The rain was little more than drizzle, just enough to impede vision, but not enough that the Jetta’s windshield wipers had any effect. Ah, nothing quite like a Tuesday. Alex pulled her car neatly into the last empty parking space in the lot. Another fucking day, another fucking dollar. She sat for a few moments in the dark, reveling in the unnatural silence of the apartment complex. Week after week, the college students managed to keep the cycle going. Party like idiots Wednesday through Monday and sleep like the dead on Tuesday. She was beginning to wonder if they were a different species.

With a sigh, Alex gathered her things and headed up the path to her apartment. Even the die-hard partiers had gone home, although there were always fewer of those spring semester. She could hear the remains of one last gathering in the distance, but her own unit was comfortably quiet. It was the one serious downfall of being a werewolf in a college town, her hearing was painfully acute.

“Home, sweet home.” Alex popped the door open and dumped her coat over a chair to dry. “Piper? Hey furball, where’d you get to?” Her cat was normally waiting by the door in anticipation of a midnight snack. “Piper?”

She started towards the bedroom, just as the men appeared out of the darkness behind her. Two muffled shots later the world went dark.