Overhead, fluorescent lights flickered as a sweaty Jessica, in her damp cheerleading uniform, entered Room 204. The familiar scent of chalk dust and floor cleaner hit her nose, bringing back memories she'd rather forget. Her heightened werewolf senses made everything sharper, more intense—the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, the rustle of paper, the steady thrum of the ancient air conditioning unit.

  "This is so totally unfair," Tiffany muttered, sliding into a desk near the window. "We just wanted to avenge our team!”

  "Tell that to Principal Matthews again." Amber dropped into the seat beside her, letting her backpack thump against the floor. "I swear that man has no dignity.”

  Jessica chose a desk in the middle row, carefully avoiding the one in the back corner—the same desk where she'd first felt the change coming on that horrible night two years ago. Her skin prickled at the memory: the burning fever, the way her bones had seemed to liquefy and reshape themselves, poor Mrs. Peel's terrified scream...

  "Jessica!" Camella's voice snapped her back to the present. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

  "Just tired," Jessica lied, forcing a smile.

  A soft snort drew her attention to the far corner of the room. Kevin sat hunched over a thick book, his dark fingers tracing lines of text she couldn't quite make out. Even from here, her enhanced vision caught the tension in his shoulders, the slight tremor in his hands.

  "Hi, Kevin." Salina's voice held a genuine tone as she drifted in, her combat boots surprisingly quiet on the worn floor. "We heard you got in trouble.”

  He looked up, his expression a mix of shame and anger. "Yeah… Mr. Peterson caught me helping Marcus Chen cheat on his biology test."

  "Why did you help him?" Jessica couldn't keep the disbelief from her voice. Kevin was many things—brilliant, loyal, occasionally reckless in their supernatural investigations—but a cheater? Never.

  "He threatened to make my life hell if I didn't." Kevin's laugh held no humor. "Guess he succeeded anyway."

  "That absolute—" Salina started, but the click of heels in the hallway cut her off.

  Ms. Becker strode in, her pencil skirt and pressed blouse a stark contrast to their rumpled athletic wear. She pulled her steel-gray hair back in a severe bun, and her thin lips pressed into an even thinner line as she surveyed the room.

  "Good evening, everyone," she announced behind her desk. "I am Ms. Becker, and I will be watching you tonight. First thing, first. Give me your phones. All of them. Now." She placed a small safe on her desk.

  "But what if there's an emergency?" Camella protested, clutching her iPhone to her chest like a shield.

  Ms. Becker's eyebrow arched. "You can use the office phones, Miss Yawda. Now, hand it over."

  One by one, they surrendered their devices. Jessica's fingers lingered on her phone, remembering all the times it had been her lifeline during a transformation. But there was no arguing with Ms. Becker—the woman had been terrorizing students since before Jessica's freshman year. Her remaining single is understandable.

  "The rules are simple," Ms. Becker declared, closing the safe with a decisive click. "No talking. No goofing around. No entertainment of any kind. You will each write a letter of apology to Mr. Johnson, followed by a ten-page essay on what you did wrong and how you could improve your behavior in the future."

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  Mia's hand shot up. "Ten pages? That's—"

  "Would you prefer fifteen, Miss Roberto?"

  Mia's hand dropped like a stone.

  "Once you complete your assignments, you will sit quietly until the end of your detention period at one AM. You will have one break for dinner—assuming you finish your work in time." Ms. Becker's gaze swept the room like a searchlight. "Any questions?"

  The silence was deafening.

  "Excellent. Begin."

  Jessica pulled out her notebook, trying to ignore the way the fluorescent lights made the paper glow unnaturally bright to her enhanced vision. The scratch of pencils filled the air as everyone began writing, but her mind kept drifting back to that other detention.

  She'd been alone that night, serving time for breaking the other bully's arm who attacked Kelly. The transformation had hit without warning—no one had told her that werewolves existed, let alone that she'd become one. She'd barely understood what was happening as her bones cracked and reformed, as fur burst through her skin like thousands of needles.

  Mrs. Peel checked on her, drawn by her screams of pain. Jessica squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memory of what happened next. If it hadn't been for Salina finding her later, brewing that control potion... Jessica didn't want to think about how many more people she might have hurt.

  "Miss Trumblelee." Ms. Becker's voice cracked like a whip. "Your letter won't write itself."

  Jessica jolted back to the present, realizing she'd been staring at a blank page for who knew how long. "Sorry, Ms. Becker."

  She picked up her pencil, trying to focus on the task at hand. But as she wrote, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. The air felt... different. Heavier somehow, like the atmosphere before a storm.

  Her heightened senses picked up something else too—a faint, alien scent drifting in through the air vents. Something pink and viscous and wrong.

  But that was a problem for later. Right now, she had ten pages to write and an endless night ahead of her.

  *****

  Mr. Russo dragged his mop across Moon High's linoleum floor, each stroke leaving gleaming trails in its wake. After thirty years of cleaning these halls, he'd developed a rhythm—swish left, swish right, dip mop, repeat. The metal bucket wheels squeaked as he pushed it along, a sound that had become as familiar as his breathing.

  The clock's moving slowly tonight, he thought, stealing another glance at his watch. 9:47 PM. Just a few more corridors and he could head home to catch the tail end of the late show.

  The night seemed ordinary enough until he reached the school's east exit. Something pink and viscous oozed beneath the door, spreading across the threshold like spilled paint. Mr. Russo's lips pressed into a thin line. Probably those detention kids acting up again.

  "I swear if this is another senior prank..." He muttered, wheeling his bucket closer. The substance had an odd sheen to it, almost pearlescent under the harsh overhead lights. When he prodded it with his mop, the material seemed to recoil.

  That's not right.

  Mr. Russo crouched down, his knees protesting the movement. The pink substance wasn't paint—it was too thick, too... alive somehow. As he watched, it continued to seep under the door, forming a trail that led down the darkened hallway toward the boys' bathroom.

  "Hello?" He called out, voice echoing off the empty lockers. "Anyone still here?"

  Silence answered.

  Common sense told him to radio security and let someone else deal with whatever this was. But three decades of cleaning up after teenagers had taught him one thing—the longer you left a mess, the worse it got.

  Gripping his mop like a weapon, Mr. Russo followed the trail. The pink substance grew thicker as he approached the bathroom, forming puddles that seemed to pulse in the dim light. His rubber-soled shoes squeaked against the floor, each step accompanied by a faint squelching sound that made his skin crawl.

  The bathroom door stood ajar, fluorescent light spilling into the hallway. A shadow moved across the gap—someone was definitely in there.

  "Hey!" Mr. Russo pushed the door open. "School's closed, you can't be—"

  The words died in his throat.

  A man stood at the row of sinks, dressed in hunting gear—orange vest, camouflage pants, mud-caked boots. But something was wrong. The hunter's outline seemed to waver like heat rising off summer asphalt.

  "Sir?" Mr. Russo's voice cracked. "You need to leave."

  The hunter turned, and Mr. Russo stumbled backward. Where a face should have been, there was only a shifting mass of pink slime, features melting and reforming like wax under a flame.

  "Sweet Jesus," Mr. Russo whispered.

  The thing that wasn't a hunter lurched forward. Its body lost cohesion, its orange vest and camo pants dissolving into a writhing mass of pink ooze that surged across the bathroom floor. Mr. Russo's back hit the wall. He swung the mop, but the creature engulfed it, pulling the wooden handle from his grasp.

  He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The creature reared up, its mass towering over him like a wave about to break. On its surface, Mr. Russo caught a fleeting reflection of his terrified face before the slime crashed down.

  The sensation was immediate—cold, crushing pressure everywhere at once. Pink goo filled his mouth, and his nose, cutting off air. He thrashed, but his limbs moved like they were trapped in molasses. Through the translucent membrane surrounding him, the bathroom's fluorescent lights grew dimmer, dimmer...

  His last coherent thought was of his mop bucket, still sitting in the hallway. Someone would have to clean this up in the morning.

  Then darkness took him, and Mr. Russo thought no more.