“The deputy collected his personal effects when they found his pack,” she explained. “Scott had written a note. And there was a gun in there, too. It looks like he hadn’t planned on coming back.”
I didn’t need to ask her about the toxicology screen—I already knew enough.
I thanked Dr. Langley and hung up, and Harris and I traded a dark look, but neither of us said anything.
As we headed back toward the kitchen—Harris already out the door—I cast one last look around Sally’s house. At the quiet neglect, the loneliness hidden safely behind closed doors. Harris had lived through this once before. I couldn’t let him do it again.
* * *
Emma took one look at our faces—at Harris’s grim stillness, at the way my shoulders were pulled tight—and simply waved us inside, shutting the door behind us. I had called ahead and the rest of the pack was already there, clustered in their usual places: Lee and Hunter on the loveseat, Daniel standing near the window with his arms crossed, Lacey beside him. Sarah was half-buried in books at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee forgotten at her elbow, no longer steaming. Lindsey was seated at the other end of the table, her arms crossed. Tamrand stood next to the bookcase, looking distinctly uncomfortable at being surrounded by werewolves.
“Reed, what is it? What did you learn?” Emma asked, following close behind us.
I nodded to Harris. “He’s the one who figured out the connection between the victims.”
Harris hesitated, glancing around the room, then took a deep breath. “We think the connection is depression. The hiker had a note in his pack indicating he was intending his trip to be one-way. And we found antidepressants and signs of neglect at Sally’s place.” He paused. “She was taken last night.”
“Wait, Sally from the restaurant?” Daniel asked, startled. “The British lady?”
“Yeah, her,” Harris said. “It seems like she hid it really well, but she was definitely in a bad headspace when she was taken.”
“Wait, so this monster selects people who are already struggling emotionally?” Lindsey asked, her lips curling in distaste. “Wow. That’s messed up.”
Sarah froze. She’d been absently flipping through one of the texts in front of her, but at Lindsey’s words, something seemed to snap into place.
“No. Not depression, exactly. It feeds ondespair,” she said, lifting her head and meeting my gaze. “I just saw this. I think I know what kind of monster it is now.”
With that, she stood and crossed the room to the bookcase at the far wall, then retrieved a well-worn book I recognized as one of the journals from a previous generation of wolves. She carried the book back to the kitchen table and opened it, flipping through the pages and muttering under her breath as we all crowded closer, forming a tight circle around her. I could feel Harris at my back, solid and warm, his presence anchoring me.
“Here,” Sarah breathed, tapping the page with her forefinger triumphantly. “Algea. A class of creatures from Greek mythology. It feeds on despair, hopelessness, and prolonged suffering. It doesn’t just kill—it consumes what’s left of a person once they’ve fully given up. It’s intelligent and it can lure victims, paralyzing them and forcing them to relive their worst memories.”
I felt a chill dance up my spine at her words.
“It hunts those already suffering,” Sarah continued, her eyes scanning the page. “And it grows stronger the longer it feeds.”
“How do you kill it?” Lee asked sharply.
“I remember this,” Emma said quietly. “The pack faced a creature like this eighty years ago.” She paused, and her expression went stricken. “I should’ve recognized this sooner. Youdon’tkill it. Not easily.”
Sarah flipped another page, her eyes scanning it, then nodded gravely.
“Yeah, Emma’s right. An Algea came through the bleeds once before,” she said. “The pack fought it. But they waited too long. They didn’t understand what it was until it had already gained a lot of power.” Then she hesitated, reading further. Her expression turned grimmer. “They had to work together to kill it. They beheaded it and then set it on fire. It took out the pack’s alpha and several other wolves in the process.”
My gaze flicked to Emma. Her face had gone ashen.
“How many died?” I asked.
Emma’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “A quarter of the pack. But there were more of us back then. At least twice as many as now.”
Her words landed like a physical blow.
Harris’s hand found mine, grounding me.
“Seems like your instincts to wait until we knew more were correct,” Daniel said quietly. “If you’d sent the pack after it before knowing the full story…”
His unfinished sentence hung in the air, but the meaning was impossible to miss.
“There’s more,” Sarah said. “It doesn’t do its killing here.”
