As the full moon rose above the city horizon of Ballard Grove, Louisiana, the sticky feeling of unease spread through seventeen-year-old Lennox Armstrong. For the past three hours, he stood between the brick wall of Circle J Diner and the restaurant's overflowing green dumpster.

Instead of his usual attire— a pair of broken-in blue jeans, a threadbare t-shirt, and his brown leather cowboy boots—he covered his tanned freckled skin in layers of black fabric. His dark curls were pushed back, away from his intense brown eyes. On his feet, he wore the ever-trusty Doc Martens 1460s, a family favorite proven to uphold through seventy years of werewolf hunting.

Tonight, the diner served their chef special as the main course—Cajun Coubion. Around him, the stench of rotting fish carcass and spoiled leftovers forced him to cup a gloved hand over his nose. The smell didn't help his nerves, instead it only increased the tension in the air.

Lennox took the unbearable scent as a bad sign.

With his ear flush against the wall, he discovered the murmuring of happy strangers feasting on their fish stew inside the restaurant. Like nearly everyone in Ballard Grove, they were unaware of what horror would soon play out on the back patio of their favorite hometown eatery. Lennox listened closer in search of one voice in particular.

Within moments, he pinned the slow southern drawl of a one Bernadette Braverman, the only girl who managed to hold Lennox's full attention since the first week of seventh grade. Like every Friday night, she worked as a waitress during operational hours and a cleaner after closing.

He pulled out his phone from the front pocket of his black windbreaker. The screen lit up with one notification, a text from Bernadette.

I get off @ 11, pick me up and take me home? If you park across the street, I can sneak out after my mom goes to sleep. Theres a party down at the river 2night.

Lennox's eyes widened at the message, understanding exactly what that meant. Although he was cemented in place with two Glocks holstered to either side of his waist, he was still a hot-blooded teenage boy.

He closed his eyes and imagined swinging his old decrepit Ford truck around the front doors of Circle J and propping the passenger door open. In Bernadette would slip, golden hair falling around her slender shoulders like a soft halo and her big blue eyes tired from the long night of work. Maybe tonight, he would finally gather the courage to kiss her.

In his excitement, Lennox tightened his hand on his drawn gun, a small revolver fitted with silver bullets. Like always, safety was off. If he learned anything from his father's training, it was that every single second of combat mattered when fighting against the supernatural.

He shifted on his feet, growing tired of the waiting. Lennox imagined himself anywhere but here on a Friday night. If he were a normal teenager, he would be smoking weed behind Save-a-Lot or practicing how to ask Bernadette out in front of his bathroom mirror.

Unfortunately, tonight marked the one of the most rewarding times for werewolf hunters across the world. The Big Bads only came out on full moons and there was evidence of a localized wolf. Bait had already been set, two halves of a deer split open and marinated in a putrid mix of chicken guts and garlic. Contrary to popular belief, garlic was a well-loved seasoning of the supernatural. For werewolves, the herb acted as a catnip. Stuff enough of it inside a bloody corpse, and it attracted any wolf within a two-mile radius.

While Lennox waited like a total creep in a dim alleyway, the moonlight that spilled onto the earth's surface enhanced the innate strength of any member of the supernatural family.

Werewolves. Rougarous. Wendigos. Skinwalkers.

It didn't matter what anyone called them—they were all the same: shapeshifters. Unfortunately, creatures like them were known for their insatiable bloodlust.

That was where Lennox and his family came in. The Armstrongs were a long line of French hunters— with an inheritance linked to Marie Jeanne Valet, the maid of Gevaudan and the founder of the hunter's guild.

Although he stood alone in the alleyway, Lennox wasn't scared. Any other sane person on the planet would be. He was made for this, born into his sacred duty of maintaining balance between two worlds.

The first and last time he participated in a hunt, he didn't shoot. Even if he should have. Even when he wanted to. But the guilt of killing something with human eyes and a human mind forced Lennox into an internal battle of right and wrong. Who decided the supernatural had to die, and why must he be the one who delivers the punishment?

That was the burden he carried as the only line between light and dark. Despite what four generations of hunting might tell him, there was still a human trapped inside each beast. Unfortunately, each beast needed a silver bullet.

"Any sign of it?" The thick Creole accent of his older brother, Bo, echoed through the static of the walkie-talkie attached to Lennox's belt. Although the volume was on the lowest setting, his brother's words forced Lennox to jerk forward in surprise.

The dumpster rattled as the barrel of his gun beat against the metal side. He cursed, but didn't dare move from his assigned post. If any passerby heard the noise echoing through the alleyway and into the bustling streets of Ballard Grove's nightlife, they wouldn't bother to investigate. To the outside world, he sounded like nothing more than an angry raccoon dumpster diving for a quick bite of old fish stew.

"Are you trying to give yourself away?" Bo rushed out in an aggravated voice.

Lennox ignored the venom in his words and brought the walkie up to his face. "I see nothing yet, Bo," he paused to tighten his fingers around the gun, "are we sure it's coming?"

"If we don't set eyes on this wolf before midnight, I will be surprised," Bo said in an almost bored tone. For Lennox's older brother, tonight was nothing out of the ordinary. Bo held the guild's record of highest kills for his age group.

"Me too." It was all Lennox could think to say. His fingers itched for an opportunity to fire his gun, to redeem his past mistakes as a hunter, to continue the Armstrong line of deadly killers. Lennox was raised to stalk and subdue monsters before they had the chance to live up to their violent potentials, but he had yet to kill even one.

Maybe after tonight, his father would look Lennox in the eyes again.

Lennox adjusted his grip on the gun to avoid cramping from the strict position. One could never be too prepared when a wolf may be lurking close. What once was human now morphed into an angry, rageful thing, furious in nature and desperate for a quick kill. With a matching set of razor-sharp nails and teeth, a wolf could decapitate, gut, or tear apart a hunter within seconds.

As Bo would say, it only takes one mistake to end up dead. Lennox had no plans to die tonight.

"Dammit," Bo said through the walkie-talkie. "Feed from the diner's interior cameras show a girl walking out the back door. Keep your mouth shut."

"A girl?" Lennox asked, surprised by their unexpected guest.

The entire back lot of Circle J was closed in by iron-post fences. A bright yellow 'NO TRESPASSING' sign warned the curious to turn the other way. The lack of all surveillance cameras and the added addition of an accessible lot for loading the body made it an optimal place to wait for their kill of the night. No one understood just how heavy a werewolf was until they had to carry it two miles through thorn bushes and thick forest.

He knew from the days he spent with Bernadette that there were only two openings for the alleyway. One was the iron fence which spanned three yards. It rarely opened for anyone but the garbage man once a week. The other, the backdoor to Circle J.

Sometimes on Bernadette's breaks, she would call him up and together they would sneak behind the diner to smoke a little bit of the day's stress away.

"She's taking out trash, looks like she's heading your way," Bo said.

The swing of the back door echoed through the night air. With metal screeching against rusty hinges, golden beams from the interior of Circle J's flooded several yards of the dark lot.

The light reached the curve of Lennox's boot.

He pressed himself against the rough surface of the brick wall and froze, scared that if he even breathed, his position would be noticed. He didn't want to be the discovered as someone who took residency in the crack between a dumpster and wall. He watched as the girl came closer. She walked toward the garbage until she stood only a few feet away from him.

She swung a bucket of slop over the rim of the dumpster. Each time she leaned forward on her tippy toes, another loud spray of gunk hit the bottom surface of the trash.

A half-eaten chicken carcass rolled over the edge of the bin and landed between Lennox's combat boots. A tiny hiss of disgust escaped through his lips.

"Shit," he whispered before he could stop himself.

The curse word proved to be enough for the girl. She stopped pouring.

"W-Who is there?" the deep southern voice was muted by the sudden whistle of wind.

Lennox hated the way the average person replied to danger— by attempting to start a conversation with it. This woman was the same—she had no self-preservation gene in her body.

Lennox pressed his finger on the mute button of the walkie to silence Bo before he had the chance to speak. Although the sound was off, he could imagine his brother uselessly offering solutions to dissolve the situation. If he let Bo's voice play now, the close proximity would give Lennox's position away and probably warrant a call to the police. Police intervention only slowed down hunts.

"I'm not stupid," the girl shouted in Lennox's direction. "We have cameras and I—I've got pepper-spray."

When she spoke, he recognized her voice immediately. Bernadette.

How the fuck am I going to play this one off? He searched through ideas in his brain, but found nothing that could explain his current situation.

His flight or fight told him to freeze. Lennox curled into himself, pushed his forehead onto the cold blue metal of the bin, and remained perfectly still. Maybe if he didn't make a peep, she would just shrug off his presence and go back inside.

"I can see you, you creep," she said.

"Fuck," Lennox whispered. He moved his head an inch and for only just a second, he saw the silhouette of Bernadette.

The bright moon behind her illuminated her stray golden curls and she stank like grease and stew. Her shaking hands held a bright pink three-ounce aerosol can. On the wrapper it read in bright, bold red words: "MAXIMUM STRENGTH PEPPER SPRAY."

"No—" Lennox tried to reveal his identity, but mid-sentence he caught two sprays of pepper-spray.

Author's Note

My professor hated this book. So I decided to write it anyway! Comments and feedback are my favorite thing! Also-- a like is always appreciated! :) 

Stay safe guys! Thinking of everyone during this time, maybe this and the rest of Wattpad can take your mind off of all the hurt the world's experiencing.