. The sight was unnerving.
Lydia further explained, "Tracy's coming for you."
Darcy stepped toward the deputies in an attempt to get a better look. She counted each person in the room, and then the number of heartbeats she could hear. All of them were there, which meant no one was dead... yet. A chilling thought, but they'd already seen what Tracy could do with just her claws, and now she presumably had a tail and paralyzing venom.
Darcy frowned a beat later when she realized her math was off. She counted the bodies again, tallied the number of heartbeats in the room, then froze. "She's already here," she said, scanning the room but there were too many things she could focus on to pinpoint where Tracy was.
"What do you mean for me?" Ms. Martin asked, bewildered.
That's when they heard the growling and hissing.
Their gazes drew upward. Mouths dropped open in terror at the sight of Tracy Stewart crawling along the ceiling, a four-foot-long tail swinging lazily from her back.
"Holy shit," was all Darcy could think to say.
Tracy dropped down from the ceiling and landed with a thud on the floor right in front of Sheriff Stlinski, who didn't hesitate to fire his gun at her. Either the bullets missed or she just didn't feel them, because she still swiped her claws at him, sending a small spray of blood into the air from the back of his hand. Stilinski went down with a cry, his gun clattering on the tile away from his hand.
