Page 59 of Dead Wolf Walking (Bad Moon Academy 1)
Crap. I missed the name your wolf memo.
Well, do you have one in mind? I want it to be something you like.I pour myself another half cup, eyeing the clock on the wall.
I still have fifteen minutes, which means I can hit the bathroom before heading to the gym in the basement.
Her Majesty has a nice ring to it,she says.
Ha. Be serious. If you could pick any name in the whole world, what would it be?
Joan.
I pause mid-sip, trying not to judge her choice.Joan?
It’s a nice name.
All right, Joan Jett it is.She needs something a little edgy to go with the plain name. A luna deserves to sound tough. Who’s tougher than Joan Jett?
That’s rhetorical.
She huffs.I don’t know about the Jett part but thank you.
Don’t thank me, you’re the one who picked it.
I head to the dirty dish bin, drain the last drops of coffee, and set my mug inside. Then I hurry to where Morg told me I’d find the stairs to the basement. Down a side hall and around a sharp corner, I find a dimly lit spiral staircase. Add in some dust and spiders milling about and you have the world’s dirtiest haunted house. I’m pretty sure even the house in Amityville is cleaner than this place.
At the bottom of the stairs, a large room with soft pads covering most of the floor stretches out before me. There’s a small weight area, a boxing ring, and a row of treadmills. Behind the cardio machines, I spot a sign for locker rooms.
Perfect.
The bathroom stalls are empty, and I don’t have to wait. When I finish washing my hands, I check my hair in the mirror. The bun isn’t my best look. It’ll have to do though because I’m not working out and getting whipped in the face by sweaty strands of hair.
I turn to leave, stopping dead in my tracks when I notice a woman standing near the exit. Her hair is a hot mess and her face is blotchy, like she spent all night crying.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there,” I say, tossing the paper towels I used to dry my hands in the trash.
She doesn’t respond nor does she move out of the way.
I stand near the trash can awkwardly smiling at her.
Having chugged two mugs of coffee to feel normal, I can’t judge her too harshly.
Like I said, six in the morning is the devil’s hour.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” I say. How am I the one sounding stupider by the second?
She’s the one standing there like she crawled out of a grave but left her brain behind. Taking a step toward her, I pause, waiting for her to finally get the hint. Of course, she doesn’t. It would be my luck to run into the one asshole, aside from Draco, this morning. I knew being ignored would only last so long.
I take another step.
Her eyes slowly track to me. They’re so dark. Her cheeks are too hollow.
My stomach clenches.
Let me at her, Joan Jett says.
What? No. Look at her. The poor thing is probably sick or something. Can shifters catch the flu?
We don’t get the flu. Joan scoffs.
