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no choice.”
    Raoul stood, holding his hand out. Sylvie allowed him to haul her up. She was hungry and chilled. Vincent promised them a safe haven, a place to thrive. It was time to come out of the cold.

C HAPTER 4
    W yatt pulled into the designated area for employee parking. He was early, but then he always was early. It was his passenger who pressed the boundaries. Melvin Riley pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Melvin was Wyatt’s first friend in Copper Valley. Most of the kids were wary of the newcomer and did everything in their power to exclude him from the activities. Melvin lived with his grandfather in a rundown ranch and was rarely included in anything. Socially awkward, his preoccupation with space invaders, werewolves, and cult horror movies of the ’60s,
Plan 9 from Outer Space
being his favorite, made him as unpopular as Wyatt. Still, he was kind, honest, and loyal. Wyatt befriended him, and found himself, more often than not, protecting his newfound friend, often the target of the school bullies. Melvin was smart; his interests varied, and he was entertaining. Lately though, their fun had gotten stale. Wyatt might be spending time with Melvin, but he wished he were with Jade instead.
    “Take your apron,” Wyatt told him as he got out of the car, admonishing him as if he were a child. It was getting tobe a burden, taking care of him. You had to remind him of everything. He had to admit that Melvin could be off-putting because of his social awkwardness. He made sure to never leave him out, but he was sure being with Melvin prevented a level of acceptance from the other kids. While some did like Wyatt, nobody enjoyed Melvin’s company.
    Melvin dropped a notebook, spilling his chemistry worksheets all over the passenger side of the car. He was a hot mess, from his T-shirt hanging over his pants to the mismatched socks he wore. Acne still ravaged his face, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he had been cursed with frizzy auburn hair. He wore a fake gold wolf head with bright emerald glass eyes on a clunky, thick chain around his neck. Wyatt knew it had to be ten years old. He had thrown out a very similar one that he’d had in a box at the bottom of his closet at home. It had gone the way of his Super Mario Brothers game and Hulk Hogan action doll. Everybody wore wolves’ heads when they were younger. He told Melvin it was time to put it away, but it was as much a part of him as his hazel eyes. It would be a miracle if that kid ever got laid, Wyatt thought sadly. Not that Wyatt had, but he was hopeful. He often wondered if Melvin even noticed. He was always buried in his computer, constantly accumulating as much information as his brain could handle. Melvin had made Caltech with a full scholarship, and this would be the last summer they would really be together. He worried if people would accept the odd boy when he moved into the dorms. Wyatt was going to a local community college. His parents couldn’t afford tuition anywhere else. His father, the fancy LA lawyer, had left all his money to a charity, which, while very noble, kind of irritated Wyatt as well. It was a meanspirited thing to do to his own kids, taking out the messy divorce on his offspring. Well, beggars can’t be choosers, he thought to himself.
    “Mel…” Wyatt tried hard not to get annoyed. He leaned back in, reaching forward to help his friend pick up the scattered notes. “Gonzales is going to be pissed if she sees your worksheets like this.”
    “I was going to organize it at work.”
    “When? While you work at the window? You want to get fired?”
    Melvin shrugged. “They need us more than we need them. We have a symbiotic relationship. If Instaburger fires us, who’s going to serve—werewolves?”
    This was a long-running feud between them. When news broke of the werewolf colony, Melvin made it his mission to promote their superiority to anyone who would listen. Wyatt liked to spar against Melvin’s monster of