Chapter 1: The Ghost (Lucia's POV)

Blood covered the walls the night my best friend, Cody Colfax, was murdered. His body twisted and twitched before my eyes, like a fish out of water splashing around on a boardwalk without anyone to put him back. The possession of his body from the unknown source, the scientists call 'The Ghost,' has haunted the bystanders for weeks now.

When we found him, his body was half-naked and covered in ashes. The hairs on his arms were fried by the electrical chords wrapped around his arms. The tattoos on his body were symbolic, otherworldly. The Ghost left them there to make their presence known.

The Ghost has never been seen by the eyes of man. But the thing about Cody Colfax, he wasn't a man or a human-not to me. If I had the chance to get to know my best friend better, I would have had the guts to ask him what we all wanted to do.

Why is there no food in the kitchen and pantry?

Every time Cody would host a party, he would do so by catering food for everyone present. But, he merely stood there among his guests, drinking water or stale wine. He could drink for hours without becoming even the slightest bit tipsy. He won all the drinking contests, and no one ever questioned why...No one except for me.

The photos before me are of Cody's mangled body. The investigators think I murdered him. The photos seem to suggest otherwise. However, there is more to the story than they know. The blood dripping on those walls is what really killed Cody Colfax. His blood isn't on my hands or that of any human.

The more I discovered about Cody, the more I learned. His cravings for blood came with a price. A price that The Ghost needed him to pay in return for his long life. To look human was how he was allowed to be here among us mere mortals.

But Cody was no mere mortal, the only human to question that was me, the best friend at all the parties. Me the one who questioned his refrigerator habits. He never got sick, hungry, or thirsty...at least not for the things of this world. His hunger could never be satisfied by a grocery store run. His cravings for something more was simply the beginning to my own private investigation into the man I deemed worthy of the title bestie. 

It was late in July when I decided to follow Cody down by the banks of the Saint Maria river. He and I had just gone out to coffee. He doesn't need coffee, not really. He could pull all nighters day after day. I used an app once to track his sleeping patterns, in one weeks time it recorded him as only sleeping ten hours. But I knew it couldn't be true unless he had a secret to keep from me and everyone else who lived in Saint Maria county. 

He would drink coffee not for the stimulation or need to stay awake. He drank it to satisfy my craving, which is why my crush on him waned. An actual human would need coffee, food, and rest. But not Cody. For Cody, he pretends to need these things to evade further investigation into his private life. 

The evening after we grabbed coffee, I followed him. His footsteps scuffed against the sand of the Saint Maria river bank. His eyes were purple, the lavender that eliminates the moon. The moon called to him that night, the way it calls to all his kind. His fingertips were claws, short tipped claws pointing out with rage on them. The saliva dripped from his teeth, and his shirt bulged as the moon began to change him.

His ears took on another form. They curved backward toward me and flipped outward like a wolf's. His ears listened in as I hid behind a tree. I covered my mouth with my hands that night. My breath betrayed me as the smoke of my foggy breath was sniffled in the air by the inhuman nose on his face. His face was becoming dog-like in nature. The Native American tribes described them as the wolf-people. Pop culture would call them by their real name, werewolf. 

My grandmother told me about the wolf-people and their love for native women. The native women of Saint Maria were lost to the wolf-people clan.

The wolf people hid in the forest and collected the cubs of man. To them, our children were cubs. To us, the wolf people were monsters. Monsters who didn't exist. They were a myth and their people were no more. They left in this world never to return. Or at least that's what they all wanted us to believe. I never believed my grandmother when she told me they weren't real.

After following Cody Colfax to the river that night, I knew my suspicions were confirmed. Cody was a member of the wolf-people clan. Although I greatly respected him, as his purple eyes gazed at mine, I knew I feared him. I feared his claws and the power they had in the forest. His claws controlled the wind around him.

My breath betrayed me, and the wolf-man who was no longer Cody Colfax found me in the middle of the Saint Maria forest. I prayed to Maria and begged my native ancestors to deliver me into his graces.

The cops before me questioned my relationship with Cody as my mind remembered him. I remembered who he was and how he lived. My best friend was a complicated individual with a massive secret. It was my sole duty to never reveal his truth to anyone without his permission or consent.

The clouds covered the moon as Cody ran into me. He became my kind once again, he became human. He resembled a man. He smelled like one too.

"So, you finally found the truth about me, huh, Lucia?"

When he said my name, I was afraid and fascinated at the same time. A unique aroma I had never smelled before filled all of me. The sweet scent of Cody Colfax was no more. The moon changed his chemistry in ways I never knew of. My best friend was, in fact, a male of the wolf-people clan.

"What is happening, Cody?" My shoulders trembled when he became his usual self.

"Lucia, can you keep a secret?"

My best friend, an obvious non-human, is about to tell me the truth about the worst secret I never wanted to know.

"Yes, I can," I say it like clockwork, like an honorable knight declaring his love.

"I'm not human." His lips curl, and the moon revealed itself to me once more. The clouds cover half the moon as his new form appeared slightly.

"What are you then? Are you a member of the wolf-people clan?"

"Yes. I am their prince. I am their leader. Soon my father will die, and I will no longer be able to turn into a human when the full moon comes. Does that frighten you?"

I click my cheek with my tongue and look at the sky. The clouds are back, and so is the familiar form of my best friend.

"No, it doesn't frighten me. I just wish you had told me. What if you want to stay human and leave your world form behind?"

 A part of me is terrified that the best friend who grew up down the street from my grandmother's house is a member of the wolf-people clan. The clan my grandma feared with all her heart.

"I would have to be mated with a human to stay among them and give up my title."

My heart skips a beat as the memory fades. My present predicament returns and the dread of the cop interrogating me weighs heavy on my mind. 

"Did you or did you not murder Cody Colfax?"

The cops' fists strike the table, and no matter how angry the officer gets, I will never be able to tell him that Cody Colfax faked his own death to remain leader of the wolf people clan. And no amount of intimidation will ever get me to break or confess that fact. Because no matter where I go in life, I will always have feelings for Cody Colfax.