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There's a storm front rolling into Beacon Hills, and the air is thick with humidity. While the rumble of thunder is still off in the distance, and Kali has yet to see a lightning strike, she can already taste ozone on the tip of her tongue. It's nearly a full moon; although the sky is covered in looming dark clouds pregnant with impending rain, she can still feel it, can still feel the hooks digging into her skin, trying to tug her away from her humanity.
She can't afford to embrace the moon entirely; she's learned from past experience that towns tend to get suspicious when people turn up ripped to shreds every month like clockwork, and she isn't quite ready to move on from Beacon Hills yet.
But there's still something she has to do, which the side of her begging to howl at the moon will have a hand in.
Sliding out of the treeline, she pauses for a moment, bare toes curling against the hard-packed earth. At the bottom of the incline she's standing upon, there's a small, nondescript apartment building, with a parking lot abutting right against the hill. At this time of night, the building is mostly dark, as are the cars dotting the parking lot.
With one exception.
As she drops to her haunches and slowly makes her way down the hill, the overhead light in possibly the most average looking sedan she's ever seen flicks on as its driver opens the front door. The man who slides out looks unlike any hitman she has ever seen; sure, most of them affect a certain look so that they can better blend into the broader populace of an area, but this man looks like he just stepped off the page of a magazine for an men's clothing store, the kind that caters to fraternity assholes and boys with trust funds. He's wearing tan cargo shorts and an obnoxiously colorful button-up with a logo on the breast pocket, and his dark, curly hair is just long enough to be called shaggy.
He's the kind of person Kali instinctively dislikes on sight alone.
The fact that he absolutely reeks of Violet, of her girlfriend, is enough to make her want to tear out his insides and sodden the dirt with his blood.
She lets him get both feet on the ground and shut the door before she strikes, darting from the shadows as soundlessly as a ghost.
She slams her hand into his windpipe, pulling back at the last moment so that she doesn't completely crush it. The impact propels him back against the car hard enough for something to crunch. Whether it's the car's metal or his ribs, Kali could care less.
Up close, Violet's scent seems smeared into his very skin.
She resists the urge to dig her claws into his bare throat, but her eyes bleed red and her fangs explode through her gums.
"Do you know who I am?" she hisses, tightening her fingers fractionally.
The man nods but doesn't try to speak.
"Did you fuck her?" she continues. Immediately, the man starts shaking his head, and his lips part. It's possible that he's just trying to catch a breath, but in the off chance that he's actually attempting to talk, Kali tightens her fingers further, until she can feel the ligaments of his neck creak beneath her hand.
"Did you want to? I'll know if you're telling the truth."
For a few moments, the man remains motionless. The sound of his heartbeat is thunderously loud, and Kali waits patiently to see if it'll skip as he lies.
However, he nods, bright blue eyes gleaming with tears of pain, blood vessels threatening to burst. Kali holds on a little longer, until the smell of fear sweat pouring from him is rank enough to almost cover up Violet's scent.
Almost.
She releases her grip and takes a few steps backward, broken glass from a carelessly disposed bottle crunching underneath her feet. The man's frantic gasps for breath are grating on her ears, so she decides to put an end to their encounter.
"If she asks you to work together again, you say no," she says, gleaning some pleasure from the fact that she can already see purple bruises in the shape of her fingers flourishing on his neck. "If I ever smell you on her again, I will rip you apart." It's unnecessary to ask if he understands, so she simply turns on her heel and strides back up the incline and into the trees.
The clouds finally burst on her way home, and by the time she arrives at their doorstep, she's soaked to the skin, clothes and hair plastered to her body. The door is locked, but moments after she extends her claws and slides one into the keyhole, it clicks open, and she steps inside. Her wet feet squelch in the thick, ugly carpet covering the hallway, and she starts to strip her clothes off as she walks, leaving them wherever they land after she throws them.
By the time she reaches their bedroom, she's completely naked. Violet is sitting cross-legged on the bed in sweatpants and a tank top, studying a dossier containing information on the target that she was supposed to be hitting with her partner.
It'll be a solo job now, but Kali knows Violet can handle it.
"My partner just texted me to say he had to leave town tonight," Violet says, circling something in the file before flicking it closed and looking up, one eyebrow raised in a silent challenge. "I don't suppose you know anything about that."
Wiping rainwater away from her face, Kali reaches down and tosses the file to the floor.
"No," she says, pressing Violet's shoulders back against the mattress, climbing on top of her, and shoving her face into the crux of Violet's shoulder and throat, where the scent of him is strongest. "I have no idea what you're talking about."