For one perfect second, it seemed as if nothing more than a cold, refreshing spritz hit Lennox. Then, an unbearable burn spread through his tongue, to the roof of his mouth, the back of his throat, around his lips and over the tender skin of his entire face.

"Fuck," he screamed. "Fucking—Bernadette! It's me, you lunatic! It's me!" Lennox rolled out of his hiding place and into the cold asphalt beside the dumpster. He clung to his mouth as if he could ease the burn, but the throbbing pain remained the same.

Lennox stared up at her from where he collapsed on the ground.

"What the—" Bernadette shouted. "Why— never mind. Damn it, just spit that shit out. I got you right in the mouth. You dumbass, why did you stay silent like a creep?"

"Because Bernadette," he heaved, unable to hide the anger in his voice. "Quite frankly I thought you didn't have fucking pepper-spray. Why do you have fucking pepper-spray?"

"Because I am teenage girl in a back-alley, you idiot," she said. Bernadette leaned down to where he sat and patted her fingers around his forehead.

"God, it hurts, B," he whispered. He brought his hand up to his face and wiped at his skin with the butt of his gun to help soothe the burn. The cool metal sent a chill through his cheeks.

Bernadette's fingers stopped moving and pulled away from Lennox. He hissed at the loss of contact.

"Why do you have a gun, Lennox?" Bernadette asked. She scrambled over the asphalt until she stood up against the blue dumpster bin.

"What—I—fuck," Lennox said. He raised himself up from the ground and stared at her through wet, stinging eyes. She gripped her pepper-spray like a lifeline and shook like a leaf in her little yellow waitress dress.

"Hey, no, look," Lennox whispered. He took the .9mm magazine out of his Glock and threw it at her feet. "See, it's unloaded. Bernadette, don't look at me like that."

"You got two more guns at your waist, Lennox," she said. Her southern drawl hung onto each word a second longer, thicker because of the fear pumping through her.

"You know I ain't goin' hurt you," Lennox whispered.

"Then unload the goddamn guns," she demanded.

"Fine," Lennox said. He took the pistols one at a time and pulled out their magazines. Like before, he threw them at her feet. "Now can you stop looking like you're scared I'm goin' to kill you?"

"Are you?" Bernadette asked. "What are you doing dressed up like this? Wearing all black? And silencers? Why do you have silencers on your guns? What were you planning to do tonight?"

"Bernadette, you got it wrong," he whispered. "I wasn't going to hurt anyone."

"Then what were you going to do?" she asked. "Unless you want another round of pepper-spray, you should tell me."

He sat down on his heels and wondered which answer would seem less insane to her—was he just a creep planning to kill his best friend or was he going to be the lunatic who believed he was on a real-life werewolf hunt?

Either way, it seemed like he was going to lose Bernadette.

"You're not going to believe me," he whispered.

"Probably not," Bernadette said. She took a step backward. She planned to slowly inch her way back into the safety of Circle J's.

"Look, Bernadette-"

"Who is on the other end of that walkie-talkie?" she pointed one hand to where his walkie rested on his black leather belt. "Is someone listening?"

"Of course not," Lennox said. He spit a loogie full of pepper-spray when he finished his words. It landed on the cement between them, still pain throbbed through his mouth and throat.

"Turn it on then," she whispered. "Prove it to me."

Lennox followed her commands at once and pressed the unmute button. At once, the screaming voice of Bo ripped through the static of the receptor in one long string of rapid-fire curses.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE—"

His thumb moved to the mute button once again. With one click, his brother's voice went silent.

Lennox looked up to Bernadette. She watched him her blue eyes, wide with sudden worry.

He pulled his gaze away from her and instead, focused his attention on the quiet, surrounding world. The screams of his brother were washed out by the distance between them.

Bo sat about a quarter mile along a hiking track. When Lennox left him, Bo climbed thirty feet up a tree and found a comfortable perch strong enough to support his weight indefinitely. There, he waited with his own pistol loaded with a round of silver bullets.

"I think you should go back inside, Bernadette," Lennox advised. He didn't look at her, instead his attention remained on the tree-line. The young hunter searched for anything out of the ordinary beyond the lot but found nothing.

"I think you should tell me just what the hell is going on here, Lennox," she said. A metal rattle resounded through the night air. Lennox turned to find Bernadette mid-shake with her can of pepper-spray.

"What exactly is your next move, B?" Lennox asked.

"Give me that goddamn walkie," she said. Bernadette moved one hand out in front of her, palms up, waiting for her new toy to be dropped in her grasp. When he hesitated, her other arm jolted forward. "The walkie or I spray the shit out of your eyes, Lennox."

"I think you should go inside, Bernadette," Lennox warned in a rushed voice. "There was screaming for a reason."

"Just hand over the walkie."

"Goddammit," Lennox whispered. "Just get back inside, please!"

She pressed down on the spray and liquid shot out from the nozzle. He was smarter this time. Instead of standing still, he ducked away from the oncoming attack and smacked the back of her hand. The spray flew from her grasp and pattered across the asphalt until it rolled to a stop ten feet away.

Bernadette screamed at the contact. She rolled away from his grasp and flew back onto the hard ground. Lennox sailed forward in attempt to catch her. Instead of grabbing her hand, he only held empty air.

Her head landed first with a violent whack. A crack reverberated off of the cement and into the cool night.

"Bernadette—" Lennox crawled on his knees toward her fallen body.

"-LENNOX, LENNOX, GET YOUR GUN!" The screams of Bo echoed through the parking lot. "GET YOUR DAMN GUN READY."

Lennox pulled his attention away from Bernadette and toward the fleeing figure of his older brother. Clothed in black cargo pants and a thin dark t-shirt, his brother resembled a deer flying out of the forest and away from danger. His long dark hair pushed away from his handsome face and into the wind.

Behind Bo, a monstrous black beast followed with long white canines bared. Every hair on its thick pelt rose from adrenaline of the hunt, giving the creature an extra four inches of height. Around its mouth, a thick layer of foam lathered at its red gums, proof it hungered for Bo's flesh.

Werewolf.

Bo continued to run like hell until he reached the iron fence. He jumped three feet straight into the air and caught the railing with his right fist. It took him less than four seconds to scale the ten-foot tall fence.

He landed on the other side of the yellow grass with a heavy thud.

"LENNOX!" Bo screamed at the top of his lungs. He didn't bother to look back, he just continued to stare forward and run.

It was uncomfortable to watch the power of a werewolf in full motion. If it wasn't for the days Bo spent endlessly training, the beast would have already taken him by the nape of his neck and torn out his jugular.

It jumped over the fence in one smooth sweep and landed perfectly on all fours.

"What—" Bernadette whispered in a puzzled, weak voice. She pushed up on her palms to sit up and face the oncoming threat. "What the fuck is that thing?"

Lennox moved his hands beneath her neck and knees in attempt to lift her off the cold ground. On her head, blood spilled in a steady lazy stream of red. From what he could see in the dim moonlight, the gathering puddle came from a minor cut just above her temple.

Bo raced forward while Lennox tried to drag Bernadette. He flew past them at full speed until he hit the hard surface of the brick behind Lennox. Lennox snapped his attention away from Bernadette and to the approaching beast, his oncoming target.

He dropped his hands away from Bernadette and grabbed the Glock at his waist. Like a finely tuned machine, he aimed the small pistol toward the werewolf. Adrenaline pumped through his body with each step the wolf took forward.

Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Fifteen now.

With his gun leveled to the empty space between the wolf's eyes, Lennox took in a deep breath and tightened his grasp on the smooth metal of the grip.

"Shoot the damn beast, Lennox," Bo demanded.

His pointer finger rested on the trigger. The safety was off. He was ready.

From this distance, he couldn't even see its human eyes. Last time, they were blue, the same shade of Bernadette's.

With the wolf less than ten feet away, Lennox steadied his hand.

"Shoot, dammit!" Bo screamed from behind him.

At his command, Lennox pulled the trigger.

A tiny click echoed through the night. The wolf continued to rage forward.

The gun dry-fired.

Lennox stared in horror at the pistol, down to the asphalt where his silver rounds still lie, and then back up to the approaching beast. A hand wrapped around the collar of his shirt, ripping him away from his place on the ground.

His back hit the wall of the dumpster, but he tried to escape the tight grasp caught around him.

Bernadette remained sitting on the ground, perfectly frozen in place. Her mouth opened in a scream, but nothing escaped her lips. The wolf still bounded forward, nothing stopping its tracks.

"No—" Lennox reached out but Bo forced him back.

Bernadette's entire body was covered in the heavy body of the wolf. The creature reached its head into the sky, elongating its long neck, before its snout dived forward into the meat of Bernadette's collarbone.

Bernadette curled into herself from the attack. Her slender arms reached forward, and her hands uselessly gripped the fur around its snout in attempt to push the creature off of her chest.

When her scream cut through the night, something inside Lennox broke. Crimson gushed from where the wolf's teeth remained inside her flesh. The beast froze and inhaled the coppery tang of blood. Then, it shook its head, effectively ripping chunks away from Bernadette's shoulder.

"Let me go, Bo!" Lennox screamed. His brother's fingers remained heavy around his shoulder.

"It's too strong," Bo whispered. "Where are your bullets, boy? If you want her to live, give me the damn bullets."

Lennox took a deep inhale through his nose and slammed his forward backward. "I said get the fuck off of me." The movement crushed Bo's hand into the blue metal of the garbage bin. His fingers released its tight grasp.

Lennox rushed forward and dug his fingers into the pelt of the werewolf. There was no special strength given to hunters, instead they relied on their trained abilities to help them survive each hunt.

When he pulled up on the beast, it remained unaffected by Lennox's attack. He cursed underneath his breath, unsure of what he should do next.

"Bo, help me," Lennox pleaded.

Bernadette's body no longer moved underneath the weight of the wolf. Instead, she lay there with her captivating blue eyes wide open. Her unblinking gaze stared aimlessly forward.

"She will die!" Lennox screamed.

A terrifying thought tugged at Lennox's chest. She may already be dead. He ignored the fear.

He searched his surrounding for the closest weapon and found it the unloaded Glock. Lennox wrapped his right hand around the barrel of the small pistol and rose it high into the air.

He brought it down onto the temple of the beast's head. Where the gun made direct contact, a line of broken skin allowed blood to seep into its dark fur.

The wolf's attention shifted to Lennox. Its massive jaws parted. Bernadette's lifeless body dropped from the sharp cage of its canines and onto black asphalt.

The beast leveled its red, beady gaze with Lennox, a new target locked.

Teeth, each an inch long, dug into the flesh of Lennox's left arm and tore upward. A new fresh wave of pain traveled through the young hunter. Out of reaction, he dropped his Glock on the ground.

He screamed out, unable to keep the terror to himself.

The beast tore and ripped at the meat. His tanned skin turned into a mess of bright red blood and pink flesh.

Before this, the most intimate pain Lennox ever experienced was on his sixth birthday, when he swung from a tree branch and fell to the ground. His bone stuck out from between tender flesh and his arm turned into a broken "S".

A shot rang out between the hot flashes of pain. Lennox's ruined arm dropped from the beast's jaw and landed on the ground with a sick, wet thump.

Above him, a growl echoed and another shot rang out. This time, a whine accompanied the loud bang of the bullet.

Lennox turned on his back and stared up at the full moon, the only light source in the empty lot. The retreating paws of the beast faded from hearing.

He wanted to reach out his hand and touch Bernadette, but his wounded arm curled into his chest. She lay only a few feet from him, crumpled together in an awkward heap of limbs.

"Can you get on your feet, brother?" Bo's voice was muffled by Lennox's racing thoughts. "Come on now."

"B-Bernadette," Lennox whispered.

"Dead," Bo said. He didn't miss a beat. "Listen, am I going to have to haul your ass back to the truck or can you stand?"

Whatever pain Lennox felt abruptly disappeared at Bo's words. He turned his head on the asphalt, tiny pebbles dug into his scalp while he moved.

Bernadette's golden hair fanned out around her head like the broken halo of a fallen angel. Black mascara smeared down to her cheeks and the pink gloss on her lips no longer held any shine. Instead, dirt and blood stained her dress and pale skin.

"No, she's not," Lennox whispered. "She can't be."

This isn't supposed to happen.

Tonight should have been a clean kill, no injuries other than the silver bullet stuck between the wolf's eyes.

Lennox gathered what little strength remained to crawl on his knees. He closed the small distance between him and Bernadette and stared at her pretty face. An expression of fear remained frozen on her skin.

With his good hand, he cupped her pale cheeks.

No breath left her body.

He stared at her chest and waited for the familiar rise and fall to disprove his wildest fear. But no movement came.

"Lennox, we just shot up this damn place." Bo's hand wrapped around the bicep of his good arm and yanked him up to his feet, away from Bernadette's side. "We need to run."

"What about Bernadette?" Lennox whispered. He stared at her broken body.

"You heard me, she's dead. I rather it gets blamed on a wild animal attack than either of us."

Bo pulled him forward. With each step, they built more and more distance from where Bernadette lie alone on the cold black cement. Her ruined body slowly turned into a pale blur.

"I'm sorry, Lennox," Bo said.

The backdoor of the diner swung open. Golden light spread over the blue dumpster and Bernadette's cooling body. A stranger's scream echoed in the night air.

The Armstrong brothers stood past the lot and on the other side of the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence. Lennox took cover in the overgrown greenery of the forest's opening.

The form of a woman rushed to Bernadette. Lennox's entire attention stayed on the dead girl and the useless stranger coming to her aid. The person leaned down to Bernadette's body, grasped her around her soft shoulders, and shook.

Then, like magic, Bernadette's hands shot up and her body pushed up from the ground.

Lennox said nothing. Instead, he concealed every bit of his surprise when she stood up on two feet.

"This way Lennox," Bo called to him. He stood a few feet away, deep enough in the foliage to block the view of Bernadette's revival.

"I—I'm coming."

She was a dead. Now she's alive. She's a wolf.

Bernadette moved her free arm over the stranger and together, they disappeared into the golden light of the diner.

Soon, the flashing red and blue lights would overtake the entire back lot in search of whatever attacked Bernadette. The Armstrong boys would be long gone before anyone arrived, and Lennox would do what he was born to do—kill a werewolf. 

Author's Note 

Well, here's a second chapter which is admittedly, a lot longer. Thank you for all the kind comments on the first chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed this! My chosen song for this book-- although it's definitely overplayed on Tiktok-- is Zayn's song Dusk Till Dawn, LOLOL. Let me know any cool love songs you like (because this shit gonna be lovey dovey). 

I might post a link to a spotify playlist inspired by Bernadette and Lennox, LOLOLO