I rise, eyes scanning the shadows.
“What is it?” Olivia asks.
“It hunted here.”
Her face pales.
“Did it kill anyone?”
“No. But itfed.” I pause, hand tightening on the false cane that masks my spear. “It is testing your world. Stretching its limbs. It grows stronger the longer it feeds.”
Her lips part. “And the longer it stays, the more people will die.”
I nod once.
She steps closer. Not flinching. Not trembling. “Then we stop it.”
CHAPTER 5
OLIVIA
There’s weird, and then there’sTuesday afternoon, hiding an orc in your cabin while grocery shopping for protein powder and burn creamweird.
I keep my head down as I make my way through the fluorescent aisles of Grubb’s General Market, trying not to look suspicious. Which is hard when I’ve got a twenty-pound tub of whey isolate in one arm and a tube of heavy-duty burn ointment in the other. Add in the pack of triple-A batteries Kursk insisted on after “taming” the microwave and I look like a doomsday prepper with a gym addiction.
People glance at me. Some smile. Others snicker. I can hear the whispers under their breath—“Bathroom Beast Lady,” “Cryptid Queen,” “She who sprays with foam.”
Whatever. I’ve been mocked before. I can take it.
What Ican’ttake is the silky, unmistakable voice that curls into my ear like the devil’s own cologne.
“Well, well. Liv. Fancy seeing you here.”
I freeze.
I turn, slowly, and there he is—Chet Goddamn Latham, in all his smug, swole, golden-boy glory. His polo shirt clings to everysculpted ab like it was vacuum-sealed. His khakis are crisp. His teeth flash like he’s auditioning for a toothpaste commercial.
Chet used to be my boyfriend. He’s also the reason I don’t date anymore.
“Chet,” I say, trying to sound neutral.
He grins wider. “Still rocking the ‘I just rolled out of bed with an existential crisis’ look, I see.”
“Oh, you know me,” I reply sweetly, “always chasing the edge of fashion and despair.”
His eyes flick to the items in my arms. His smile falters—just a fraction.
“Burn cream and bulk protein?” he says, with that practiced, faux-casual tone he uses when he’s hunting for blood. “Didn’t peg you for a CrossFit girl.”
I shrug. “Gotta keep up with the monsters in my life.”
He laughs. “Right. Monsters. You’re still doing the whole… bathroom beast thing, huh?”
I clench my jaw. “I said what I saw.”
“Of course you did,” he says, voice dipped in syrup and spite. “Everyone’s gotta have a thing, right? Mine’s coaching varsity lacrosse. Yours is cryptid-hunting and yelling about sewer demons.”
I smile thinly. “And emotional manipulation. Don’t forget that one.”
