“Stay behind me once we get inside,” June said as they crossed the parking lot. “I’ll protect you.”


    “And I’ll protect you,” Brendan said, making a throwing motion with his good arm. June scowled at him.


    Reaching the front door, she could make out voices and noticed they were drifting in the air outside the building. Of course! June smacked her forehead with a paw. Cordelia’s office was missing one of the windows now, and the voices were obviously coming from it. Why bother with the front door, which didn’t open without a keycard and would require a noisy smashing, when she could just dash inside the building through a hole in the side of it?


    She held a claw to her lips to silence any further talk and rushed along the wall toward the opening, leaving Brendan to catch up. She heard more of the discussion coming from inside. June recognized Cordelia’s normal voice and Dr. Langley’s normal voice.


    Good, she thought. Everyone is still human.


    June paused just outside Cordelia’s office. Plywood had been nailed over the hole where a window and its casing had once existed, before June used it as an emergency exit earlier that day. Still, the voices carried clearly, and she used them to pinpoint the exact locations of Cordelia and Dr. Langley. June’s chest constricted. She couldn’t hesitate or show weakness when the time came—she had to strike hard and fast, without mercy.


    What if it isn’t her? a small voice whispered. She tried to swallow and could barely get the saliva through her constricted throat.


    “It doesn’t make sense, Cordelia—” Dr. Langley said, and then before another word could come out of her mouth, June crashed through the plywood and slammed her against a wall. She pinned her with one paw to her throat (and most of her upper torso) and one claw extended, pressing directly on her jugular. June held her other paw in the air, all five claws extended to their full and terrifying length, ready to strike. A slow trickle of blood oozed down and collected at the top of Dr. Langley’s collar, turning the blue into a brown.


    “Don’t even think of transforming or whatever you do—my claw will be in your throat before you can finish,” June growled.


    Dr. Langley’s eyes tripled in size, the color drained from her face, and her legs wobbled. June found herself holding up Dr. Langley’s weight.


    Good, June thought, she’s afraid. She should be. She didn’t have much time to ponder what that meant, however, as the nail on Dr. Langley’s throat kept struggling to slide forward of its own accord.


    “June!” Cordelia cried. “Are you okay? The gunshots and noises outside—what are you—why on earth—”


    Hearing Cordelia yell was reassuringly familiar, and June found herself immensely relieved that nothing bad had happened to her mom. Never removing her eyes from Dr. Langley’s face, and forcing her claw to stay where it was, June said, “I’m saving you! Dr. Langley is a demon, a giant snake thing.”


    “Aren’t you, Aunt—I mean, Dr. Langley?” she asked the woman she had loved like family. “How could you?” she added, and then fought to stifle a sob building inside her with the same irresistible force as a sneeze. “You thought you had us all fooled. Well, I’m not some stupid little kid. Where is Mr. Moseley? Where is the vial?” The sob burst from her monstrous lips.


    In June’s peripheral vision, she noticed that Cordelia’s office had been cleaned and everything put back in its normal place, except for the missing window and Ralph the Sphinx statue.


    Cordelia walked to stand at Dr. Langley’s side, rod-straight, arms crossed. “JUNE! Violet is not a demon, and she has nothing to do with the vial or Mr. Moseley!”


    Brendan had finally climbed inside the office, panting. June risked a quick glance to make sure he hadn’t injured himself. A lightning flash of guilt streaked through her. She shouldn’t have allowed him to come, and then she’d left him to climb through a shattered chunk of wall with only one arm.


    Despite his shortness of breath, Brendan had a triumphant look on his face. He held the Geiger counter aloft and waved it. “June! The Geiger counter started beeping outside the first window we passed—” His eyes made it to Cordelia’s face and the Geiger counter dropped to his side. “Hi Ms. Robinson,” he said meekly and looked to June.


    “Brendan, my goodness, you’re hurt!” Cordelia said. But before anyone could address that, Dr. Langley whimpered and Cordelia rounded on June again. “June, let go of your aunt this instant! You’re hurting her!”


    “No. If I do, she’ll strike.”


    “PUT—HER—DOWN!”


    Habit kicked in when Cordelia used her mom voice. June let go before she realized what she was doing. “Ugh!” she said in frustration, waving her giant paws in the air. But she kept her eyes glued on Dr. Langley, claws at the ready, just in case.


    Dr. Langley stumbled and rubbed her throat. A slow stream of tears ran down her face. “I would—” she started, but her voice wavered. “I would never betray you and Cordelia, June.”


    “Quiet!” June hissed. “We’ll get to you in a second. Mom, think about it. Remember the Burmese’s tank had been left unlocked when we were investigating the lab area? Dr. Langley told it to open the door for her from the inside. It explains everything!”Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Cordelia pursed her lips. “No scientist here was involved. I told you, I’m not easily fooled.” She stepped toward Brendan and pulled at the sweater pressed to his shoulder, studying the wound underneath. “The shooting outside was aimed at you?”


    “Yeah, but they’re gone now,” June said with more than a hint of satisfaction in her voice.


    “What do you mean, gone?” Cordelia asked.


    A slight smile twisted June’s mouth. “Two men. Demons, I’m pretty sure. I took care of them; this isn’t my blood.”


    Cordelia seemed to finally notice the red streaks on June’s fur and wavered for a moment. It looked like her knees might buckle, and Brendan winced as his injured shoulder became the crutch she used to steady herself. “Oh June,” she said, and there was a haunted quality to her voice. “I never wanted you to—you were supposed to be—normal.”


    “What did you expect? They shot at us. Should I have asked them nicely to stop? Given them a friendly smile? Look at Brendan!”


    The sarcasm must’ve punched through whatever had rattled Cordelia—her eyes blazed now. “Yes, look at poor Brendan, who you swore wouldn’t find out about Shifting! You should have left this to me and stayed home!”


    “Yeah, you’ve done a great job so far!” June growled. “I told you I would fix this, not you! You mess everything up! And who else could I trust? Not Aunt Violet—I mean, Doctor—oh forget it—and certainly not you.”


    Cordelia flinched.


    “Brendan helped me solve this mystery,” June continued. Brendan, at that moment, however, looked like he wanted nothing to do with being named as June’s partner. He backed himself as far as possible into the corner of the room.


    June faced Aunt Violet. “You may as well confess. Your henchmen are dead.”


    Aunt Violet tilted her head in confusion. “Henchmen? You mean whoever shot at you? We didn’t even know anyone was here until we heard the gunshots.”


    Dr. Langley looked genuinely surprised about the dead Dolph and Rudolph. June frowned and pressed on anyway. “What about the secret at your house, then? Show her, Brendan!”


    Brendan hesitantly stepped out from the corner and started pulling out the snakeskin.


    “My house?” Aunt Violet said, sounding confused. If she did turn out to be a demon, she was also a great actress. But then again, she would have to be to have come this far.


    “June, listen to me—” Cordelia started.


    “No, Mom, look at it. It was under her bed.”


    Brendan finished pulling the black snakeskin out and held it up. Aunt Violet slumped against the wall, and her hand shot to her head.


    Cordelia frowned. “What is that supposed to be?”


    “It’s a snakeskin, Cordelia,” Aunt Violet said. “It’s bigger than the Burmese could ever be. It’s—it would have to be—massive. But what are those edges to it?”


    “Oh no,” Cordelia said, and her face turned green. “No—if that is—then that means—no. We need to leave, right now.” She grabbed her keys from the desk and made to shoo everyone into the hallway. “Let’s go, all of you, to my Jeep.”


    But June didn’t budge. The snakeskin had filled the room with the obvious smell of snake, sort of like wet dirt, and a bit of the hotdog scent wafted from the backpack, but another unpleasant odor drifted like a ghost in the air, faint and ethereal, but still foul. June wrinkled her nose in disgust as she tried to identify it. The snakeskin, held aloft, stood taller than Brendan, and June noticed for the first time that it had kinks in it. They were uniformly spaced.


    “Brendan,” June said, “did you fold the snakeskin neatly when you put it in your backpack?”


    “Nope. I just balled it up and shoved it in. I think it flaked on our stuff though. Gross.”


    And then the identity of the phantom smell registered in her brain: mothballs. Even in her werecat form, June’s stomach dropped and her heart fluttered. The snakeskin, at some point, had been neatly folded and stored in something about the length of…a duffel bag. June had seen a duffel bag earlier, and it had smelled strongly of mothballs.


    The way Dolph and Rudolph had behaved at Aunt Violet’s house suddenly made sense. What had Dolph said about the robber? “You certainly know the person who did it.” Then Dolph and Rudolph had been cut free even though someone had been left in charge of guarding them. Everything clicked into place in a flash. Even the need for a “tanning chamber” that could hold five people (or one giant snake demon curled up) made sense now—snakes needed to soak up sunlight, after all. Someone had played her for a fool. Bile rose in her throat. But that also meant…


    Relief flooded June and it felt like someone had removed a backpack filled with bricks from her shoulders. She turned to face Aunt Violet who, without the threat of a claw in her throat, looked at June with wonder, but not surprise.


    “It’s really not you,” June said softly. “But you know about Shifting, don’t you? That’s why you’re here right now.”


    Cordelia spoke up. “Yes, Violet knows. When your eyes changed color, I knew that something with the serum had gone wrong. I needed her help. But we must leave, now!”


    June’s whiskers twitched. She walked over and drew close to Aunt Violet, who flinched backward, but June wrapped her in a giant, furry hug. When June finally let go, tears were streaking from her eyes and wetting the fur along her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Violet. I just—with what we had found, we thought it had to be you, and…I almost…I’m so sorry…”


    “I forgive you, June. I love you and Cordelia. You’re family to me.” She wiped her own tears away. “And for the record, I can’t talk to my snakes, although I wish I could.”


    “You aren’t hearing me,” Cordelia shrieked. “We need to get out now!” She grabbed Aunt Violet’s hand and tugged on one of June’s massive arms. She might as well have been pulling on a tree.


    “You go, and you too, Aunt Violet,” June said. “But I’m staying and getting Mr. Moseley back. And then someone is going to pay.” Her claws slid out to emphasize her point. She had been so close to harming someone she loved—the thought made her nauseous. But it also made her furious. And the person who had nearly gotten her to hurt Aunt Violet had been so clever, so sneaky, so manipulative. She clenched her massive jaw.


    Dolph and Rudolph had been bad, and it had felt good to make sure they couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. But they paled in comparison to the evil that had taken Mr. Moseley and the serum, the evil that had killed and devoured countless people to have grown so large that his skin could fill a hallway. Killing him would feel positively rewarding, and he should be walking in the door any minute now for the midnight deadline. June wouldn’t have left the lab for all the money in the world at that moment.


    “Not without you, June,” Cordelia said. “You don’t understand what the size of that skin means.”


    “Yes, I do,” June argued. “Now go and leave him to me.”


    Cordelia rocked her head to the side. “Him?” she asked, obviously puzzled. But before June could elaborate, the front door of the lab slammed open.


    “All of you, out the window now!” June growled before dashing into the hallway.