Page 6 of A Pack of Pumpkins
“You saying the place has bad mojo?” Victor teases, his laugh sharp as glass.
Jack doesn’t rise to it. He never does. He just shrugs and steps out into the night.
I follow, shutting my own door just in time to catch Victor sucker-punching Dagan awake. Dagan doubles over, glaring as Victor climbs out, still laughing.
Jack isn’t wrong. In the dark, the house is more suggestion than structure—flashes of silver trim, a hulking silhouette against the lake. Then moonlight strikes a window, and my stomach drops.
“No one’s supposed to be here, right, Jack?”
He shoots me a look. We’ve been over this. The rental’s ours for six months. No one else is supposed to be inside.
“There’s someone—” I start, but the figure I swear I saw in the window vanishes before I can point.
“See something, Square?” Victor asks, already flipping open his compact high-def camera. He never meets a moment he can’t ruin or record.
“I don’t know.” My voice sounds thin even to me. Could’ve been a reflection. Except there aren’t any trees near that side of the house.
Victor slaps my back and heads up the porch steps, fearless as always. We trail after him.
Inside, the air is cool and still. I flick on the lights.
“Holy shit. Slap me in a bowler hat and get me a little house omega,” Victor says.
He’s not wrong. The place looks like a time capsule, everything styled in perfect 1900s detail, but nothing worn or faded.
“I’d very much not like to end up in 1900s America,” Jack mutters. A low, unanimous grumble follows.
Then Dagan lifts his hand, halting us. His eyes sweep the room, sharp and intent. He taps his nose once.
“Dag, what—” Victor starts, then stops.
Because we all scent it at the same time.
It’s intoxicating. Caramelized apples, pastry dough, butter and sugar. Apple pie, but not ordinary pie. Apples from Eden, lush and forbidden. My alpha claws to the surface, and my voice comes out rough.
“Omega.”
My packmates’ pupils are blown wide, their faces tight with hunger.
“What the fuck is an omega doing here?” Victor snarls.
“Told you I saw something,” I snap.
We tear through the house. Kitchen. Dining room. Bathrooms. Bedrooms I’d been aching to collapse into minutes ago. Not now. Now I’m wired, vibrating with adrenaline.
We rip open closets, fling back shower curtains, check cupboards like maniacs.
“Maybe they’re gone?” Jack suggests, rejoining us in the upstairs hall.
"You’re joking, right?"Dagan signs, his fingers sharp with disbelief. He’s right. The scent is even stronger now. It thickens the air until I could choke on it.
“Guys.” Jack’s voice pulls us to the end of the hall. He’s standing at a narrow staircase we’d almost missed, built flush into the wall.
The stairs lead up. I’d forgotten about the third floor we saw from outside. That must’ve been the window where I spotted the figure.
“What is that, an attic?” Victor asks.
No one answers. As the dominant alpha, I take the lead. We climb, quiet, tense.
