He ignores the sarcasm. “You leave this apartment, you tell me. You talk to strangers, I’m there. Someone knocks on your door, you don’t answer until one of us clears it.”
“One of us,” I repeat faintly.
“Me, Jack, Brodie if he shows his face,” Bran says. “Atlas, if Kael sends him down for backup. Shiloh and Cotton are not security.”
“I beg to differ,” I say. “Shiloh with a pregnancy craving is a force of nature.”
Jack snorts again. “He’s not wrong, though. Let the professionals handle Thurston.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re going to hate working with me.”
Bran doesn’t look fazed. “I already do,” he says.
Somewhere under the residual fear and the irritation, a spark of something sharp and electric flickers.
Challenge accepted, my brain purrs.
“Fine,” I say again, because the alternatives are worse. “You can hover and glower and be inconveniently enormous in my living room. But if you touch any of my equipment, I will tase you in your sleep.”
“Noted,” he says.
Jack checks his watch. “I’ve got to get back to the station. State guys are rolling in, and I’d like to be there before they start peeing in corners.”
He claps a hand on Bran’s shoulder. It looks like a normal man trying to pat a wall. “Try not to kill each other.”
“No promises,” I mutter.
Bran doesn’t bother to answer.
After Jack leaves, the apartment is too quiet again.
It’s just me and Bran. He looks at me. I look at him.
“Where do you want to start?” he asks.
I swallow the last of my donut, lick my fingers and wipe them on my jeans, and pick up my laptop.
“You can do whatever you want,” I say. “I’ll be monster hunting.”
SEVEN
BRAN
Twiggysays,“I’llbemonster hunting,” like she’s telling me she’s going to order a pizza.
She’s on the couch, cross-legged, laptop already balanced on her knees, bare toes tucked under herself to make herself as small as possible.
I’ve been in this apartment less than fifteen minutes, and it feels like I’ve stepped into the middle of a storm that’s just barely getting started.
“Monsters later,” I say. “First, I need to see your building.”
She blinks. “You want to…tour the hallway.”
“The hallway,” I say. “The stairwell. The back exit. Roof access, if there is one. Laundry room. Basement. Parking. Anywhere he could come from or vanish to.”
“I think that’s overkill, Bran. You know there’s a word for that, right?” She squints up at me. “Paranoia.”
“Where I’m from,” I say, grabbing my jacket off the chair, “we call that job security.”
