“It won’t be for forever,” Jack says, leaning against the doorframe like my living room is his second office. “You’ll live. That’s the part I care about.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I let my hands drop and stare at the hummingbird ornament. It’s still swaying, slowly, like the world is trying to decide if it wants to settle. “What happens tonight?”
“I’ll be in the cruiser outside,” Jack says. “I’ve got a deputy sitting with you until he gets here. Extra patrols around the building. We’ll beef up your security tomorrow.”
“I have security,” I argue weakly. “I literally helped build the system you use.”
“Digital.” He tips his head, studying me. “We’re talking about flesh-and-blood threats now.”
Something hot and stubborn flares in my chest.
“I’m not afraid,” I say.
Jack’s gaze softens. “Of course you’re not,” he says quietly. “You’re a tiny, fierce little badass, Twig. But the big, strong men are terrified. Humor us.”
When the door shuts behind him, the apartment feels both too small and too empty. My pulse finally starts to slow.
Tomorrow, Kael will send someone. A stranger, most likely. Another wall between me and the world that keeps trying to break me.
I curl up on the couch, pulling my blanket over my lap, laptop back on top of it like armor.
The thing about monsters is, you can’t just lock your doors and hope they go away. You have to watch them. Track them. Learn the shape of their shadows.
You have to be smarter than they are.
That’s the part I’m good at.
THREE
HIM
Ishouldhavefuckingwaited.
That’s the first thought that hits once the sirens are a memory and the town is a smear of light in the rearview.
I should have given it another week. Let them get complacent. Let the sheriff forget what it feels like to be helpless. Let her start sleeping without the light on.
Instead, I went to her tonight and knocked on Tallulah Gentry’s door like a salesman.
It was…satisfying, for a moment.
The little jump in her voice. The way it shook when she threatened to call the police, like she already knew that wouldn’t matter. The flash of her face in the glass when she finally saw meat the window—eyes wide and dark, mouth parted, that pretty brain of hers throwing sparks.
It was almost worth it.
Now I’m parked on a back road just outside town, engine off, heater ticking, the smell of cold air and stale coffee in the cab. The woods press in on both sides, branches black against the thin winter moon. Sirens wail somewhere far away, then fade. A dog barks.
I flex my hands on the steering wheel, one finger at a time.
The coolness lingers on my palm where it pressed against her window. Her apartment is third floor, accessible with a rattly fire escape, cheap storm windowpanes, old locks, even if she does have an extra deadbolt. Saw that through the window.
It’s an insult, really. After everything, after all she did, she hides in a place with plywood doors and thin walls like any other girl.
Like she’s ordinary.
She isn’t.
She’s the reason my brother’s in prison.
