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The mountain lion was back

Lillian Lowell clutched her car keys tighter as she hurried from the door of the CVS to her car Thelot, watching her

This was the second day in a row she’d seen it Yesterday, she’d closed up the library and co calmly by the street She’d stifled a shriek and run to her car, and called Animal Control as soon as she was safely away

She’d gone ho shaky and afraid She hadn’t h, because the potential for overreaction washigh Even though Lillian was a divorced adult woman in her thirties, her mother tended to treat her like a child

Anyway, Aniate, but they hadn’t known specifically whatabout

This , after she’d arrived at the library, she’d waited in her car for severalto n of it, so she’d gone into work as normal

But noas here at the CVS, several blocks fro

She fu the button to unlock the door while she kept her eyes fixed on the big cat She yanked the door open and got in, breathing out a long sigh Safe

But then it stood up, yawned—showing her a set of enormous yellowed teeth—and stretched Its body see its claws Lillian shoved the keys in the ignition, not taking her eyes off of it

Just as she started the car, the

And then, as she watched with her heart in her throat, the cat transformed into a man

A shapeshifter

He was shortish, heavyset, with a scruffy beard, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt Lillian didn’t recognized hiave her a little salute with two fingers

Lillian pulled out of the parking lot with a shriek of tires, gunning the gas to get out on the road as fast as possible It was loud enough that there was no way she could actually hear the o of the idea

She started to drive hoet to safetyand then hesitated

The shapeshifter had shown up at her job, and then at the store she always stopped at on the way home

If he was following her, he probably already knehere she lived Maybe he’d show up there, too

And Lillian lived with her parents—had lived with them for years, since her divorce If this shapeshifter was stalking her, wanted to hurt her or scare her for whatever reason, she couldn’t put herfor hiain

Besides, that sounded like a night the s, ready to dial 911 at the slightest sound She wouldn’t sleep a wink

She pulled over She couldn’t go hoo? Was anywhere safe?

Lillian knew that the area around Glacier National Park, where she’d lived her entire life, was a place where shifters were very common In most of the world, they were a secret But there were some communities with so many shapeshifters that everyone knew about them, an open secret

Still, Lillian had ed to avoid them for most of her life Shifters were supposed to be unpredictable and dangerous There was no telling what their aniht lead theether Her parents had forbidden her to be friends with any of them in school, and she’d kept that up in her adult life